Stormy Weather

Just a few weeks ago we celebrated the 150th anniversary of this church: a century and a half of vital, energetic, faithful ministry and worship. And in just another couple of weeks we will be closing the door on that history. This is not what you expected when you first embarked on your journey with this congregation. But you’re not alone. All around the country, large churches are shrinking and small churches are closing. I personally know of two in the Twin Cities who are undergoing “discernment” about their futures, or about whether they will even have a future at all. How can this be happening? We have been faithful, to the best of our ability. Has God lost interest? Doesn’t he care that we’re in danger of sinking?

Let me take you back to Palestine, to the Sea of Galilee.

It is a freshwater lake 13.5 miles long, 7.5 miles wide, and 690 feet below sea lev-el. Because it is surrounded by steep hills, the wind rushing down them creates sudden, violent storms. Peter, Andrew, James and John would have been very well acquainted with these storms, and had probably had any number of narrow escapes during their fishing careers.

How many of you have experience in small boats? They’re a whole lot different than ocean liners, aren’t they? You can ignore just about any kind of weather on an ocean liner unless you get seasick. And if you don’t get seasick, it can even be kind of fun, the way a blizzard can be fun - if you’re inside by the fire. But small boats are something else. My brother Jeremy was a fisherman in Alaska for over 20 years; he quit about when he was approaching 50 because too many of his friends had gotten killed; seven of them went down with their boat in March of 95. Jeremy figured his time was running out. He stayed in boats - but he became a mate and then a captain on a big one instead of a hand on a small one. He could sleep at night.

I spent a fair amount of time on boats when I was young. I’ve crewed on a two-man sloop and rowed a dinghy up the harbor to visit a neighbor. I’ve even been caught out with small-craft warnings up and a broken rudder cable. But the scariest time of all was when I was 11, coming back from a picnic in Argentina. We lived on the banks of the River Parana, the longest river in Argentina, and by the time it got to where we lived it was also the widest. We were in the habit of gathering up family and friends and food on Sunday afternoons and going out to an island in the middle of the river for picnics. We had a sort of long skinny open boat called a canoa, with an outboard motor, and it held about ten people. But this Sunday, before we had finished our picnic, an unexpected storm blew up. The island we were on was very flat and sandy; I think the reason we didn’t stay there until the storm was over was that when the river was high the islands were covered. At any rate we gathered up our things and got into the boat and started back. I don’t remember being scared at the beginning. I was sort of a space cadet; you could always count on me not noticing what was going on because I was always thinking about something else. And we’d been on the river in the rain before. And my dad knew what he was doing. He grew up on Puget Sound, he was a Sea Scout, he had small boat handling papers, and besides, he was MY DAD. He knew what he was doing. So I was just fine, until I looked back during a lull in the bail-ing (we were all bailing) and he was white as a sheet and one of the other men had joined him to try to hold the tiller steady against the push of the water trying to force us downstream with the current. And then I got scared. It’s smart to be scared when your life is in danger.

Let’s look at our Scripture passage again:

...Jesus said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”