"Other Boats are With Us" -- Sermon for 4th Sunday of Pentecost: 21 June 2015
Sermon for 21 June 2015
4th Sunday after Pentecost
"Other Boats are With Us"
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
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Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not
an easy morning to talk about miracles.
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| "Jesus Calms the Storm" by Ketut Lasia of Bali |
This morning
we also hear the story of Jesus miraculously calming a storm, only a few days after
a racist terrorist shot and killed nine people in a church in South Carolina,
USA. Nine people, who were gathered for a prayer meeting. Nine people, who
welcomed an unknown man into their Bible study for an hour before the killings.
Nine people, who thought they had boarded a ship of safety when they entered
their church building, but who found themselves instead tossed about by the mighty
winds of racism and a tidal wave of hate.
This is not
an easy morning to talk about miracles, because this morning it feels like
Jesus might be asleep on the job. There was no miraculous rain shower to drown
out the fire at the church in Taghba. And there was no miracle for the nine
members of Emanuel AME Church killed on Wednesday evening. Shortly after the
news of this terror attack broke, I started to see my African-American friends
posting these nine words on Facebook:
“Teacher, do
you not care that we are perishing?”
These nine
words are from our miracle story this morning. This is the fearful cry of the
disciples on the boat, tossed about by the storm, while Jesus remained sleeping
on the cushion.
This is the cry of black Americans—not in
1950, but still today in 2015—imprisoned, beaten, persecuted, ignored,
appropriated, and shot to death in their own churches.
This is also
the cry of our Palestinian neighbors living under occupation for 67 years.
This is the cry
of the 4 million Syrian refugees still fleeing persecution and death.
This is the
cry of thousands of girls in India, who are victims of rape and sexual violence.
This is the
cry of all who are oppressed, hungry, violated, and waiting for a word of hope.
Teacher, do
you not care that we are perishing? These words also echo the psalmist, who
sang again and again:
“Awake,
Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.” (Psalm 44)
“Rise up, O God,
and defend your cause!” (Psalm 74)
“How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 80)
How long will you sleep?
Do you not care that we are killing each other?
Perhaps you can tell that this fresh tragedy in my home
country, together with the violence perpetrated on one of Christianity’s holiest
sites—not to mention the Palestinian young man shot and then crushed to death
by an IDF tank last week, and the
Israeli man shot and killed by extremists in Palestinian territory on Friday—have
me struggling with how to preach the Good News to you this week.
On the one hand, we are blessed with this beautiful miracle
story this morning, a text full of hope and power and very rich images for preaching.
On the other hand, I am wary of moving too quickly to grace
and forgiveness and redemption when the wounds are so fresh.
And perhaps I identify a bit too much with the disciples on
the boat today. It does feel like Jesus
is asleep while his people are suffering. While I take comfort in knowing he’s
with us in this boat, I also want to shake him awake and demand some action.
Living and working here in Jerusalem and the West Bank, we
know the winds and the waves all too well.
We know what
it feels like to proclaim that our neighbors and even our enemies bear the
image of God, only to be trapped in a conversation filled only with talking
points and political platitudes.
We know what
it’s like to talk about God’s justice and peace being for all people, only to
be drowned out by talk of biblical real estate deals and how one side or the
other “teaches hate”.
And you know
what this feels like? It feels like being on a boat in a storm. It feels like sea
water covering our feet, and then our ankles, and then up to our knees, all
while Jesus is asleep on his cushion. In these moments, we cry out with the
disciples, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Even in the storm, I have faith that the power of Jesus and his Gospel of
love will ultimately rise up and calm
the storms of racism, gun violence, occupation, division, sexism, homophobia,
anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and Christian-o-phobia,
but I tell you that right
now,
in this moment,
in this conflicted holy land,
in this divided city,
in this white body, which bears responsibility for the deaths
of those nine black bodies (among so many others),
in this world battered by the storms of hate, violence, and
extremism,
the time can’t come soon enough.
Lord, I want to see Jesus.
Lord, let it be today.
Lord, I want to hear your miraculous words that calmed the raging
seas: “Peace! Be still!” Amen!
Dear sisters and brothers, this has been a week when the
storms of our own human sinfulness seemed certain to overtake us. But the storms are not over--especially when we're in the boat with Jesus.
Crossing seas, crossing boundaries,
confronting fears and smashing human-made divisions is always controversial,
and the powers and principalities of the world will always push back. When
Jesus and his disciples got in the boat and left the shore, it wasn’t just for an
evening tour of the sights of Galilee. This journey was Jesus signaling that
his Gospel of love was not just for the Jews, it was also for those people over there, the people in the country of
the Gerasenes, the folks we don’t like to talk to, the ones who are “different”
from us. Jesus was bringing his faithful followers across the sea to a place
others considered foreign, forbidden, and even dangerous. He was taking them to
the other side.
It should be no surprise to us that when we choose to follow
Jesus and his Gospel of love,
when we confess our own implication in racism and violence,
when we speak and act against an illegal occupation,
when we refuse to accept extremist rhetoric from any side,
when we venture with Jesus across the sea toward those who
are considered the “Other”,
we will be battered
by the storms of controversy.
There will be pressure to come back to the shore. There will be those who
tell lies about us, who try to fill us with fear, who will try and discredit
Jesus (or our interpretation of his message), and who will tell us we are simply
foolish.
And yet, even
in the storm, even in this storm, there
is Good News. Though it feels at times like Jesus is asleep on the job, he is
always with us. We may be afraid, but he is our strength. We may be lacking in
faith, but he never leaves our side. With Jesus on the boat, we know that storm
or no storm, God’s word will never be drowned. Storm or no storm, because Jesus
is the Son of God, because our Lord is crucified and risen, because the Holy
Spirit has empowered us to carry his message from Jerusalem to the ends of the
earth, the Gospel of love will triumph even over a tsunami of hatred. Amen!
Yes, this is
the Good News we need to hear this day. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
But there is
something else for us, too, another anchor in the storm. Hear again the beginning of today's miracle story:
On that day, when evening had come,
he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd
behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were
with him.
It’s funny,
as often as I’ve heard this story, this detail escaped me until now:
Other boats
were with him.
As Jesus and
his disciples made their way to the other side—a dangerous, foreign, unpopular,
politically incorrect, professionally damaging other side—other boats were with
him. They were not alone.
Other boats
were with them on the sea, because the power of Jesus and his Gospel of love is
greater than the forces which try to keep us tethered to the shore, chained to
old habits, and anchored to patterns of racism, hate, and abuse of God’s image.
Other boats
were with them, because they had heard God’s kingdom is not just for the Jews,
not just for the religious authorities, not just for the twelve who first heard
the message, not just for the women who first saw the resurrected Jesus, and not
just for the white Europeans who made the Jesus movement into a mighty colonial
power.
Other boats
were with them, because the Gospel of love is the message the world needed then,
and it’s the message the world needs now.
Just as
other boats followed Jesus through treacherous waters to take his message to
the world, so we are not alone on our storm-filled journey.
Other boats
are with us. We are joined by a great cloud of witnesses, including the Rev. Clementa
Pinckney of Emanuel AME Church, who welcomed a white boy into his Bible study and
sat next to him for an hour studying the word of God, before being shot and
killed by him.
Other boats
are with us. We are joined by former slave Denmark Vesey, one of the men who
founded Emanuel AME Church in 1818. He won a lottery and was able to buy his freedom,
only to be hanged for teaching in the church about the Israelites being led out
of slavery.
Other boats
are with us. We are joined by Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian Christian known as
the Gandhi of Palestine. He was kicked out of Jerusalem (and his homeland) in
1988 after founding the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence, which
advocated peaceful protest, planting olive trees, and above all, never, ever picking up the gun.
Other boats
are with us. We are joined by Dorothy Day of New York, Desmond Tutu of South
Africa, Martin Luther of Germany, Leymah Gbowee of Liberia, and the newly-saintedPalestinians Marie-Alphonsine and Mary of Jesus Crucified.
This is not
an easy morning to talk about miracles. But here is one:
In spite of the winds
of war, the waves of hatred, and the incessant stormy acts of violence
committed by humans against humans, other boats continue to join Jesus on the
journey toward a world of peace, justice, and reconciliation. Others are with
us—believers like Maya and Zion, our young people who will be affirming their baptisms this morning
and joining us in God’s mission. Together, we will get there. Together, we will
have faith in the storm. Together, we will trust in the one who invited us on the journey, who
promises to be with us to the end, and who can still the mightiest storm with
just a few words: “Peace, be still.”
I invite you
now to an extended moment of silence, to remember those who have died, but also
to listen for that still, strong voice of Jesus, calming our fears, and calling us to continue the journey with him in faith.
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