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O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving kindness; Amen.
This morning, with God's help, I want to try to weave together some threads: the Gospel text which has some genuinely good news for us; and some thoughts about the commemorations of this past week – I am speaking of the Mother Emmanuel shootings nine years ago and the loss of nine innocent lives… and also making the our newest national holiday – Juneteenth.
In our reading from Mark today, the disciples are struggling, having a very bad time..in fact, they are afraid for their lives – “Teacher”, they cry, “do you not care that we are perishing?”
They have set out to cross the sea of Galilee after a long and very demanding day of ministry…they had probably been doing crowd control…Jesus had been teaching and healing all day and he must have been exhausted. I love the detail that St. Mark gives us…Jesus is asleep…in the stern of the boat, sleeping on a cushion…this is the kind of detail that lets us know that an eyewitness account really does stand behind this gospel account.
And so they were heading home - most likely leaving from the northwestern side of the great lake and heading straight across the top to Bethsaida, home base…it was probably one of those beautiful slightly breezy late afternoons, just perfect for a sunset sail when they set out…but , as you may remember, the sea of Galilee is a very unpredictable body of water because of how the mountains at the north can funnel down a storm in an instant and this is apparently just what happened….a squall blew up, the boat was in trouble…The waves were washing in …the boat seemed like it was about to sink…and Jesus? Was he bailing with the rest of them? No…he was sound asleep and they must have yelled at him…Jesus, wake up…we are going down…don’t you care…don’t you care?
I wonder if you have ever found yourself in a storm- maybe not a physical one …but one of those storms of life that come along every now and then… and felt that your little boat was about to go down…Jesus, don’t you care? I am perishing...
This account, which shows Jesus’ power must have been especially encouraging in the early days of the church when the disciples were so terribly vulnerable…with Paul, then Saul the Pharisee, and other religious authorities chasing them out of town, throwing them in jail, and killing them…they must have wondered if they would survive…they must have wondered what would become of them when because of persecution, they were scattered all over the middle eastern world and beyond…from Antioch to Egypt to Greece to Rome ….and years later under the Roman emperors Nero and Diocletian, when they were being put to the sword and dying daily, they must have wondered if the little ship of the church could survive….could make it across the lake?
And we, when we are in the storms of our lives…both as a church and as individuals and it seems like disaster is straight ahead and that we are going down…we may want to yell out with the disciples…don’t you care, Lord?
In the anguish of the hours and days that followed the Mother Emmanuel shooting, I heard from several quarters --"God, don't you care? How could you let this happen?" I heard this question at the vigil prayer service the following Friday night at the C of C-- I saw it on social media and I heard it at home...God, you let them perish..you let the boat go down...how could you let this happen?
And, as we contemplate Juneteenth and slavery – the owning of another human being – it’s still going on in many places in the world – we have to ask, "God, you let countless souls be kidnapped, enslaved, perish for the purposes of human greed How could you let this happen, Lord?"
Job has the same question (to jump readings just for moment).. our reading this morning from Job is God's response to Job's question -how could you let this happen? Job had lost everything - all his children died, his crops failed, his health failed and he was left only with his cynical and embittered wife who counseled him to curse God and die. He shook his fist at God and yelled -- how could you let this happen?
I want to suggest to you that when it comes to the shooting Mother Emanuel, when it comes to greed, and division, and the hatred and violence that seem to beset us almost daily, I suspect God has the same question for us -- How could you let this happen?
How could we let these things happen? That is the question I want us to think about. Because, beloved, we do have agency.
What has gone awry in our common life- in the common life we help create in our own time and place, and in which we participate - what has gone so wrong in our common life that something like the murder of nine innocents at a bible study ,at their church , the nine who welcomed a stranger into their midst.... how could that happen? We can talk about flags and guns, and drugs, poverty, immigration, abortion and systemic racism all we want but we are not going to get to the heart of the problem until we get to the state of the human heart and of our hearts in particular...and of our tendency to go for fear rather than love.. suspicion rather than trust...blaming rather than seeking to take responsibility for how we may be complicit...
God says to Job -- 'scuse me...where were you when I created the universe?
When the disciples cry out to Jesus -- he says “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? - In the Greek he calls them -- "Little faith people" and then he says to wind, the waves, the violent storm -- Peace, be still...at his word, the Peace was given...
He had them.. he had them all along..just as God had those precious nine.. alongside all who perished in the Middle Passage and under the iron boot of slavery, those who have suffocated under the forces of dehumanizing brutality, and so many others down through time. God has them now...they are with the Lord, the one who created them and who loves them and he has restored peace to them...they are fine...because God did not let go of them and God will not let go of us...of St. Mark’s, of you and me...
Paul writes, In Romans 8, Who can separate us from the love of God? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword.. as it is written -- for your sake we are being killed all the day long - regarded as sheep for the slaughter - No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.. for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God had the nine, God had the disciples in the boat and God has us.. and he will not let go...we are his. This is reality. This is the truth.
Dr. Martin Luther King said this -- " I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Unarmed Truth and unconditional Love are what is most real- evil, sin and death may beat us up and take our boat down in this life...but that is only temporary-- because we belong to the God of love and truth who will not let us go.. if we can hold onto this -- plant it in our hearts and minds -- and let it grow...then it will crowd out the fear and hate that want to lay claim to us...
it doesn't mean that there will not be difficult days or that people will not go down - but it does mean - that we are called to hold up the reality which we know -- that Love not hate wins...and life not death and evil, triumphs...
I want to remind you of a little verse that speaks to this...perfect love casts out fear...(1 Jn. 4:18). This is a very good memory verse and I leave it with you.
Let us pray..
Lord Jesus, when we find ourselves in the
middle of a storm, and we fear that we are sinking - perishing - fill our
hearts with your love -- show us how to love as you would love even as we are
fearful..we bless you and thank you that you are always with us..help us to
know that we really have nothing to fear but the loss of you. and help us to know down in our bones -- that
you do not ever give up on us or let us.. for the sake of your son Jesus Christ
our Lord.
Proper 7B 2024 - St. Mark's Episcopal Church- Charleston, SC- JTCO
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