St. Paul's On-The-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

3 Pentecost; June 21, 2009

Fathers' Day, Recognition of Graduates

1 Samuel 17:57-18:5, 10-16

Mark 4:35-41

PEACE IN THE STORM – WITH OUR FATHER

The Disciples, David, Jonah and Us

The Disciples were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Oh my god, oh my god, we're all going to die.

Does it sound familiar in our world today?

Mighty winds of war rise up and threaten to sink the little boat of our lives or lifestyle or future.

Mighty waves of climate change rise up, literally, and threaten to swamp our coasts and small islands, or cause droughts that will make other areas uninhabitable.

We would be excused for thinking: Oh my god, oh my god, we're all going to die.

“Oh my God, my God, why have you forsaken me and are so far from my cry and the words of my distress,” as Jesus says on the Cross, quoting psalm 22. The disciples seem to say it here as they wake up Jesus in the midst of their storm, their forsakenness. What's your storm, your forsakenness, your worry, your anxiety – even if you don't let on to yourself, even if you keep it to yourself, even if you try not to worry others?

What's your storm? So many of us have one.

In this case, the disciples know what to do. They wake up Jesus. They do not try to bear it alone.

“He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still.” Then the wind ceased and there was a great calm.”

Of course he asked them why they were afraid. Of course he asked them why they still had no faith Of course they suddenly knew who they were dealing with – God himself and not just a teacher of religious, handy-dandy useful ideas to get you through life.

But the point is, they did wake him up. He was right there in the boat with them. He did respond. He did calm the storm.

Jesus is right here in the boat with us. He does respond. He does calm the storm – when we ask. It turns out that he is God; and not just a teacher of handy-dandy religious ideas. But we only learn that when we wake him up, when e test and push our own faith.

Maybe we should have more faith. Maybe we should have more trust. But sometimes we don't. Sometimes we run around like chickens with our heads cut off, wondering if anyone cares, wondering if God cares. And he does. He does care. And the reward for lack of faith is not a lack of action. It's God's action that teaches our faith, so we might have more next time and not be so scared.

I remember a stewardship story that happened to me, a story of lack of faith that led to God's action. At one point in my life I earned very little money, as a seminarian intern in a parish in Hoboken, New Jersey. Nevertheless, I gave money to the church.

One week I could give my usual money to the church, or I could buy some chicken to help feed me that week. I opted for the chicken and put nothing in the plate – a chicken in the pot, nothing in the plate.

That afternoon, after church, a succession of six different people, thoroughly unrelated to each other, invited me out for dinner, every night of that week. The meals were good. At the end of the week, the chicken – which I hadn't gotten around to cooking – was rotten.

First of all, that taught me something about my refrigerator. Secondly, it taught me something about God.

First, it taught me that he would take care of me – through his other children. Secondly, it taught me that he would take care of me – even if I did not believe in him as much as I should. On this Fathers' Day, of what importance is that anyway? Does the love of a father depend on the love of a child? Does the love of a child depend on the love of a father? Perhaps they exist independently of each other – equally important, but not dependent on each other.

God loved me and cared for me even in my lack of faith, and so led me to faith.

Jesus loved the disciples even in their lack of faith, and so led them to faith.

So if you are overcome with anxiety, do not simply endure it. Rather, ask Jesus; “don't you care that we are perishing?” And he will calm your storm, or calm you in the middle of your storm.

A plaque I once gave someone says: “Sometimes Jesus calms the storm. Sometimes Jesus lets the storm rage, and calms the child.”

At the very least, knowing Jesus is asleep in our boat, knowing that Jesus can calm our storms if he chooses – and he almost doesn't seem to choose here, he only does it because it's important to his disciples – knowing he can do it is enough to reassure us that we can weather the storm.

In his blasé attitude to the storm, in his attitude that calming the storm wasn't really necessary, he seems to indicate to the disciples that they would have been fine.

So when you face a storm or when you are in the midst of one, remember that Jesus is asleep in your boat, that Jesus is present in the world. He is not far off and unavailable and uncaring. He is right here. He is loving. You can go; “oh my god, don't you care?!!” Or you can let him sleep. Either way, you will get through, for the Lord has dominion over all storms – external or internal.

Rather, not dominion, but Peace, Peace. Jesus says to the wind and the waves, not: 'I command you, be still;' but rather “Peace, be still.” Peace! You can almost hear him say to the wind and the waves, “The Peace of the Lord be always with you.” And we hear back from the wind and up from the sea: “And also with you.”

He is in relationship with the wind and the waves. He doesn't fight with them. He does not dominate them like some imperial god. He says: “Peace, be still;” not, 'I command you, be still.”

When we are at peace with him, in communion . . . with him, in relationship with him; then we are at peace, in communion and relationship with the storms and the world around us too. We see that they too are not demonic, dangerous and destructive. They are just forces of nature to be taken seriously; but God and us will get through them somehow; for he is with us, and is also with the storm around us. He is in our world and does not leave.

On this day that is both a day for graduates and fathers' day, I guess I would say that this is the message today to you, the graduates and all young people; that God is with you in the world – whatever world you find yourself in – and God simply does not leave.

Jesus is like the father, asleep on the couch – just as Jesus is in the back of the boat asleep on the cushion. Interesting that God arranged this lesson for fathers' day.

I think Mothers' Day was when Jesus raised a woman from the dead so she could make lunch? Here he's asleep in the back even though there's a storm.

Anyway, Jesus is asleep on the couch in the living room. Nothing wakes him up no matter what's going on – music, time to clean the living room, dinners ready, homework needs doing, whatever.

Finally someone shakes him. 'Don't you care?' 'What, what, sure I care. What can I do?'

The storm, the homework, the cleaning. Sure – how can I help? We're also awakened to help, especially in a crisis. Then God, and we – and fathers – take care of it together.

Or perhaps a normal father is like one of the disciples saying: “we're all going down.” And Jesus helps out, despite our lack of faith, and so teaches faith.

And when the crisis is over, its' back to sleep on the couch!

We think God is an angry god. We think God caused the storm or doesn't care about the storm or will only calm the storm if we believe the right thing or do the right thing. The opposite is true – but our fear and worry about God is understandable! You see it in the book of Jonah, another story about another storm and another guy asleep in the back.

When Jonah got on that boat, “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had laid down, and was fast asleep. The captain came and said to him, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so we do not perish.”

Jesus spares us more than a thought. When we call upon him he is with us, he hears us and he calms the storm or he calms us and we get through.

There is a little known aspect of the story of David today – David the little shepherd boy who beat the mighty warrior, Goliath.

The story begins with the frightened Israelites like the frightened disciples running around like chickens with their heads cut off, convinced that nothing will help them – just as we are so often convinced that nothing will help us.

At least they try to convince David that he has to fight with conventional methods – armor and swords, even though he doesn't know how to use them, even though he cannot even move in them. In the same way, people try to convince us that we can only go forward in difficult times if we do it in some conventional way we have no knowledge of. In the same way people will try to convince the graduates and all our youth of this.

David tries on the armor. He says, 'I can't move.' He takes it off. He remembers what worked for him as a child. He remembers how he trusted God and God came through. He tries that.

Try that – those old lessons you've learned about yourself in the past 17 or 18 years - what you're good at, what works for you.

I will never buy chicken again when its a choice between that and giving some of the money to God's purposes. I've learned God will help me – or embarrass me and help me anyway.

David comfortably reaches for the smooth stones, the sling and his staff that he is used to. Goliath doubts him too. David throws the stone.

According to my Jewish barber – who told me this when he knew I was preaching about David – the stone and the metal in Goliath's helmet then have a little negotiation as the stone approaches the metal helmet; because, you see, there is the question of how stone will pierce metal. The stone tells the metal that if he lets him through, the stone – which was always used for circumcision up until then – will give up that sacred duty to the metal.

The metal likes the idea, parts, lets the stone through, and Goliath drops like a stone.

The deeper truth here is that all things are deeply in relationship with each other – stone, metal, people, God who is present in the world with both David and us; in war, climate change, unemployment, your storm.

God is with us, asleep or awake, in the back of our boats. We have but to call upon him. So call, in anxiety or uncertainty or faith; but call.

He'll get us through life. He'll get us through the storm or calm the storm. He is not an angry god or an angry father to be feared or pleased. He is a present god, a present father, always present no matter what we have done or not done, and no matter how far we've traveled from him, like Jonah.

Even in that story, God sends a fish to carry him safely on his way. In our story, God stays with us all along our way, wherever that may lead us.