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First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Job 38:1–11 |
Psalm 107:1–3,23–32
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2 Corinthians 6:1–13
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Mark 4:35–41
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One of the basic lessons taught to children first learning canoeing is that the canoe will float, even when filled with water. Therefore, if one’s canoe is swamped, stay with the canoe. An overturned canoe serves as an additional life preserver, and if one holds on to the hull, even if overturned, one will be supported. Moreover it is far safer and easier for a searcher or rescuer to see you if you stay by the canoe. More lives would be saved if people stayed by their swamped watercraft, instead of panicking and attempting to swim to shore. Of course, young canoeists should also learn how to upright and sit in a canoe filled with water, and how to doggy paddle it to shore.
The Gospels use the Sea of Galilee as a great boundary area. On one shore were the familiar villages where the Jewish population lived. The opposite shore, much less populated, was Gentile territory. The disciples’ reception there was much more uncertain. The lake itself held dangerous currents and was subject to unpredictable winds as Jesus would take his disciples and travel across and back.
In today’s lesson, other boats seem to be following Jesus at first. Then as storm clouds come up, the other boats head back to shore. Soon Jesus’ boat is all alone and the storm descends. We suspect that the disciples were none too sure of Jesus’ decision to cross in the first place and murmured why didn’t Jesus insist on turning back like the other boats. They were afraid to wake him, for they knew Jesus would not change course and head back to relative safety. The sense in today’s lesson is that the disciples were ready to panic and that they were about to abandon ship, jump into the angry water, and likely drown. They called to Jesus at the last moment, and when Jesus awoke they discovered that their boat was not lost. Indeed, it had weathered the storm, which eventually passed, the sea calmed, and threatening waves no longer bedeviled them.
People love and know by heart the verses from the twenty-third psalm, “the Lord is my shepherd, he leads me besides still waters, and he revives my soul.” Often, however, they forget that the passage first affirms, the Lord leads. The Lord leads and the Lord may lead where we would prefer not to go. To be faithful to the call of the Gospel does not mean that we will lead ourselves to a safe and comfortable place to which we would like to become accustomed. The Lord leads us, sometimes setting the course through stormy weather, and yes it is the Lord, not us who will bring us through and calms the angry waters. The disciples got into the boat because Jesus said let’s cross and go to the other side, not because the disciples themselves decided to exercise the option of an extra sightseeing excursion.
Perhaps this Gospel passage is warning people of faith today not to be tempted to jump out of the ship and go it alone. The church today may very well be called by the Gospel to set sail and cross boundary areas, where there are dangerous currents and high winds. The journey may very well be bumpy, rough, and make one a little seasick. The territory we are traveling to be not the territory of our past or familiar homeland. We are sailing into a new world. Maybe instead of murmuring against the course and wishing we were back on familiar shore, we need to become more aware and pay attention to where Jesus has set the course. Giving in to blind panic, and shouting “every man, woman and child for themselves”, encouraging them to jump and try to swim back to a shore that when left was calm and serene, is never the wise action.
Some of you have undoubtedly read it, and I am only about halfway through it, but I am going to suggest that for summer reading you pick up a copy of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. Friedman, who by training is a reporter, suggests that a profound change has happened, the world now is flat. That is to say the traditional geographical, social, and economic boundaries of the world have been flattened. Through fiber optic cable and the Internet, even political boundaries cannot contain or control the interchange of communication and forces of astounding change. Friedman quotes Bill Gates as saying, “Thirty years ago if you had a choice of being born a genius on the outskirts of Bombay or Shanghai or being an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would take Poughkeepsie, because your chances of thriving and living a decent life there even with average talent were much greater. But as the world has gone flat I would rather be a genius in China than an average guy in Poughkeepsie.”
Even if Friedman is half right, I suggest we are living through a transition as large if not larger than the industrial revolution or invention of the printing press. For business, governments, and organized religion, especially worldwide church bodies like the Anglican Communion, I suggest there are radical changes ahead in a flat new world. Nonetheless, the Gospel is calling us today to get and stay in the boat. Perhaps the first thing we can do this summer, is to pack Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, in our suitcases.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
