This summer Della and I had lunch with a seminary classmate and his wife. He told us of his predecessor who retired from a church in a suburb of Boston and then began a series of interim ministries. He continued till the age of 91. He was at the desk in his study one Monday morning looking over the sermon for Sunday when he died.Some folks said, “How beautiful. He died doing what he loved to do – looking forward to Sunday in the pulpit.” Others had a slightly different take. They said, “God looked down from heaven on that Monday morning and said, ‘I’ve heard that sermon for the last time; come on home.’”
After hearing that I was glad I discarded all of my old sermons a few years ago. Thirty-five years of sermons into the recycling bin. No more sermon barrel. Consequently, most of what you have heard in our Sundays together has been new material.
All of this to say, I have never tried to bring our two texts of the morning together in one sermon: the story of the disciples caught in the storm and the parable of the dishonest steward. I am not sure how this will turn out. But you are a marvelous congregation and I am hopeful with your help it will be all right at the end of our time together this morning.
Let us pray. Ever present God, without your word we have nothing to say; without your spirit we are helpless. Give us your Holy Spirit, startle us with your truth, and open your word to our hearts and our hearts to your word. In the spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.
In our reading of the morning from the Gospel of Saint Mark, the disciples are in a boat caught in one of those sudden, turbulent storms so common to the Sea of Galilee. Jesus orders the storm to be still. We modern folk are not quite sure what to do with a story like this.
I have often been asked, “Come on now, Reverend, you must have some pull upstairs. Can’t you get us a sunny day for our daughter’s wedding?” I try to smile and say, “Sorry, that’s a management decision and I’m in sales.”
Knowing there is nothing to do about the weather other than to complain and wait for it to change, I suspect there are those among us this morning who, upon hearing about Jesus stilling the storm, at some level tune out, stop listening, and begin to mentally make their to-do list for the week ahead. If this is your response, then you will miss a tremendous truth for your own life and for the world in which you live.
To begin with, the early church loved this story. It is found in all three of the synoptic gospels. One of the earliest symbols of the Christian church is a ship caught in a storm. The early church knew what it meant to be a little boat in a stormy sea. A tiny minority, persecuted, hunted down by the Roman Empire, those first Christians loved this story of the disciples in the boat and Jesus calming the storm. It reassured them that they were not alone in the boat. They had each other and they had Jesus, who was in the boat with them and whose presence gave them comfort and peace in the midst of the most violent storms.
The early church, because they treasured this story, have passed it along to us. This account of the disciples in a boat in the middle of a raging storm – hard working, blue-collar men, who are not afraid of much in life, but at the moment they are scared to death. They think they are going to die. Some are furiously rowing, some are bailing because the sea is coming over the side, some are tugging at the sail which is now almost useless. They are thinking about their loved ones, their children, and what they never got around to doing and saying in their short lives.
Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat. “Rabbi, wake up, for God’s sake! Don’t you care that we are perishing?” So they shake him awake. Jesus says, “Peace, be still,” and the storm stops.
Think about your life for a moment. Surely you can recall a time in your life when you were caught in a storm. When the doctor says, “Sorry, it’s malignant” and you are facing surgery, treatment and an uncertain future. Or the company where you have worked for years is bought out and you are laid off, or a marriage or a partnership which started with the highest of hopes begins to fade and die. Certainly each of us have had bad days and some may be having such a time right now, when you feel like crying, “Jesus Christ, wake up! Don’t you care that I am perishing?” Yes, we each have been a storm tossed boat.
Where the truth of this story touches your life and mine is that there is no storm, no threat, that can overwhelm us, because Jesus, God’s love, is there in the boat with us.
Jesus said, “In the world you have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” What does Jesus mean? He does not mean he has caused the problems of your life and mine to disappear. Certainly not. He means we are not to be intimidated or to fear the tribulations of this world. Why not! Because the Lord of the universe is in the boat and although all hell is literally breaking loose, we are safe in God’s presence and God’s love.
We hunger for this reassurance, for fear and terror stalk the world this morning. Consequently, terror, fear, security will continue to be central themes in the presidential campaign. It is no longer the economy, with the question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The question now is, “Do you feel safer than you did four years ago?”
Well, how scared should we be? Plenty, it seems. The Government itself seems to want us to be scared, with recent warnings that an attack is imminent, inevitable and around the corner: orange alert, yellow alert, red alert. What are you supposed to do with this information? Never go into another high rise building or apartment because reports suggest a terrorist may rent an apartment to blow up the building? Someone said, “No need to worry. Apartments are so expensive in Boston your average terrorist couldn’t afford the rent.”
Maureen Dowd wrote recently in the New York Times that after 9/11 Americans seem to want tough guys to protect them from terrorists. The White House has clearly grabbed the imagery of the Western straight-shooting cowboy, leaving Mr. Kerry to wind surf – an image which is not as compelling when it is high noon at the O.K. Corral.
Jessica Stern, who lectures at Harvard’s Kennedy School, in her recent book Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill,” argues that the “virus” of terrorism cannot be suppressed by military means, that massive military response will not prove sufficient in the long run. Our policies, she says, have to be pro-active and not re-active. Our emphasis should not be so much on what we are against, but what we are for. Our task, and it is a formidable one, is to make certain the truths and values we stand for as a people are more appealing than those peddled by terrorist groups.
In general, the word “fear” is used two ways in scripture. First, for example, in the account of the birth of Jesus when the angel says to the shepherds, “Be not afraid for I bring you good news of a great joy . . .be not afraid, for God is with you.” The second way fear is used in the Bible, and this is primarily in the Hebrew scriptures, is when, for example, the Psalmist says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Now what the psalmist means by “fear” would be better translated into today’s usage by the word “reverence.” A sense of the awe, the mystery, the holiness of God. The fear of God would frighten and cause you to run away. The reverence, the awe, the majesty of God are best captured in the famous passage of the experience of the prophet Isaiah in the temple in Jerusalem: “I saw the Lord high and lifted up above the earth and the hem of his robe filled the temple. . .angels were in attendance and one called to the other and said, ’holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of the glory of God.’”
This sense of reverence, awe, wonder, holiness, has just about vanished, especially in our faith tradition. God is a buddy, a celestial errand person, a junior partner in our business. We sing, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” God almighty, what a pal. When we reduce God to these terms and lose any sense of reverence, of “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” then there is little left to either empower us or to save us.
Surely when you enter the beauty and majesty of this sanctuary it is not difficult to feel something of what Isaiah experienced: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full of the glory of God.” This is the amazing paradox of our faith. The God who is high and lifted up above the earth comes to us in Jesus Christ and is in the boat with you in all the storms of your life. Lo! I tell you a mystery.
The story of the disciples in the boat caught in the fierce storm said to the early church, and says to us, “Be not afraid,” “for there is nothing in life or death which can ever separate you from the love of God made known in Jesus Christ.” This is our one and only sure source of security.
Scripture urges you 365 times in one way or another not to be afraid – once for every day of the year including Leap Year. The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is fear. Fear knocked at the door, Faith answers, no one was there. “I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.”
The epitaph of two devout astronomers speaks to my heart. On their stone they had carved, “We have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night.” The Christian would do well to alter those words to read, “We have loved God too much to be fearful of tomorrow.”
This brings us to the parable of the dishonest steward as found in the gospel of Saint Luke, and this is where I do not want to lose you.
“Jesus said to the disciples” – Saint Luke is telling you that this parable is for the disciples and not the whole crowd – Jesus said to the disciples “there was a rich man who had a manager and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. In the New Revised Standard translation the man is called a manager rather than a steward, under the mistaken assumption that not many of you would know who a steward was.
The steward/manager is summoned and the rich man says to him, “What is this I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” I have days when I wonder if God might be speaking these words to the western world, “Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.” I wonder, will there come a day in our own life when we will stand before God unable to answer once in a thousand times and hear these words, “Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.”
Jesus was a wonderful story teller. Next comes a marvelous touch: The steward says to himself, “What will I do when the master takes the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.” Talk about limited career options!
He says, “I know what I will do. I will defraud my master. I will say to his debtors, ‘What do you owe? A hundred jugs of oil? Take your bill and write fifty” and so forth. So the debtors will be indebted to him when he is no longer steward. And Jesus says his master commended the dishonest steward, for he had acted shrewdly.
Some of our nation’s CEOs who have cooked the books and defrauded their company must at first glance take consolation in this parable. There is the line in that famous American folk song, “Some men will rob with a gun, others with a fountain pen.”
Obviously, Jesus does not commend the steward for his dishonesty. I believe Jesus commends him because, when faced with a crisis, he acts quickly and decisively to confront the situation.
The presence of Jesus causes a crisis in our life. We are forced to make a decision, a faith response. We cannot refuse to answer, for then our silence becomes our answer. If we say “yes,” then we call upon God’s love and grace made known in Jesus to be with us in both the sunshine and storms of our life. When you are caught in a storm, when it seems certain you will perish, when you are in a crisis, act as quickly and as decisively as did the steward in Jesus’ parable, in making your faith response – calling out “Jesus Christ, don’t you care that I perish?”It continues to be fashionable in some circles to ask “W W J D? – What Would Jesus Do?” Would Jesus bomb Iraq? Would Jesus drive an SUV? Would Jesus join the United Church of Christ? Well, we will never know, for Jesus is not here and not likely to come back tomorrow.
The question rather is “W W J H M D? – What Would Jesus Have Me Do?” The answer is clear in the parable of the dishonest steward: Act with faith, courage and integrity when confronted by a crisis in your own life and in the life of the world.
Two weeks ago today Della and I were in the village of Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. I had the privilege of preaching in the village church – Greenwood, a member of the United Church of Canada – fifty people in the congregation. It was for me a high privilege, for these folks with whom we have worshiped each summer for ten years felt I could be trusted in their pulpit.
Alexander Graham Bell summered in Baddeck, did many of his famous experiments there. Today there is a lovely museum in his honor. At the end of the First World War Alexander Graham Bell rang the church bell, gathered the congregation and led a service of thanksgiving.
They gave me this hymnal – Voices United – the hymn book of the United Church of Canada. This was and is and ever shall be my honorarium for preaching. Looking the hymnal over while waiting to step into the pulpit, I cam upon this hymn and thought of you and our time together this morning. I know it is not sophisticated enough for this congregation – nevertheless –
Mark doesn’t tell us what happened after the storm ceased. I bet those disciples breathed a sign of relief, maybe even laughed a little at what an incredible night it had been and what a story they would have to tell for the rest of their life. I can picture them –can you? – looking at Jesus sitting in the stern. Mark says, “They were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?’”
It is Jesus, the love of God from which no storm can ever separate us, who is in the boat with us. Do not doubt him. Trust and believe. Even now more than ever. And do not doubt your own self. Great miracles await our hands and hearts. Let us, for Christ’s sake and our own, get out of the boat and get on with it.
So friends, although the sea be wide
And though your boat be small
There’s naught to fear from time and tide
The Master’s Lord of all.Thanks be to God who seeks always to give us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let the church say, Amen and Amen.