Shake Rattle and Roll

Scriptures:           I Samuel 17: 1, 4-11, 19-26, 32-49    

                              Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

                              2 Corinthians 6:1-13          Mark 4:35-41

When I was growing up, one of my favorite shows was Gilligan’s Island.  If you watched the show, you know the backstory – the skipper, his first mate Gilligan, a millionaire and his wife, a professor, a movie star, and a farm girl all get on a small boat, the Minnow, for a three hour tour.  As the episodes unfold, we learn that the professor took his entire laboratory and all passengers took their entire wardrobes for this three hour tour, but I digress.  Anyway, “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed; if not for the courage of the fearless crew the minnow would be lost, the minnow would be lost…..”  But they washed up on a deserted island and stayed there for several seasons.  Of course, there was a movie made that brought them all home, but I think you can still watch reruns on Vudu and other cable channels, where I have no doubt that they will still be stranded on that island in reruns from now until the trumpet sounds and our Lord returns.

We’re continuing in Mark’s Gospel.  For our past several Sundays, we’ve been listening in as Jesus has taught the crowds in parables, and then explained the parables afterward to his disciples.  But in today’s Gospel, instead of a parable, we get an object lesson, a sort of “show and tell” demonstrating the power of Jesus even over the powers of nature.   Apparently for the early church this was a very important story, because it pops up in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels as well.   This is also a transitional moment, in which Jesus moves out of the relatively safe territory on his side of the sea to the potentially hostile territory on the other side of the sea, the other side, where the Gentiles lived.

As I’ve said, Jesus had been sitting in a boat on the sea, teaching in parables all day long, and now it was evening.  Jesus said, “Let’s go over to the other side”.  Leaving the crowd, the disciples took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.  We don’t necessarily know what that phrase “just as he was” meant – perhaps it meant that he was exhausted, smelly, hadn’t had a chance to freshen up, but they took him across anyway.  And we’re told other boats were present.  While they were crossing, a windstorm blew up, and “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed; if not for the courage of the fearless crew the Jesus would be lost….”  Or at least that’s how it looked from the disciples’ viewpoint.  We’re told the boat was already being swamped – they were taking water – and there was Jesus, fast asleep on the cushion.  They start shoving him and yelling, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re dying out here?”  We’re told that Jesus woke up, told the wind to hush up, told the sea, “Peace, be still”, and the sea came to a dead calm.  Jesus said to the disciples, “Have you still no faith?”  Now, the New Revised Standard Version reads “They were filled with great awe”,  but the Greek actually reads more like “They feared a great fear” – basically, their jaws were left hanging after what they’d just seen.  And the disciples said, “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  So, we’re told the disciples were scared when they thought their boat was going under – but they became even more scared after Jesus calmed the sea and they realized the power Jesus commanded.  Isn’t it ironic, dontcha think?

It’s quite a story in its own right.  And no, Pastor Dave isn’t going to try this at home, or the next time I’m down the shore; if a thunderstorm comes up I’m not going to put my hands out and say, “Peace, be still!”  For one thing, the beach patrol might get cranky.  But anyway, as I’d said earlier, this very rough boat ride across the sea was also a transition from ministry in relatively safe Galilee to ministry in Gentile territory.  It was almost as if the powers of darkness revved up this storm in order to keep Jesus in his own territory, rather than invading Gentile territory with the Gospel.  But Jesus prevailed over the sea – as  he would also prevail over the demoniac who lived among the tombs, as he would prevail among some gentile pig farmers whose pigs he sent hurtling over a cliff.   His trip across the sea was a sort of raid on the powers of darkness, in which he overcame them and then returned to his side of the sea.

Our lives are like small boats on water, and sometimes we get caught in storms.  A death in the family, natural disaster,  Illness, unemployment, addiction or other tragedies affecting ourselves or our families, can make our lives shake, rattle and roll.   We can feel the wind spinning our lives around, can feel the waves slamming into our lives, can feel our spirits taking water and starting to sink.  And we cry out to God, “Lord, can’t you see we’re dying down here?!”  But we can take comfort in knowing that indeed God does see, and that we don’t go through the storm alone.  And sooner or later, the storm will subside.

The church is also like a boat.  In fact, the church – the entire worldwide church – has been compared to Noah’s Ark, carrying those inside the ark safely through life.  The worship space of a church – where we’re sitting now – is  known in church architecture as the nave of the church – from the same root as our word navy - and in some churches the ceiling of the church resembles the hull of a ship.  And it’s not always easy inside the ark.  There are people in the ark who work our last nerve…..it’s been said, of those inside Noah’s ark, that they’d never have put up with the stench inside the ark if it weren’t for the wind blowing and the waves beating outside the ark, and it can be like that sometimes in the church as well.  God picks who comes here, and sometimes we wish he’d have chosen differently.

Our congregation in particular is a very small boat.  While to God the wider church may resemble a single ark, to us as church members it feels more like a fleet of ships.  There are the prosperous churches, with large congregations and large financial endowments, with a multi-pastor staff and a dozen or more committees humming along, that seem like battleships confidently riding the ocean and cutting through the waves.   We may feel a bit envious of the ease with which they glide along, although having been a member of larger churches at various times, even they can be a bit like the duck that seemingly glides effortlessly along, but underneath the water line is paddling for its life as fast as it can.

And then there are churches like our own, barely larger than a lifeboat, which gets tossed about wildly by the waves, where the sails constantly need mending, which always seems to be leaking and taking water and where the pastor and lay leaders are seemingly bailing out water as fast as we can.  And our arms are tired.  It feels sometimes like one more building repair, one more act of vandalism or attempted theft, will be the one to send us sinking to the bottom of the sea. And yet, God sees our faithful ministry as well, and somehow, against all odds, we’re still afloat, still carrying our sisters and brothers out of harm’s way to safety. 

In our Gospel reading, the wind and waves went wild when Jesus tried to carry his ministry into new territory, into Gentile territory.  And it may be the same for us, as our congregation attempts new ministries and tries to reach new people.   Even in a storm, a small boat may be relatively safe if it stays in the harbor.  But boats, especially lifeboats, aren’t made to stay in harbor, and the crew of the boat isn’t there just to scrape barnacles.  The voyage toward the ministry to which God calls us may involve choppy waters, may involve some risk.  And yet we serve the One who calms the wind and waves.

Jesus didn’t promise his followers smooth sailing.  Rather, he promised his presence in the storm.  Jesus promised that we wouldn’t go through the storm alone, and asks us to have faith that he can still calm the wind and waves that batter our lives and our life together as Emanuel Church.

“Jesus, Savior, pilot me over life’s tempestuous sea.”  May we continue to look to Jesus as the one who can still the wind and calm the waves, and guide us through life’s storm into safe harbor.  Amen.

Small Beginnings

Scriptures:           Ezekiel 17:22-24          Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

                              2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1          Mark 4:26-34

Today is Father’s Day, and we congratulate all the fathers and grandfathers in our congregation. 

We’re continuing in Mark’s gospel, and today we read two of Jesus’ parables.  The fourth chapter of Mark’s gospel summarizes some of Jesus’ teachings and contains several parables of Jesus, and I’d encourage you to read the whole chapter this week.  Today’s parables have to do with seeds.  The first compares the reign of God to wheat seeds or that of some other kind of grain, and the second compares the reign of God to do with mustard seeds.  In both parables, small beginnings lead to great results.  In the first parable, once the farmer plants the seed of grain, the seed grows of its own accord – as Jesus said, “the earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.”  And, once the grain is mature, the farmer harvest the grain.  But while the seed was growing, the farmer just went about his business elsewhere.  Other than planting the seed, the farmer himself didn’t cause it to grow.  The seed, in combination with the ground, made that happen.  But then, the farmer had to recognize the critical moment when the grain was mature in order to benefit from it.

In Jesus parable of the mustard seed, Jesus specifically contrasts the tiny size of the seed to the large shrub it can produce.   This parable is very similar to our Old Testament reading from Ezekiel, in which God is speaking of his plans to restore Israel after their captivity in Babylon.  He compares this to taking a tender twig from a cedar and planting it on a mountaintop, so that the twig will in turn grow into a mighty cedar in its own right.  Ezekiel was saying that God would use the faithful remnant of Jews left in Babylon to re-establish the nation.

Jesus, in his parable, gives this a twist – instead of a cedar twig, a mustard seed; instead of a mountaintop, a garden, and instead of a cedar tree, a mustard bush.  There’s actually a bit of humor in this parable, because a gardener wouldn’t necessarily want a mustard bush in their garden, because wild mustard – basically a weed - would grow out of control and take over the garden.  Once it was in your garden, you couldn’t get rid of it.  Even domesticated strains could get out of control and crowd out other plants.  As Jesus said, it would grow into a shrub, so that the birds of the air could build nests in it – and a gardener probably wouldn’t want birds in the garden.   So Jesus is saying, of the reign of God, give it an inch and it’ll take a mile.  Give God the slightest access to your life, and your life will be turned upside-down – or more like turned right side up – but in any case changed forever.

Today is Fathers Day.  We are here because of our fathers and mothers, or in some cases because of our grandparents or other people who were willing to stand in for absent parents, who not only conceived us but nurtured us through our small beginnings as fetuses, infants, babies, through our vulnerable years, and into young adulthood.  We are the harvest of the seeds they planted.  And we are here in church today because of seeds of faith that were planted in us – by our parents and grandparents, by pastors, youth group leaders, and other people of faith in our lives.  I’d like us to take some time, to think of those who have been our fathers and mothers in the faith, and give thanks for their witness. These seeds of faith have borne fruit.  We pray that the seed of our lives and the seeds of our faith will pass on to another generation, will continue to bless the world we live in for another generation.

In another of Jesus’ parables, which we didn’t read today, Jesus spoke of a man who planted good wheat seed in his garden, but then the man’s enemy planted seeds for weeds there as well.  What kinds of seeds are we planting in the lives of those around us?  Both good and evil come from small beginnings.  In Germany, concentration camps didn’t come into being immediately after Hitler came into power.  Instead, there was a constant series of small changes, small adjustments to the laws, small adjustments to the ethos of the society, a slow, constant coarsening of political dialogue, a slow, gradual, but constant process of degrading and excluding Jews and other groups disfavored by the Reich.  All of these small changes prepared the way for Hitler’s Final Solution.  In Milton Mayer’s book on the Third Reich, “They Thought They Were Free”, Mayer wrote, quoting a man he had interviewed who had lived in Germany through Hitler’s time in power:  “Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained, or, on occasion, ‘regretted’, that…unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing.  One day it is over his head…”[1]  The man went on to say, “I have pondered that pair of great maxims….’Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end’.  But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings.”  And so we also must be vigilant, must constantly look at developments in our own society, must recognize what seeds are being planted, and consider what fruit they may bear in the future.

Both good and evil come from small beginnings.  Jesus said that the mustard seed was the smallest of seeds, and we at Emanuel are surely among the smallest of churches.  Truly, there are few churches smaller than ours.  But, Jesus tells us, what matters is not the size of the seed, or the size of the church, but the size of the harvest it produces.  And here, at Emanuel, the seeds of God’s grace are planted in all who attend.  And those seeds are carried from here out into the world.  Today is Fathers Day, when we honor the fathers and grandfathers of our congregation.  And so to the extent that the seeds of God’s grace reach our children and grandchildren, God will have a harvest.

Seeds of faith are being planted here.  Here we love to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.  And that’s not only something I do, but something each of us does in our own way.  A number of our members have come because of invitations from friends.  And I have to say that recently, some of our most vulnerable members have been some of our best evangelists – Bobby inviting Tim and Kasey and others along Aramingo Avenue, Susan inviting Jonny and Kate and others from the shelter.   

Seeds of God’s grace are being planted here.  We have a small homeless ministry.  People in dire need are being helped.  I’m hoping this year that we can launch some sort of ministry with the veterans in our community…I used the word “with”, because I hope it would be something we could do in cooperation with veterans.  I’m still reading and praying, and I hope you will too, asking God what it might look like.  But clearly many veterans live in Bridesburg, and  I hope we can work with them to benefit the community.  Another prayer of mine is that this fall, we here at Emanuel may have our first confirmation class in many a long year.  This would be open roughly to young people starting 7^th grade or later.  There are details to work out – finding a mutually agreeable meeting time probably the most important.  But such a class would be an answer to prayer, a planting of seeds of faith for the future. These are just a few of my dreams, and I’m sure each of us has dreams of what this church could be, of how this church can continue to share the love of God with our neighbors here in Bridesburg.  In sharing those dreams with one another, perhaps more seeds of faith will be planted and come to fruition.

Jesus spoke of seed being planted, and then slowly coming to maturity on its own, first the stalk, then the head, and then the full grain in the head.  Unlike wheat seeds, the seeds of faith we plant take a lifetime to mature. Indeed, we may not live see the seeds of faith that we plant come to full maturity, may never fully know the influence our lives have on others, just as those who brought us to faith may never have known how important their lives were to us.  Again, think of those persons who have been your fathers and mothers in the faith.  Remember them.  Give thanks for them.  And then consider how you can be that person, can be a father or mother in the faith, for someone in your life. 

May we give thanks to our fathers and grandfathers, our mothers and grandmothers, and to all who were there for us on our journey to adulthood.  May we give thanks for our fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers in the faith, all who planted the seed of faith in us and nurtured its growth.  May we so live that in days to come, others may give thanks for us and for our role in leading them to Christ and nurturing the seeds of faith in us.  Amen.

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[1] Mayer, Milton, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1955; paperback edition 1966