June 21, 2009
The Third Sunday after Pentecost (Year B)
Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49; Psalm 9:9-20; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13;
Mark 4:35-41
How, oh, how can I possibly find the words to talk to you this morning, to tell you how I feel as I prepare to bid you farewell? How can I make sure you understand how much you have meant to me these past two and one half years, how dearly I hold each and every one of you in my heart? It’s overwhelming. And so I listen to the voice in my heart: Preach the Gospel, Maggie.
Last weekend, I was on a plane from
On the way home, I had a lot of time to think about this day, and these lessons that Anglicans all over the world are hearing and thinking about and praying about today. I was thinking about challenges, about Jesus’ invitation to the disciples to “go across to the other side,” to venture away from the crowds and take his message on to the next thing. And, I was thinking about fear, the fear that the disciples must have felt when that innocent sail across the sea of Galilee, when a journey they must have taken many times, a journey that they began with confidence, suddenly turned from the familiar to life-threatening chaos. I was reflecting about all this: how once again the gospel lesson has the uncanny tendency to speak to me in the present. How if I look closely at the story, even one as familiar as this one is, if I actually encounter the story not from a distance, but bringing my present reality with me into it, God always has something new to teach me, bringing me deeper into relationship and understanding.
My musings were interrupted by a man across the aisle, a genial sort of guy who, I noticed, had really enjoyed the complimentary wine with lunch. He asked me what I was contemplating so deeply. I told him I was just thinking about my trip, doing a little processing and thinking about a sermon I needed to write, and that led to quite a conversation.
I told him about our work in
Now he was talking my language, and, as our conversation unfolded, I learned he is a Christian, a self-described “lapsed” Episcopalian, who portrayed himself as a messed up kid who joined the Peace Corps thirty years ago, trying to figure out who he was. He soon realized he was in way over his head; he recounted lying awake one night, cold, hungry, alone, miserable, frightened. “I don’t really know anything about scripture,” he said. “I guess I’m not a very good Christian. But as I was lying there, I remembered the story about the disciples in the boat, and there’s a great storm, and they’re frightened and yell at Jesus because he’s sleeping – and he quiets the storm. You know that one? It made me feel better, you know? Like even lying there, far from home and feeling lost, I wasn’t alone. I’m never alone . . .”
And now, this man spends his life trying to improve the lives of others. He told me a lot of other things – he was quite a talker. He asked me if I thought it was a problem that sometimes he goes to the cathedral in Tanga, not to the service, but just to look at the stained glass, because it makes him feel closer to God. Thinking of my basement workshop and the stained glass projects in different stages of completion, I burst out laughing and told him I thought he was a very good Christian indeed.
A lot of commentaries on this gospel passage, Jesus calming the raging sea, say that God brings us challenges to test us and to build our faith. I don’t buy that. I can’t believe that God, who loves us, who is always about love, who is love, intentionally cause us pain. It makes no sense to me that this God of love causes cancer, or mental illness, or accidents. I do think God uses the challenges, the ones we encounter every day and the big ones, the life changing ones, to teach us, to deepen our relationship with Him, to bring us closer to the person we are born to be. The point is that, rather than causing our pain or abandoning us to it, God is with us in our challenges, always, forever. Whether we are in a place that we can sense it or not, God is there.
Yesterday, we said a final good-bye to our beloved Sally Frohring. It is hard to believe she is gone. But she lives on in our hearts, as we remember the things she taught us, as we take comfort and counsel from the way she lived her life. I used to tease her about her email name, “SallyAngel,” saying that when I looked at her, I saw a “big ol’ cloud of love” that she radiated wherever she went. I wouldn’t profess to know the innermost feelings of her heart these past few months. I imagine that she experienced all sorts of mixed emotions, but I’m pretty sure that she knew, on some level, if anyone does, that God was with her, loving her, comforting her as he drew her closer to His heart.
We Christians are on quite a journey, and despite the confidence and the sense of control we may feel in our everyday lives, things happen. We sometimes find ourselves in the midst of a raging storm, our boat filling with things we cannot control, and we are afraid. We are filled with all sorts of mixed emotions, with a sense of uncertainty, helplessness, hopelessness, despair. Intellectually we may know that God is here, but we are afraid, and our hearts clench in panic. “Where is your faith?” Jesus asks the disciples. Our faith is imperfect, incomplete. But because God gave us his only son, fully human while fully divine, we can be assured that God understands our human hearts. God feels. God is there, in the storm, waiting. We have only to open wide our breaking hearts and let Him fill them with His clarity, comfort and compassion. And we can go forth, emboldened for whatever lies ahead because we know, we are not alone. God is here.
How, oh, how can I possibly find the words to talk to you this morning, to tell you how I feel as I prepare to bid you farewell? How can I make sure you understand how much you have meant to me these past two and one half years, how dearly I hold each of you in my heart? It’s overwhelming, and so I listen to the voice in my heart, “They know.”
Amen.
The Rev. Maggie Geller
Church of the Good Shepherd