sermon preached
at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bellingham, WA
by the
Rev. Josh Hosler, Associate Priest for Adult Formation
The Fifth Sunday
after Pentecost, Proper 7B, June 24, 2018
Almighty God, who created us in your own image: Grant
us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with
oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it
in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the
glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
We
live in stormy times. When I first arrived among you four years ago, I wrote in
a newsletter article, “Life is an epic adventure.” That sounds exciting, but it’s
also harrowing. You don’t have an epic adventure without hardship and suffering—your
own, or that of those around you. Once the story is read, you may be able place
the worst episodes in perspective. But we can’t do that from where we’re sitting.
We look around our nation and the world, and people are suffering. It’s especially
blatant and unmistakable right now. We are part of broken human systems, and in
many ways, we are complicit in them. We’re in uncharted waters in the middle of
a storm.
Which
boat are you in? I’ve got news for you: if you’re baptized, you’re not in any boat
that belongs to your family or nation or ideology. You’re in Jesus’ boat. How
do we, as Christians, respond to these stormy times? Some of us content
ourselves with saying, “Well, I go about my life and try to be a nice person.”
Unfortunately, that does next to nothing to address injustice and may actually help
perpetuate it. Others of us fret and fuss and fume, flailing about busily to do
something—anything—to make the anxiety go away. We don’t respond; we react. And
the net result isn’t always positive.
Between
these two extremes, some good work does get done. But meanwhile, where is
Jesus? This is his boat we’re in, after all. We were counting on him to be our
pilot, to steer our ship safely to shore. Instead he’s in the stern, asleep on
a cushion! “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
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| Jesus Calming the Storm (10th century) from http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com |
When
the disciples cry out, Jesus immediately wakes up and calms the storm. I find
it annoying that the storm hadn’t disturbed Jesus’ sleep up to this point, but
he does wake up, and he does help.
Some
biblical commentators suggest that this is not a natural storm, but the product
of evil forces. Jesus and his disciples are on their way to the country of the
Gerasenes, where Jesus will send an unclean spirit out of a man and into a herd
of pigs. Could this storm be an attempt to prevent Jesus’ arrival? In response,
Jesus contends against evil and makes no peace with oppression. And if these
commentators are correct, Jesus’ calming of the storm sends a warning to the
forces that seek to oppose him on the far shore. Where Jesus goes, things get
set right. Where Jesus goes, justice follows.
As
Christians who know this, we come to church to find Jesus, imagining that we
might wake him up and receive relief from the storm. But is this our
experience? When we cry for help, does Jesus come to our rescue?
Well,
first of all, just because there’s a storm doesn’t mean that Jesus is absent or
asleep. Indeed, from Jesus’ reaction to the disciples—“Why are you afraid?”—I’m
led to believe that they all would have been fine whether Jesus had calmed the
storm or not. Jesus doesn’t calm the storm to save his friends from perishing.
He calms the storm because they ask him to. It may be that the storm of the
disciples’ own anxiety is far more dangerous than the storm raging around their
boat.
Remember
that at the heart of our faith is Good
News: the news that in coming to be among us, in living and dying as one of
us, Jesus has reconciled the entire universe to God. We can imagine all sorts
of theories as to how this has happened—and we do. And we can splinter into
tens of thousands of denominations and argue about how it works and what it
means for the living of our daily lives—and we have. But that’s not the point.
The point is that Christians dare to believe that Jesus has made everything
right, and that even if the work doesn’t appear to be finished yet, it’s a fait accompli. It’s easy enough to say
it. But do we believe it?
Maintaining
trust in God, even in the face of Good News, is very difficult when the storms
of life are raging all around us. This leap of faith is difficult for us because
we are in pain. If the Good News is so Good, why is there still injustice and
suffering? This is the big question of all theology. Job knew it, though his
answer from God was, “Shut up and know your place!” I’m not sure I like that
answer. As for me, the simplest answer I’ve been able to find is that much of
this injustice and suffering continues because we inflict it, and because we
allow it. If we want there to be less injustice and suffering, we will work to
end it.
But
during such stormy times, we can’t always work out what to do next, and
sometimes we just want some comfort. I pray that you find that comfort here at
St. Paul’s on a regular basis. But I also pray that you also find sufficient
challenge: challenge not just to believe with your head and your heart, but to
live the Gospel by actively relieving people’s pain, as individuals, and in organized
groups. So much of that work already goes on in this place, and everybody is
invited into it. As Christians, we have a duty to each other and to everybody
in the world: a duty to love, not just with fuzzy feelings, but with bold
actions. Comfort and challenge: these are two things to pray for in equal
measure.
This
past week, I looked back on articles I wrote in my first year among you at St.
Paul’s. Most of them were about baptism, through which we are adopted into
Jesus’ boat. And so, as I move on from St. Paul’s to take up my new position as
rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in Federal Way, I will end here the way I
began: with our Baptismal Covenant.
The
first element of the Baptismal Covenant is the Creed. “Do you believe?” we ask
three times, once for each person of the Trinity, and believing is a word which
here means trusting. Are you willing
to proceed with your life trusting in
a Trinitarian truth that is realer than reality? Are you willing to step out
into the darkness with this Creed as your guide?
After
the Creed, we turn to five solemn vows, to which we respond, “I will, with
God’s help.” I’ll say them now, and you can respond—but don’t do it unless you
mean it! First:
Will
you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the
bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God’s help.
You have
just promised to come to church—any church; it doesn’t have to be Episcopal—and
to participate in its community, not just when there’s nothing else going on
this Sunday morning, but as your central practice and deeply ingrained habit,
and to keep praying, and to keep learning.
Will
you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and
return to the Lord?
I will, with God’s help.
You have
just admitted that you are not perfect, and you have promised never to assume
that you are in the right, but to keep learning humbly and turning around
thankfully.
Will
you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
I will, with God’s help.
You have
just promised to evangelize. Evangelism simply means telling your story of God’s Good News in your life in a way that understands it
also to be Good News for everybody in
the world, not just a privileged few. This may or may not involve standing on
street corners, but it never involves words of paranoia or hatred.
Will
you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
I will, with God’s help.
You have
just promised to trust Jesus’ presence not only in those you know and love, but
also in your enemies—whom you have promised to love as well as your friends. You
have promised to treat everyone in the world as the divine creations they are.
Will
you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of
every human being?
I will, with God’s help.
You
have just promised not to be silently complicit in any evil actions of your own
people, your own church, or your own nation. You have promised to work to
dismantle any system that dehumanizes—understanding that people are never to be
used as a means to an end, for all human beings are a divine end in themselves.
So …
how’s it going? How is your relationship with God stretching and growing? And
how will you respond in the wider world outside of your private prayer life? Does
it strengthen you to understand that Jesus is in the boat with you—to know that
there is grace even in the storm, and that you are loved eternally and through
every storm?
By
the way, I notice that our Gospel text also says, “Other boats were with him.” Now,
I might just be making this up, but I like to think that Mark, writing for the
early Church, included this sentence as a way of including those catechumens
who were preparing for baptism into the Body of Christ. They weren’t in the
boat yet, but as they learned about the faith and heard the Gospel, the text
gave them another boat to imagine themselves into, also under Jesus’ care.
Perhaps you find yourself in one of these other boats, trying to figure all
this out.
And then there are moments of surprising calm and peace, and with that calm comes a promise: we will be brought to the harbor we were bound for. “Now,” comes the voice, “now is the day of salvation.” Not just someday in the far-off future, and not just at the end of your earthly life: now. You are saved from the storm even in the midst of it.
It has been my honor to sail these stormy seas with all of you for the past four years. Sail on, with Jesus as your captain. And when your anxiety becomes too much to bear and you cry out for help, may Jesus wake, stand on the prow, and cry out, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped!” Amen.
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