Sermons
2nd Sunday before Lent
It isn’t always easy to know who to turn to when things go wrong. Have you noticed how it is sometimes easier to explain all your troubles to a stranger rather than someone really close? Confession works a bit like this, the priest who offers advice and direction and the forgiveness that God is always holding out to those who turn to him, acts in a way like someone slightly distant. He or she acts as a priest not as a close friend, and part of the training of priests to hear confessions is to be able both to keep a significant distance so as to offer a new perspective on whatever has gone wrong, and to be close enough to really listen to the root of the problem, and to forget, forgive and forget is God’s approach, not judge and condemn.
People can become somewhat addicted to making their confessions of course. I was told a (probably untrue) story recently about a Mrs Smith who was ever so penitent, always made her confession weekly, and was always in a fluster as to the state of her soul. One morning she rushed in to see her priest, Fr Brown, and she was in a state of great distress, Fr Brown Fr Brown, she said, I have committed the most awful sin, I must make my confession straight away, oh what a terrible, terrible sin! So Fr Brown took her along to the church and she prepared herself to make her confession and finally had to come out with it, ‘well Fr Brown’ she said ‘was this morning I woke up and went to the mirror and I looked at myself and I said “Oh Mrs Smith you are the most beautiful woman in the whole world”’. ‘Ah, no Mrs Smith’, said Fr Brown, ‘that wasn’t a terrible sin, that was a mistake!’
The disciples seem to get in the same sort of state as Mrs Smith sometimes. One of the most remarkable aspects of the gospel stories is the extent to which the disciples appear to be all too human, all at sea, slow to understand what’s going on, slow to realise who Jesus is, and slow to trust in what he is teaching them. And in some gospel stories Jesus tries to teach the disciples through actions as well as words, he tries to show them who he is, what he needs them to know, and why they should trust him.
So in today’s gospel Jesus makes the disciples all get into a boat and set off into the Sea of Galilee and he goes to sleep in the boat. When the weather begins to turn unpleasant they can’t believe that Jesus is calmly sleeping in the boat; like Mrs Smith they panic, they think they are to perish. They begin to be afraid because Jesus may be unable to help them, but Jesus acts with authority as he must. He acts in the model of the God of the Hebrews, bringing order out of chaos and bringing calm to a situation of fear and distress. Jesus teaches the disciples that they must trust him even when he appears to be not taking an interest, a sleeping God, virtually absent, perhaps then in particular they must learn to trust him. His rebuke to the disciples though, is gentle ‘where is your faith?’, it is a reminder to them, he doesn’t berate them, he reminds them of who he is, of what it is all about,. How often do we need that reminder? Jesus is with us, he will calm the raging of the seas.
And this little story is a superb little allegory of the life of the church. Jesus, with the disciples in the boat crossing the sea, but to the disciples eyes Jesus is the sleeping passenger, the sleeping God. The little ark of the church is sent out over the unpredictable waters of the world, and Jesus seems to leave them to their own devices - and as soon as things become a bit choppy they start to fear for their lives while Jesus snoozes. The church throughout the ages is thrown this way and that by the waves and the winds that often seem against her in the world, but Jesus prays for his church and is present to her fully. Jesus is inseparable from the church and whenever the church might feel that he is absent she is mistaken and needs to develop again the habit of trust that Jesus was trying to instil in the disciples, ‘Where is your faith?’
And Jesus teaches them through his actions in stilling the waters, his power moving across the waters as did his spirit in creation overcoming the powers of chaos, identifying himself as the divine presence by his actions and by his words, and encouraging the faith of the disciples. The central action here is an epiphany, a manifestation of divine identity, Jesus does what God does, he rescues from the storm and has dominion over the waters and above all he is with the disciples, and he is with the church today. The church is not overcome by the chaos of the world, and is not swept under by the waves and storms that buffet her.
But how do we learn to trust? In particular, how do we continue to trust when the church herself might seem to be doing something we cannot understand, when it might sometimes feel as if that little boat the disciples were dependent on has suddenly started heading for the rocks and we are powerless to do anything? A different analogy might help. When as a parent you try to teach a child to ride a bike there comes a point where you simply have to let go, you can’t really teach them by words how to stay upright, you have to let them find out and that image of a parent letting go of the bike and the child’s elation at first setting off by themselves is a beautiful one, the parent still half running after, hoping and praying they will stay upright and of course being there for the child, for when the first few falls come. But for the child to want to set off at all he or she must trust the parent absolutely, must know that the parent will be there to tend to wounded limbs and wounded pride. The key thing is trust
Back to the boat…perhaps in today’s gospel Jesus is trying to teach the disciples and to teach us that we have to accept our part in God’s work always knowing that Jesus prays for us. God doesn’t control the church without our participation, there would be no point sending out the boat onto the waters if there was nobody in it, but the boat is not radio controlled either, we have to think and pray about how to navigate through the waters, but Jesus says that he thinks and prays with us. And it is Jesus who places the disciple sin the boat, they are chosen by him. It might not just be the choppy waters of the world that worry you. You might start to think that the journey would be a lot calmer if we only threw overboard some of those awkward passengers who keep asking difficult questions, questions about who’s allowed to do the rowing or put up the sails and who isn’t, questions about who is allowed to be friends with whom on the journey and who is not, and then you need to remember that Jesus has put you into the boat and Jesus has chosen your fellow travellers.
So whatever storms assail us and assail the church from without and within, Jesus travels with us both corporately and individually in prayer, he wants us to journey with our eyes open to what lies ahead but he does not want us to journey in fear. For he says to each of us at all times of distress with a gentle voice ‘where is your faith?’.