Sermon

In recent weeks, among the staff, we have been discussing our need to update and faithfully live up to the expectations of our “safe church” or “safe conduct” policies.  Safe church policies have long been in place for Scouting programs, as well as many youth sports teams.  And increasing numbers of churches have also instituted them, as one way to safeguard the safety of our churches, especially in our efforts to care for our children and others, termed “at risk.”

In my last church, one of the persons most responsible for seeing that those policies were updated and adhered to, told me this story.   One day at coffee hour after worship, his young and precocious grand-daughter who he was caring for, told him she was going to go to the restroom.  He said, “Fine, let me know when you get back” which she did a few moments later.  He noted that he could not think of any other place where he would allow her to do that on her own.   A restaurant—No, a mall—No, a friend or relative’s home—Maybe.   But, noting our safe church policy, he commented that he had no reservations about letting her do this, safely. 

That story has been on my mind continually since Wednesday night, when nine members of a well-known and highly respected African-American church, Emanuel AME,  in Charleston SC were murdered in the confines of their church.   If you’ve traveled throughout New England and visited churches in the Congregational tradition, you’ll know that the worship space is often referred to as “the meeting house,” since in its early history, it was just that—Meeting house, town hall, classroom, law court, worship center, auction house for lifestock.  On any given day in those times, the room used for worship could be used for any purpose.    But for me, coming out of a different worship tradition, in a church builed in the early 20^th century, the place used for worship was called a Sanctuary, and that is how I usually refer to and think of this space.

Sanctuary is a word with sacred and deeply reverential meaning: the place set aside for God and humanity to meet and connect; a safe place; a place set aside for holy moments related to new life (baptisms), deepening life (weddings), remembering the end of life (funerals); a “thin place” where the barrier separating God and us is at its thinnest.

And so to think of an horrific crime, fueled by senseless racist hate, compounded most likely by a gap or failure in our mental health system, and the scandalous availability of weapons in our nation, taking place in a place set aside for all things contrary to this, is brutal.   Today, we, our nation and the world, grieve with the good people of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston SC, as they move in their grief, to reclaim the sanctity of their sacred home, the scene of this madness.

Today’s Gospel lesson, the story of Jesus stilling the storm, is a lesson which has much to say to us, in the light of this week’s horror.   It is a conversation about faith that consists almost exclusively of questions, and questions are in no short supply among us this day.  Within this Scripture, there are three questions, completely within the context of an unexpected storm on an overnight trip on a dark lake.   And while these are questions we can all imagine asking or having asked of us, within this story of a night in the life of Jesus, there are lessons for pilgrims and seekers throughout time.

Success had come fast to the newest preacher in the region.   In a few short days, Jesus had called together a group of dedicated followers and they had begun a teaching ministry in and around the Sea of Galilee. 

It was a brief honeymoon as the numbers of people interested in what Jesus had to say, or desperate for one of the miracles they heard he was capable of performing, grew rapidly.  Already, the logistics of preaching to a large crowd had challenged them to quick solutions such as standing in one of his disciples’ fishing boats to preach.  Here Jesus proclaimed the good news from several yards into the Sea, shouting in a penetrating voice the news of redemption and faith.

And now as the day came to a close, it was time to get away for a bit.  Jesus had decided to head across the Sea during the night, so he could spend a few days on the eastern shores, the less populated side, and spend some time evaluating all that had happened so quickly.   As night fell, the tired young preacher put his life into the hands of his faithful disciples, who had been fishing these waters for years and knew them well.

Curling up at the back of the boat, upon a cushion of extra sails and netting, Jesus slept soundly.   Jesus came from Nazareth, a town inland, and was not used to spending a night at sea.  Yet his body craved solid sleep and so he slept deeply, not noticing the changes in weather and conditions that were beginning to alarm these experienced fishermen.

This was not a peaceful sleep.   This was the deep sleep of exhaustion.   A body so worn that the rising and the falling of the boat he rested in went unnoticed.

As the intensity of the storm increased, we hear the first of the classic religious questions.  Waking Jesus out of his sound sleep, they ask, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”

It’s a question we’ve all asked.   We ask it in the moments when we wonder if God is alive, or even awake.   We ask it in those times when we wonder just what we did wrong to deserve the crisis we are in the midst of.  We ask it in the face of real or imagined danger, surprising threats or impending heartache.   I suspect it may have been the question in the hearts of those gathered for a Bible study at Emanuel AME church this week and it certainly is a question their families and friends and many in the world have asked this week.

What does it take to move us to ask the question?   How big a storm does it take to remind us that we can’t do this all on our own?  What does it take for us to look for God in our midst?

The great writer, Nobel prize winner and death camp survivor, Elie Wiesel tells the story of finally meeting a great and widely respected rabbi and asking him the question which haunts every Jew, likely every person of faith.  “Rabbi, how can you believe in God after Auschwitz?”  The rabbi paused for a long time, an uncomfortably long time before responding, “How can you not believe in God after Auschwitz?”  

“Teacher, do you not care if we perish?”   It’s a core question for every pilgrim, springing from the heart, asked with an urgency and an edge that we’ve all known in the course of our days.  It’s a question not easily answered, that night on the Sea of Galilee or in churches and faith communities today.  

It is a troubling question, so often asked in desperation, with the hope for a full and satisfactory answer, which seldom comes.  It is a question to me, best answered in time.   Asked in desperation, almost always, it will appear, falsely, as if God’s’ answer to our desperate prayer is No, but over time, we come to see and know and sense God’s presence and love in a number of ways. 

The most encouraging words I’ve found in those moments come from Paul in I Corinthians.  “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, as I am fully known.”  There is the promise that the day is coming when we know fully, have all our answers, or most likely, being fully in the presence of God, we will know the peace that transcends all our sufferings, our aches, our doubts, a peace that will make our desire for the answers to troubling questions that less pressing.

The second great religious question is asked by Jesus in response to their desperate pleas for help.   “Why are you afraid?  Have you no faith?”  Within many modern minds, it appears that to be afraid is to lag in faith.  That is the heart of what Jesus is seeking to make clear here.

As I thought of the disciples’ on the boat that night, and the range of emotions they must have felt, I remembered hearing Jesus’ words spoken clearly to me in a question that a friend once asked of me.   While I was in college, I had a part-time job working at a home for troubled young people, children removed from their homes, often for their own safety.   Some nights I had to stay awake all night as a night watchman of sorts.   And some days, I was required to accompany these children to court, or to social workers offices, and sometimes to a doctor.   Not infrequently, I would need to escort them into the tough neighborhoods some had lived previously and sometimes even into the high-rise housing projects where their families still lived.

Many times I was afraid as I did this, and one night as I was speaking of this to a friend, knowing that I was planning to go to seminary the following year, he mocked my faith.  “I thought you were a believer…whatever happened to that “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” stuff you believe in?”  His words stung me like a slap in the face and I can imagine the disciples that night, felt something of the same anger and determination that I felt at that time.

But you know, his words were Jesus’ words.   And the next time I had to escort a young girl back into the projects, while her old friends cruised by taunting, teasing and yelling at her and me, I found a certain peace repeating the 23rd Psalm to myself.   I no longer felt alone and became increasingly empowered to do my job.

I once heard faith defined as “feeling the fear and then doing the right thing anyway.”  And I think there is some wisdom in that.   Yes, fear does grip the heart from time to time, and we would be wise to look at what is beneath the fear, for that is our biggest foe.   Discipleship calls for us to acknowledge first our fear and then our faith.

Faith comes to us when we acknowledge that we will face storms ahead of us from time to time.   But with the help of God, those storms will be calmed one at a time.  Faith does not mean we will never face another storm.   That’s what death means!

Faith is the realization that we are never alone.  That in the times of storms, Jesus is beside us, assuring us and calming the waters, soothing the threat in the mysterious ways of life and grace.

All of which leads to the third religious question of this day—“Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?”

As we learn more about the tragedy at Emanuel AME church in Charleston on Wednesday night, and in the events since then, we are seeing such a strong witness to faith, to obedience to God’s call and will, by those in the church that night and their inspiring families.  Dylann Roof was welcomed into the church that night, as those attending a Bible study were eager to have in their midst someone hungry to know more of God in their life.  And in a court hearing on Friday, family members of those killed can be heard acknowledging their efforts to forgive him this crime, while also seeking the justice in this that we all must live by.  

We are seeing in these actions, witnesses of a faith, as inspiring and puzzling as that which the disciples saw that night; actions that not only moved them in their faith, but changed them.   One of the redemptive pieces of this horror can come when we address and explore the frame of mind that sparked this as well as when we grow in faith, our response to the actions of the faithful.

Throughout time, from Jesus’ words on the cross forgiving those who were killing him, through the numerous moments of incredible courage by those martyred for their faith over the centuries, to Nelson Mandela’s act, after being freed from 27 years of imprisonment of having those who once jailed him, join him at his inauguration of President of South Africa, to the incredible witness of the Amish community in central PA, who after the school shootings in Nickel Mines PA, found the capacity of grace to reach out to minister and care for the innocent family of their children’s killer.  The witness of grace, the blessing from God, has touched and transformed the world, time and again.

Two things that are apparent from this first stormy night on, the Jesus who comes to us in the Gospels is not a sailor who goes around the storms of life and faith.   No, we believe in a Savior who guides us head-first into them with the confidence of God’s power in our midst. Jesus brings us through them and reminds us that we are never alone, even in the midst of them.  And number two, no one who passes through a storm comes out the same.   The events of this past week are changing us.

The questions of the disciples that stormy night—“God, don’t you care?”  “Have you no faith?”  “Who then is this man Jesus?”  may well have been on the lips or in the hearts of those so senselessly killed on Wednesday night and their survivors ever since.   And they may well echo in your heart today.

May the opening words of Paul in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, speak a comforting and transformative word for us all today.   “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”

May this be good news to us all in these troubling times and in the tender days ahead.   Thanks be to God.  Amen.