Terror vs. Tenacity

Proper7B, June 24, 2018, St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, by Annette Fricke

            A boat is built to go out into the water, not remain in the harbor.

Imagine, if you will, a nice sunny day at the beginning of summer and our friends say to us, “Hey!  Let’s pack a lunch and take the boat out on the lake.”  We say, “It looks great now, but they are predicting a storm.  We don’t think that is such a good idea.  If we go out, we need to stick pretty close to the shore.  That way, we will have a better chance of getting back in to safety if we get caught in the storm.”  One of our friends speaks in his most persuasive manner, half teasing and says, “Are you afraid of a little bit of lightning and thunder?  It’s no big deal. It’s not like you haven’t seen that before.  Besides, what can go wrong?  The Coast Guard station is not that far away.  That is what the Coast Guard does, you know—search and rescue.”  We say, “That is true, but must we go, knowing there is a real possibility of capsizing, so they just happen to need to rescue us?  Have you ever thought that it could be so bad that even the Coast Guard would not be able to save us?  What if their boat can’t get to us?  What would we do then?”  Another of our friends says, “There is not a cloud in sight.  What if the forecast is wrong?  That means we have wasted a perfectly good opportunity to go out and have some fun in this beautiful sunshine.”  The words, “What could go wrong?” repeat in your head over and over and all you can thing of is the song about the Edmund Fitzgerald and the sinking of the Titanic—the Titanic, the ship that was impossible to sink really did sink.  But then, there are no icebergs in this lake and it is not the same lake where the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. It was not Lake Superior and we were not going to Cleveland. But the ship was only 17 miles from port.  Even sticking close to shore was not safe.  Jesus decides to go with us but falls asleep inside the cabin.  It’s a motor boat.  Neither Jesus nor anyone else is going to take a nap at the stern of the boat and inhale the fumes from the motor.  Things go very wrong and the boat is tossed up and down and takes on water.  Not only are people getting sea sick, but we are taking on water, lots of water.  Peter himself is bailing with a coffee can, not being able to find anything bigger to get the water out.  The rain is coming down in big sheets and despite others joining to bail, it isn’t enough.  It becomes overwhelming.  Peter asks Andrew to wake Jesus up and tell him that we’re in trouble.  Jesus is dead tired and wants to go back to sleep.  It’s like he is unaware of the thunder, lightning, and rain all around.  Peter gets angry and shouts at Jesus, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

            Despite our knowledge that Matthew, Mark and Luke are mostly historical in nature, this version of Jesus falling asleep in the boat seems indicative of not only what goes on in our personal lives, but what happens within the church as well.  Often things don’t go as planned and we flounder and sometimes even lose our faith.  This gospel is about faith and our relationship to it.  It is about keeping Jesus on board.  Jesus is exhausted and asks the disciples in this gospel over and over about their faith and the lack of it.  Without faith, we walk blindly through the storms of life, groping at the air with no guidance, no anchor, adrift and wandering in a sea of darkness.  Jesus says just two things to us, “Why are you afraid?” and “Have you still no faith?”  These two are intertwined.

            Fear is our enemy and it paralyzes us into a state where we are unable to move forward.  As a church, the worst thing we can do is fear the future.  The future will come no matter what, but we can choose to bring Jesus with us or leave him at the shore.  The choice is ours.  Jesus wants to go to the other shore across the lake because that is where the unchurched live. That is where the stranger, the unloved and forgotten live.  That is where the unemployed and the uneducated live. That is the mission of the church now just as it was in the early church. The church has always been about discipleship and inclusion.  Throughout the centuries, the church has come up with many ways to share the message of Jesus, some of which we should definitely not be proud.  Yet Jesus continues to call us into the boat to go out regardless of the weather and preach the good news of God’s saving grace, to preach that God is always with us and it is probably not God who is asleep.

Maybe we should rewrite the story.  Jesus came one night for Vestry and he took the Warden by the hand and said, “Let’s all go for a boat ride.”  We climbed into the boat, started the engine and off we went.  Nobody fell asleep and Jesus was at the helm.  He chose some people to be mechanics, others to navigate, others to make and serve food.  He appointed some to maintain the body of the boat and paint it. He comforted the sick with his gentle hand.  After that, he discovered those who could sing and play music. We visited different neighborhoods along the way, people we didn’t know, people not like us. We didn’t return till after dark. Nobody asked where we were going because we knew that Jesus was at the helm and Jesus would get us where we were needed, to serve others as he served us.

A boat is built to go out into the water, not remain in the harbor.
*Apologies--if it's a lake, it should probably be the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, not the US Coast Guard.  Here is the YouTube music video I was referring to for those who do no know the story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFkyDB2InTs