HAPPY BIRTHDAY ???
Mark 4:31-45
Rev. Gary Paterson
June 10, 2012
So… I was at a political gig last night, being the dutiful spouse of
a City Councillor, ready to do my bit at the pre-summer fund-raiser. While there, I was approached by a friend,
no… an acquaintance, who stretched out his hand, with a smile and a special
greeting – Happy Birthday!” “It’s not my
birthday,” I replied, with a return smile, “don’t make me older than I already
am.” “But,” he said, “I’m a keen observer
of your Church Sign on Burrard
Street United Church Toronto
So, eighty seven years old; not a “significant” birthday, ending
with a zero – hey, special birthday
greetings to you Patricia, and to you Margaret. And nowhere near as old as our
venerable sister denominations, the Orthodox or the Catholic. But still… eighty-seven years deserves some
recognition. Because it’s been quite a
ride, eh? Some great moments; others
that need a lot of repentance. We’re
small… even at our biggest we were just over a million members; and now, just
half a million in a Christian family that numbers some 2 billion. On the other hand, we’ve contributed a lot;
as some new friends from my time in Israel
Eighty seven- years… to be celebrated, no question. But we’re also feeling our age; a lot of aches
and pains; the body ain’t what it used to be.
You’ve heard the statistics, the stories; numbers decreasing, membership
aging, finances declining, buildings falling apart. A lot of worry in the land, wondering whether
we need hip and knee replacements; heart
and lung transplants? The kindest
diagnosis may be that we are suffering from “arthritis of the spirit”? (A
Barbara Brown Taylor phrase). What’s
happening to the United
Church
Now… hold that thought for a
moment… and come with me to take a look at the gospel story we just heard and
Timothy and Michael present. Weren’t
they great? What with all those wind and
storm noises, nobody was tempted to turn off, tune out; we “got” the story,
both the energy and fear, and even, perhaps, the humour -- how in heaven’s name
did Jesus manage to sleep through a storm like that? I mean, nobody here slept through even the
telling of the story; imagine being in the boat!?!.
It’s a great story, Jesus and his companions out in the boat, the
storm coming, the disciples terrified, Jesus sound asleep… and then … well,
Jesus wakes up, calms the storm, asks a few questions and leaves the disciples astonished. It’s a story that feels closer to my heart
since my time in Israel Israel
The calming of the storm… it’s a powerful story… one that I need to
hear often; maybe we all do. Because we
all know about storms… maybe not finding ourselves literally out in a boat,
feeling swamped, scared of going under; but storms are part of what it means to
be human -- when the stem cell transplant doesn’t work; when the marriage is on
the rocks; when you wake up at 3 am, just two breaths short of an all-out
anxiety, panic attack. You know what I’m
talking about… the struggle to keep on
keeping on, hoping to get to the other side, wherever that may be; the craft,
the old body, feeling pretty frail, and you’re not sure you’re going to survive
the journey. Wind and waves and more bad
news, and you feel like you’re going under; like the disciples, you cry out to
God, to Life, to someone… “Do you not care that we are perishing, that I am
perishing?” Have you ever felt that way?
Given that we’re celebrating a church birthday today, let me stretch
the metaphor… storms come to all of us, yes; and they also come to communities
of faith, to churches. Indeed, one of
the traditional symbols for the church is the ship. Most of you here today are sitting in the
nave of the church… nave, a word coming from the Latin for ship… navis. The ship of faith… a great symbol until you
consider the inevitability of storms.
Which, at eighty seven years of age, the United Church
I don’t need to go on about storms.
We all know about storms. What we
need, however, is the good news at the heart of this gospel story -- which is
that Jesus calmed the storm. The gospel
story makes the astounding claim that with Christ in our hearts, in the nave,
in our midst, we will weather the storm; that the wind and waves, and any
manner of fearsome thing… these are never the final word. When the wind is stilled, when the waves are
calmed, Jesus then turns to his disciples, to us, and asks a couple of pointed
questions __ “Why are you afraid?” and then, “Do you still have no faith?” Almost as if these were opposing choices…. are
we people of fear, or of faith? Do we go
through life with burdens of worry, or we do live out of a deep trust in the goodness
of life, of God? Fear or faith… our
choice, Jesus seems to be suggesting.
Now, let me take a step back, just for a moment. Judaism and Christianity are desert
religions, founded and formed in the wilderness, worried about sand and
drought. Thus, it’s understandable that the
sea became a symbol of chaos; the realm of demons, monsters -- who knows what
might be hiding in the dark depths of the ocean? It was thus in the first moments of creation,
in the opening verses of Genesis, when the Spirit of God moves over the
formless deep, the waters that existed before the “beginning;” this Genesis
story is not about creation out of nothing (creation ex nihilo), but the giving
of shape to chaos. God speaks and there
is structure – unrestrained water is death-dealing;
ordered water is life-giving. Indeed, God provides what I would call,
“structures of meaning.”
What is happening in our gospel story, however, is that the order of
life is cracking, chaos is resurfacing, and things are falling apart. Note how
this storm story is preceded and immediately followed by stories about demons,
the internal, human symbol for chaos breaking out in the centre of a person’s
life. And note how Jesus uses exactly
the same language to reassert control over the demons as he does with the
storm. Jesus “rebukes” demons and the
winds; and orders them to “be still”.
What the story is proclaiming is the good news that despite the
inevitable storms we encounter, there is a stronger force at work in the world,
in our lives – God; the God who restores order, who reshapes our structures of
meaning. God is the energy that holds it
all together, who stands in the midst when de-structuring occurs; who is the
love that recreates and brings life together in new and harmonious patters of
being. God is the power at work in the
universe that counters the natural entropy of being, where things do fall
apart… including our bodies, our lives.
Storms happen… and we will be swamped, and we will finally die. Of course we are afraid. And yet, faith claims that God is in the
midst of it all, and what we are afraid of, while real, is never the last
word. The gospels begin and end in hope…
“Be not afraid,” the angel says to Mary at the moment of conception; “Be not
afraid” to the shepherds at the moment of birth; “be not afraid,” to the women
at the empty Easter tomb. Faith… call it what you will, the Spirit of God
moving over the waters, resurrection, Pentecost, rebirth, new life… God is the
power, the One, who will calm our hearts, calm the storm… and send us onward.
During my time on sabbatical, I heard a phrase that has stayed with
me…
“It’s not what
happens to us in our lives that really matters; it’s what we remember about
what happened, and how we remember it.” Think
about that… ultimately, the meaning of our lives depends on how we choose to
interpret it, what structures and ordering shape our story; we choose our
narrative. We look back upon our lives
from every present moment, and make choices of memory and meaning, purpose and
direction, and out of that created story, we step into our future.
At last weekend’s Conference, our theme speaker, Alana Mitchell,
talked about what is happening to our world, to the environment. She began with tales of the wonder of the
world, then segued into all that’s bad -- the carbon pollution, the poisoning
of the oceans, the extinction of species; and then, she finished with a call to
action. She shared with us that she is
often asked, “Should we hope?” – a question that arises from the fear that it
is too late, we have passed the tipping point; or that believes that even if
there is time, we humans will refuse to make the necessary changes. But Alana claims that the real question is
not “Should we hope?” but rather, “Will we choose hope?” As gospel people, that’s precisely what we
are called to do… to choose hope. Why
are you afraid? Have you not faith? For God is at work in the world, forever
creating and recreating – challenging the power of demons, of chaos, of
entropy, of death…. speaking a word of new life; inviting us to be people of
faith not fear.
Listen to these
words from Leonard Cohen, verses from Psalms 46, 47 and 50, from The Book of
Mercy; sometimes it takes poetry to help us understand the movement from
fear to faith:
Blessed
are you who speaks from the darkness,
who
gives form to desolation.
You
draw back the heart that is spilled in the world,
you
establish the borders of pain….
…
your healing is discovered beneath the lifted cry….
You
have written your name on chaos…
.…
You
lift me out of destruction
and you win me my soul.
You
gather it out of the unreal by the power of your Name.
Blessed
is the Name that unifies demand,
and
changes the seeking into praise.
Out
of the panic, out of the useless plan
I awaken to your name….
…and
through the inaccessible intention
all things fall gracefully….
.…..
I
lost my way. I forgot to call your name.
The
raw heart beat against the world,
and
the tears were for my lost victory.
But
you are here. You have always been here.
The
world is all-forgetting and the heart is a rage of directions,
but
your Name unifies the heart
and
the world is lifted into its place.
Blessed
is the one who waits in the traveler’s chair for his turning.
The only way I can think of to say it
better, comes from another poet,
a Jewish poet named Isaiah, (Isaiah 43)
Thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he
who formed you, O Israel.
Do
not fear for I have redeemed you,
I
have called you by name and you are mine.
When
you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
and
the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
When
you walk through fire, you shall not be burned,
and
the flame shall not consume you.
For
I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel
…
you are precious in my sight, and honoured,
and
I love you.
So…
be not afraid; the storm will pass; God is with us.
So… Happy Birthday, United Church. Amen.
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