Fourth Sunday after Pentecost June 21, 2009

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
June 21, 2009

It sounds like such a simple thing, the disciples’ saying “yes” to Jesus’ suggestion: “Let us go across to the other side.”
But it was a bigger, riskier “yes” than it appears. Jesus was raising the challenge level of his discipleship training.
First, as professional fishermen, the apostles knew their waterways and this was not an hospitable one. The Sea of Galilee is actually a large freshwater lake like Lake Winnepesaukee. It is shaped like a wind tunnel—12 ½ miles long and 4 to 7 miles wide—and it has a reputation for sudden wild storms which are more likely to kick up at night, just the time they were starting off.
And Jesus was leading them “to the other side,” out of their comfort zone in Jewish Galilee across to the seat of Roman territory. It’s as if Jesus was saying to them: “let’s go touch base with those vicious Roman occupiers who hate us.”

Now there’s nothing wrong with taking risks, is there?
Jesus could have been inviting his disciples on a first century equivalent of an Outward Bound program for guys who were new in the role of disciples.
It could have been a positive adventure out there on the lake, with Jesus like a good teacher instructing them, encouraging them, preparing them for what they’d find on the other side. It could have been an exercise in what people today call “team building.”
But it didn’t happen like that: instead their teacher fell asleep and the mother of all storms blew up.
At first they thought they could handle it themselves. After all, they were fishermen, accustomed to storms. Their teacher Jesus was a carpenter. What help could he possibly be to them anyway?
But the storm got out of control, way out of their control! They could hear the seams of the boat creaking, know from their past experience that they could only take one or two huge waves more before the whole thing was over and the sea sucked them all down into darkness.

Like the disciples, we cannot have a rich, productive, involved life without saying those big “yeses” to invitations that lead into an unknown future.
Some of us have said “yes” to marriage, some to an all-absorbing vocation, some to children . . . knowing that the “yes” carried risks, but confident that we could handle whatever came.
I know from my own experience what fun it is to take off on my own and steer my life straight ahead feeling the rush of my own power!
A little risk, a little challenge—great! I can handle it; I can manage; I’m in control.

When the sailing’s smooth, if I’m Christian, I know Christ is in there somewhere—but honestly, who needs him?
Until things start going very wrong.
It’s so easy to forget about the Christ who promised to abide in the very center of our being until the moment when we realize—O Lord, I’m drowning!, and then we echo the disciples’ cry, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?” Our cry might be: O Lord, don’t you care that my marriage isn’t working?; O Lord, don’t you care that our kid’s on drugs?; O Lord, don’t you care that the prognosis is unspeakably bad?; O Lord, don’t you care that my husband/wife/son/daughter/mother/father is back in Iraq? O Lord, don’t you care that we’ve worked and worked and worked for justice and nothing’s change?

In the Gospel story, what did Jesus do? He woke up and rebuked the wind, and ordered the sea, “Peace! Be still!” as if the Sea of Galilee was an unruly pet dog. And abruptly the storm stops.
But let’s be honest here. We all know that many times, no matter how hard we pray, marriages break apart, sons or daughters persist using drugs or alcohol, loved ones die.
Christ in our lives is not (usually) a magician. Christ doesn’t (usually) make things all ok. What Christ does, is be there. There right in the boat with us, he takes the rudder from our hands, he invites us to give up the big lie that we are in control of our lives.
Christ stays there with us, powerfully loving us through the most painful, destructive situations. And yes—and this is just about impossible to grasp when you’re in the boat and the waters of pain and loss are crashing over you—Christ does do deeds of power—he gives amazing, impossible gifts of patience and peace and growth and hope and love even in the midst of the tumult.

I see Christ’s loving and powerful presence at death beds. I see Christ’s loving and powerful presence in people wearing themselves out for the sake of others—in, for example, the Untouchable women I met in India who risked their lives every week by gathering clean water for their village from the upper caste wells instead of polluted water from their own.
I see Christ’s loving powerful presence at the Offenders’ Program; I see Christ’s loving powerful presence in your lives as you deal with vicious storms that spring up when you least expect them. Yes, we give up control, or rather, the illusion of control. But what we receive in return is the powerful presence of God.
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A month or so ago, a woman came up to us at the WalMart table. She held back tears as she told us about a life-threatening illness in her family on top of a heartbreaking marital breakup.
As I groped for some way to respond, she paused, was silent, and then added, as if she were surprised by the realization: “You know, it’s so odd . . . I’ve never felt closer to God.”