Homily For Trinity 2 Year B 2009

Trinity 2 – Eucharist – 21.vi.2009 (Job 38.1-11; 2 Corinthians 6.1-13; Mark 4.35-41) “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” That’s the question the disciples ask about Jesus after their brush with disaster on the Sea of Galilee. At least, disaster is how it seems to them at the time. They were fishermen who must have sailed on that lake many times; but however many times you’ve put out from shore, you only have to sink once… and that’s your last voyage. What happens in these few minutes may be the briefest of episodes in their lives. But it will stay with them, and as they look back on it they will recognize something – not only about the dangers they faced that night – but also about Jesus, the man they had with them in the boat. My father was a sailor. I was talking with my brother who’s been in this country from the United States during the last week, saying that our Dad had the major excitement in his life early on. But in a sense we can still say, “My father is a sailor.” He might have left the Merchant Navy nearly 60 years ago, but the young man in him was formed in and by his travels from icy Spitsbergen to Australia and Nauru, from Canada and Hawaii to Singapore. He can’t see the photograph albums any more, but he still comes out with the stories. And the stories he can still tell most clearly are the stories of near-disaster: of storms with hundred foot waves; of 10 days adrift in the Indian Ocean without engine power or radio communications; of ships which sank, and the ship which his own boat sank coming into harbour.

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When we say that “the sea is in someone’s blood”, it’s something to do with respect for its force, the knowledge that it can turn against you, the challenge of battle in the face of the storm against the elements. As our Psalm (107) today puts it of those who “go down to the sea in ships, and do their business in great waters”:

24 They beheld the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. 25 Then he spoke and a stormy wind arose, which tossed high the waves of the sea. 26 They mounted up to the heavens and fell back to the depths; their hearts melted because of their peril. 27 They reeled and staggered like drunkards and were at their wits’ end.

Then, the Psalmist goes on, “they cried to the Lord in their trouble…” And he hears, the calm returns, and safely they are brought back into harbour…. Except… there is always the possibility that God won’t hear, the storm may get worse, the boat may break up and sink, families in port may be left bereft. We can recognise the mercy of God – as the Psalmist recognises it – only if we see the possibility of disaster. If our safety is guaranteed so long as we say the right prayers, then the God to whom we pray must be a God who simply tests us to see if we’ll do the right thing… in fact he must be a god who uses us as play things for his own amusement, to see how we will respond to the dangers he sends against us. What we need to recognise when we read this story of the disciples in the midst of the storm, when we sing that wonderful hymn, “Eternal Father, strong to save”, is the absolute terror that the disciples feel, the all-too-real danger in which they are set, the fact

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that they might not get out of this one alive. It’s when they come through it – knowing they might not have – that they can appreciate truly the Psalmist’s words, “Let them give thanks for the mercy of the Lord…”

Perhaps we know the story of the storm on the Lake too well. We read it and we know that all will be well. But it doesn’t seem like that at the time to the disciples. Already they are taking in water when they realise that Jesus is actually sleeping through it all. Read the story now, and it seems that all they need to do is wake him up and he will make everything OK. But think how the disciples might be feeling as they struggle to stay afloat, and you realise they probably were not all that polite as they woke him up. There wouldn’t be time to be gentle – more likely they’d grab him roughly and shout at him to get baling. The surprise is that when he wakes he simply speaks to the wind and the sea: “Peace! Be still!” It’s not what the disciples expect. They know him as someone who can captivate crowds with his words,…. and hearing him talk about God is one thing. Actually finding that his words make a real difference is quite another. So, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

That seems to be the crucial question: to ask who Jesus is for us. To be able to recognise that he is at the centre of the storm with us. That we are not alone. But we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have times of sheer desperation. Jesus is sleeping in the stern of the boat. It’s not the first thought of the disciples that they’ve got him with them. Their first thought is that Jesus is asleep. They feel on their own, and this man is doing nothing for them. They feel on their own, even though other people must be near to hand. St. Mark tells us that as they set out across the Lake, “Other boats 3

were with him.” But there’s no other reference to the people in these boats. When we are in the midst of the storm, perhaps we forget the peril that other people are in – “this is my disaster, and I’m going to suffer it all myself.” When we are in the midst of the storm, perhaps we forget that there are other people who might be able to help us. But the disciples are so pre-occupied with danger that they forget anything other than their own fight for survival on that one tiny boat. Nothing else and no one else matters. It’s as though nothing else in the world seems to exist. And perhaps that’s how life is for us when we know that we are in trouble. All we can do when things are extreme is be conscious of the peril. So easily we feel that we’re on our own. We don’t care that other people may have their problems, because nothing can match mine. We don’t think that anyone else can help, because my problems are so far beyond my being able to deal with them that we don’t believe anyone can help us find a solution. And if we call on God, it might be only to find that he seems to be asleep. It’s this story that tells us that it’s not necessarily so. There is the chance of disaster. Our problems and perils are real and need to be taken seriously. But perhaps as well there are those other boats near to hand – people who can come to our help, people who might have more experience in surviving the storm, people who at least are in the midst of our troubles with us. And we can be those people for others – just by being there for them. We need to recognize people for what they are – beloved of God. That’s the problem that Job has. We’ve read from chapter 38 today, and it’s taken all the previous 37 chapters for God to get into the picture. Job has suffered 4

more than anyone: loss of wealth, health and family. And it bothers him – he doesn’t deserve this, and he can’t see how things can get any better. He feels so alone, and we can see why: his wife tells him just to curse God and die; and his so-called friends turn up to treat him as a theological test-case and prove that he must have done something wrong for all this to happen. …And they’re all wrong. For Job is and remains a human being in spite of the calamity which befalls him. He needs his humanity to be affirmed, and it can be affirmed only when he sees that he is loved by God. It’s love of the Creator for the created which Job finally must recognise. It’s the fact that God goes on loving us which we need to recognise, that we need to hold onto; and it’s recognising that love which is to form us in all our relationships. It’s easy for us to treat people as Job’s so-called Comforters treat him – as someone who must obviously be at fault, who therefore can’t expect to share in the fullness of God’s love. We can treat ourselves like that too. There’s been a lot of criticism of Members of Parliament recently - and understandably so: it’s one thing to defend your expenses claims as being within the rules, and something else to stretch their interpretation beyond all reasonable limits. But even as we hear our own voices of condemnation, we have to ask how we might act, given the opportunity to stand in their shoes. Or perhaps we need to look more closely at the things we do anyway, and take for granted? How pure are our motives and intentions? How deserving of God’s love do we count ourselves?

If we find ourselves like Job’s

comforters, quick to condemn without a fair hearing, then we are not only hating the sin (if there is a sin) but also despising and pillorying the sinner. And what hope has any of us? 5

We need to know that God is near, however far away from his love we may hold ourselves. This is what Jeffrey John has to say in his book “The Miracles of Jesus” about the storm on the Lake, and about Peter’s attempt to emulate the Christ who walked on water: … These miracles have strengthened countless millions of Christians, whether going through the tempests of corporate persecution… or through personal storms of illness, loss, betrayal, bereavement or breakdown. There can hardly be a Christian who cannot immediately identify with Peter, losing faith in face of fear and trouble, sinking in panic, then gathered up and rescued by forgiving love. However much modern Christians may wonder what did or didn’t happen on the Sea of Galilee over 2,000 years ago; however much we may struggle to understand what it means to say that Jesus was God on earth, as Mark and the early Church were so unshakeably clear he was – it remains a fact of Christian experience that these miracles “work”. Their message is true… certainly in the sense that Christ’s words still have extraordinary power to bring “a great calm” in times of turmoil and chaos – when we have faith, however faltering, that he is who he is: “Peace, be still. Do not be afraid. I AM.”

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