Job 38.1-11, Mark 4.35-41
Austwick, Clapham, Keasden, Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 24 June 2018
Centuries before the cross became the ubiquitous symbol of Christianity, it was the image of a boat out on the water which Jesus’ followers used as their badge of identity. With Noah and Jonah and Galilee’s bungling fishermen in mind, there are some who say that living the Christian life is a bit like travelling on a ship of fools. [1] This talk is about being on a boat with Jesus, and on the rocks with God.
Because today’s gospel story illustrates what many of us know: that if you board a boat with Jesus then things could get rocky. If we’re using the sea as a metaphor for the spiritual life then you may see yourself as one of life’s landlubbers. Happy enough to take the Yorkshire Belle out of Bridlington for an hour’s gentle cruise, but terrified if that little boat got carried out into the North Sea and started to rock in the wind and the waves. But our experience tells us that if we’re with Jesus on the Lake of Galilee of our own life, then we should expect storms.
Galilee was notorious for its storms. They came literally out of the blue with shattering and terrifying suddenness. Even on the calmest of days, terrible squalls can hit those waters without any warning. [2]
So those voyaging across that lake with Jesus would be anxious about being hit by one of those sudden storms. And of course, that boat, that lake, those storms, are metaphors about us, and the bumpy ride that we often find ourselves on, in life. We can put ourselves onto that tiny Galilean boat, into the story of that stormy day. We can put ourselves in the place of the characters on that boat, confronted by their greatest fears.
And if we see our Christian life as like being on a boat with Jesus, if we are serious about living faithfully and well as we travel with him, then we know we should expect at times to be confronted with uncomfortable truths about ourselves. This isn’t easy. On the sea of life, we may find we don’t have the stomach for it when things get rough. On the sea of life, sickly and shaken, out of our depth, if we’re on a boat with Jesus we’re bound to find we have to face our weaknesses.
And this may confront us with uncomfortable truths about God, too. Things like, when there's a crisis, when you hit a storm, finding that Jesus is asleep. You're panicking, you're fearful, you're being tossed and blown by the most awful winds of change. And though your head may tell you that Jesus is there with you, he doesn't seem to be paying you any attention. Just when you need him most, if you go looking for Jesus¹s help, you may find him sleeping.
And in those moments then it's up to you to wake him - it's up to you to be proactive in prayer. It's up to you to be insistent in intercession.
How can I wake up God? You might ask. Do I have to tiptoe around God, give a little nervous cough, in the hope that the almighty will stir and notice me waiting there? Can I shout at God, when the storm in my life is loud can I scream at God through it to get God's urgent attention? Is it ok to pray that way?
How can I argue with God? You might ask. How do I call God to account: "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
For life’s storms stir up questions for us all; if we’re on a boat with Jesus then we will probably find ourselves at times directing these questions to him:
Why is this happening to me?
Why are innocent people suffering?
If you're a God of love why all this horror?
If you're a God of order why all this chaos?
If you're so powerful why do you seem so impotent?
What does the future hold for me?
Jesus never gives straight answers; he answers with tangential words, unexpected emotions, with miracles of nature. If we’re on the Christian journey then we learn to expect to be surprised by the direction of the responses he gives us.
Look at what happened to Job, a precursor of the disciples and of us. He wasn't on a boat with Jesus, but he was on the rocks with God.
Job was in the middle of a personal crisis. A devout man, having lost his loved ones and his livelihood, aching, twitching and scarred by the most awful skin disease, Job wanted answers from God. He was a bit fearful about what God would say, but his need to know was stronger than his fears.
And sure enough, God answered Job's questions, and answered them in unexpected ways, turning Job's words around to provoke him to see life in a whole new way.
So for instance when Job says God causes mountains to fall and all sorts of chaos on the earth, God asks, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" [3], inviting Job to put himself in that wondrous moment of creation; and hear the stars and heavens singing, because of the order God has brought to creation, an order which even holds the wild seas in their place.
God wanted to assure angry, traumatised Job that every element, every creature of nature is in God’s hands - each and every one held safe and firm in his overarching divine design.
As it was for Job, on the rocks with God, so it was for those on a boat with Jesus. Jesus spoke, and calmed the storm. Overcame the evil in the wind and waves. Let the waters become the sailors' friend again, no longer their enemy. He restored order to creation. He encouraged the amazed disciples to look deep inside themselves to search for what faith they could find there, that could awaken and liberate them.
If you're on this boat with Jesus, this ship of fools, you should expect storms, and many questions. And you should expect God to turn your eyes to a new view of the world in which you are held.
The story of this little boat which Mark told, is a metaphor for our spiritual lives. But it's also something we believe happened in time and space. We mustn't forget that Jesus lived this, in the physical, because that awakens us to expect that in a mysterious way, he lives with us in the physical here and now, through all its storms and chaos. And that in his company, we can make miracles out of it.
We see this happening sometimes, don’t we - for instance, in the miracle of those people who, having been told by a consultant that they only have months to live, spend the rest of their days bringing their distant loved ones together, making right those relationships which had gone wrong, speaking those important words which had always been left unsaid, tying up loose ends - bringing order into a chaotic time.
One small detail of this gospel story which struck me reading it this time - is that it wasn’t just the one boat struck by that storm on Galilee that day: ‘other boats’ were on that lake, Mark records. Now, you may not be totally sure if you are on the boat with Jesus, you may not be convinced that you have fully signed up to the ship of fools, you may not be too certain that you are actually travelling his way. You may see yourself as being carried along by another sort of craft altogether. But if so, then hear this: when Jesus wakes to calm the storm, every traveller on the lake of life benefits, regardless.
Jesus is with you in the storms of life, as he was with those folk on Galilee that day. So, when those stormy times come, the message is: turn to Jesus, give him a nudge if you need to, and then see what he does to cause your fear go the way of the wind, to embrace faith, to find order in God’s ways, to find new freedom in being who you are in God’s creation.
NOTES
A revision of the sermon first preached at Holy Trinity, Wavertree in June 2003. More recently at Weston Bampfylde, 2015.
[1] Earlier versions of this talk began with Simon Jenkins, ‘Ship of Fools’:
what ship plays with icebergs
and plays soft music as it sinks into the ocean?
what ship on the throw of a dice
feeds a prophet to his fishy destination?
what ship breaks its spine on the rocks
and turns the waves black with lubrication?
a ship of fools
but there are fools and
those who seem to be
what ship is built on a dry highland
is launched in a downpour
and flies on watery wings to the peak of a mountain?
what ship has a crew
of taxmen thieves and fishermen
who decide in the howling storm
to make a small sleeping carpenter
their captain?
yes
a ship of fools
but there are fools and
those who only appear to be
- from Rhinocerous, Fool Books 1980. Simon's 'Ship of Fools - The Magazine of Christian Unrest' has since mutated into an award-winning website.
[2] William Barclay: The Daily Study Bible: Mark.
[3] Job 9.5-7, 38.4-7. See also Job 7.1-3, 39.1-4 and Job 9.16, 39.9-12.
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