6/23/24 Sermon
Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along.
Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. 38 But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”
He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”
Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
WORD OF LORD
When Beverly and I first moved to Richmond Virginia, everyone thought we were nuts. Looking back on it, we were. It was a great experiment. She was moving from Cleveland with two small kids to join me as I started Seminary and I was about to inherit a family at 24 years old. We basically had been in a long distance relationship for only a few months. We had both of our worldly possessions loaded into a U-haul and when we got to Richmond, we found out we didn’t have enough money to move into the apartment we were planning on renting. So, Bev and I spent the first four hours of our life together homeless in a grocery store parking lot with two small kids age 5 and 3 while we tried to find a place to live.
We found an apartment, a nice apartment, in the middle of one of the worst ghettoes in Richmond. In fact, it was so bad that when I was a chaplain at the Richmond City Jail, an inmate asked me where I lived. When I told him what neighborhood, he didn’t believe me. After I convinced him it was true, he said, “Chaplain, I wouldn’t even live in that neighborhood!”
For a few weeks neither of us had jobs or money or family nearby to lean on. And we lived off of jelly sandwiches and that fruit punch they sell for 99 cents a gallon. It was rough. It really was a hard time. Once we ran out of gas and didn’t have enough money to get any. So, we had to push the car out of the road to a gas station and leave it there for a day or two until one of us got paid. We went without power sometimes. And most nights we could look out our window and see drug deals and hear gun shots.
It was rough. But we made it through it. Even more importantly, we made it through it together. I actually think that it brought us closer together as a family. We learned that we could go without. And we learned that no matter what happened we could stick together. And there are times even these days, where when things seem a little hard, Bev and I can look at each other and say we’ve made it through worse. We aren’t living off of ramen noodles and powdered drink mix.
We learned to lean on each other and support each other because there wasn’t anyone else to lean on or to get support from. And I think that’s really important in a family situation. To know that the other person has your back. To know that no matter how rough things can get sometimes that they aren’t going to bail on you. They’ll stick with it through thick and thin. You need to know that you can rely on your partner. You need to know they’re going to be there.
Sometimes, when we’re in the thick of things it’s easy to forget that, though. That the person next to us has been there through the rough times with us already. And that most likely, they’ve still got our back. And the older I get, the more I find that’s the criteria I judge my friendships on. Are they going to weather the storms with me? Can I weather the storms with them? Are they jut going to be there when I succeed? Or are they going to be there with me when I struggle? And I find with my friends that have lasted, that when the storms came, we had each others back. My true friends and the people I care about and I feel lucky to include my family in this, are the people who remind me that they’ve got me. They encourage me and support me and push me to do better. And I try to do the same for them.
It’s like this scripture reading this morning. It serves as a good reminder for us as we’re gathered here as a church. Jesus reminds the disciples that he’s got their back. That the storms they’re facing shouldn’t be that scary because they aren’t facing the storms alone. Jesus is in the boat with them.
And some scholars think that Mark here is using this story as a parable. That it’s really about the church. The church is the boat and the disciples. And they forget that they have Jesus with them and who exactly Jesus is. So, they’re kind of trying to go at it on their own. And see, they’re scared. But Jesus is so calm he’s sleeping through the storm. That seems almost impossible to me. To sleep through a storm on a boat. Just the motion alone would wake me up. But Jesus sleeps comfortably. Just sleeps there as the storm swarms around him. Maybe because he has enough faith to know that things will work out and they’ll make it to the other side.
Some scholars think that Mark is trying to tell us that when we forget who Jesus is, the boat almost sinks. Then we turn to him, follow what he tells us, remembering that Jesus is, in fact, in the boat with us, and that’s when things turn around. The storms stop. It’s just that we keep forgetting that Jesus is really in charge. I don’t know. It sounds good.
But I don’t buy that they forget Jesus is in the boat. That Jesus is with them. I think they know that. I think that what they forget is that Jesus has their back. That even though the storms may rage around them, that Jesus has them and supports them and loves them. Because in the midst of the storms we go through in our lives, its’ easy to feel alone. It’s easy to forget that there are people around us who love us and care about us and will push us to be better and to do better.
I want you to look around you this morning. I want you to look around this chapel and look at the people sitting around you and remember this story. I want you to think about what a church is. Because I think the scholars are on to something here.
We all go through storms. We all go through hard times and struggles. And sometimes we struggle as a church. Sometimes we even fight amongst ourselves and argue about where we’re taking this boat, if the course we’re on is going to get us to the other side, and whose direction is right while Jesus sleeps comfortably in the stern. And we get caught up in these storms whether they’re the storms in our personal lives or interpersonal lives. And we end up forgetting what we are and what we’re actually doing.
Look around you. Look at the people sitting with you. We’re a church. At the core of being a church and why church is so important, especially these days, is because a church is a community that has each other’s back. We might not always agree with each other. We might not always like each other. We might not always agree that what we’re doing or where we’re going is the right course of action. But we love each other and care about each other and have each other’s back. And I think that’s what we do here. We love each other. That’s why Highland Park Presbyterian is so special. We love each other. We might not always like each other, but we love each other. And when push comes to shove we’re there for each other, to support each other, to encourage each other, to push each other to be better.
I’ve seen us do it. I’ve seen you reach out and be Christ to one another. I’ve seen you help people here amidst the storms of life, and when we struggle. It’s such a beautiful thing. It really is an honor to be a pastor here. And to know that people here care deeply and passionately, sometimes very passionately, about this church and about the people who are a part of this church. It gives me hope. It gives me encouragement. And it gives me faith. To know we have each other’s back. To know that we can weather the storms together and stick together. And to know that we can take the love that we share here, that’s transforming this church, and use it to transform our community amidst it’s storms. It’s good to know that our church is a place and a community that keeps Jesus in the boat and has faith that we can make it through anything together.