Grace to you and peace from God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Rev. Patrick J. Rooney STS
Senior Pastor
|
Grace to you and peace from God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. |
The Rev. Patrick J. Rooney STS Senior Pastor |
Lectionary 12.09
The tales are all too familiar.
Time and again we watch on the evening news as survivors tell us of the storm
that swept through their lives with great fury and power. It may have been one
the hurricanes which have devastated our coastlines over the last few years with
names we will always remember – Rita, Gustav or Katrina. Or it may be those
nameless tornadoes springing up out of seemingly nowhere on the plains of the
mid-west before descending upon the helpless towns and communities which lie in
their path. But whether hurricane or tornado it is always the same tale – one
in which the power of the wind, the rain and the fierce winds sweep through an
area, leaving in their wake a swath of devastation with roads and fields
flooded, houses ripped from their foundations and property destroyed beyond all
recognition. It is the survivors of such storms that tell us these tales as they
describe the sound of the howling wind or the might of the rain. But underlying
the description is always the fear – the fear of not making it through the
storm, the fear of loosing their property and perhaps even the fear of loosing
their lives. I have never experienced a storm of such magnitude. I have never
lived through a hurricane in which life is lived from one screaming blast to the
next or through a tornado which descends with unexpected fury to literally
uproot everything I have and am. I have never experienced what it is truly like
to feel the overwhelming power of Mother Nature pushing beyond her limits of
self control. And I have never felt the feeling of utter powerlessness against
the power of such storms or the powerlessness which comes from the fear arising
out of such a storm, eating away, as I’m sure it must, at the very fiber of
one’s soul. But I can imagine that such a storm, a real storm, can be a very
frightening thing indeed.
It was such a storm which beat
upon the followers of Jesus in our Gospel story this morning. It began
innocently enough with the disciples taking Jesus into that boat. But the Sea of
Galilee is a notorious place, known for its fierce wind and rain storms that
seem to pop up out of nowhere, causing havoc and often disaster to the fishermen
and others who lived and worked on those waters. So the disciples take Jesus
with them into the boat, thinking perhaps that they would be safer if He were
with them. But the very presence of Jesus among us has never been a guarantee
that all would be well for the followers of that same Jesus. And so “a great
windstorm arose and the waves beat into the boat so that the boat was already
filling.” With such a description I’m reminded of that final scene in the
movie “The Perfect Storm” where that small fishing boat, in spite of the
bravery of its sailors, finds itself totally outmatched by the huge waves that
are ready to engulf it. You know the fate that awaits those men and that boat
and yet watching it you are powerless to help them.
It is this same image of a small
boat, this time filled with the disciples of Jesus, but still cast into an angry
sea, which confronts us this morning. But such an image is not new. In every
generation, in every age, the followers of Jesus have often found themselves
cast into a small boat surrounded by an angry sea which seeks to devour them.
For the storms of life crash all around us – the storms of a bad economy and
unemployment; the storms of social conflict and war; the storms of families
splintered into rubble through divorce; the storms and chaos brought about by
sickness, disease and death. Storms have always assailed the
So out there on that Sea of
Galilee, huddled together in that small boat with the waves beating on it, the
wind howling around it and the storm lashing it with its fury, out there were
these disciples, fearful, terrified, living from moment to moment, expecting the
end to come at any time. They had felt secure in their boat, in their skills; in
their ability to handle the storms. But those of us who have placed our faith in
the frail and fragile vessels we have built whether they are our savings
accounts, our businesses, our laws and alliances or our organizations have found
they have failed us time and again, especially over these past couple of years.
And we have not learned even from that, for when one boat has failed us, we have
simply moved onto the next one, believing that this boat, this plan, this new
idea will be the one to give us shelter from the storm and save us from the
perils of the sea. It is only when we find that all the boats are in danger,
that none provides us with safe refuge, that we still stand in danger of being
lost, that we turn to the other option before us, pleading with God to save us.
The old saying goes that there are no atheists in a life boat in the middle of
the Atlantic and or in this case on the
And save these disciples He does,
calming the wind, the waves, the very storm itself. But having saved them He
asks that all important question, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no
faith?” We would prefer to think that it is the storm which is the problem and
the storm which is to blame for our fear. But in that simple question Jesus
locates the true center of the problem – our lack of faith. For the storms of
life will always burst upon us and sometimes threaten to overwhelm us. We will
find ourselves cast upon the seas where the waves will beat against us. True we
have built our life boats and in them we might find refuge for a while. But in
the end they will prove fragile and frail and we will once again find ourselves
exposed to the elements, in danger for our lives and living in fear. But when
these things happen – and happen they will just as surely as the storms
continue to rise unexpectedly today on the