3 PENTECOST, PROPER 7, YEAR B

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY

21 JUNE 2009

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-49; Ps. 9:9-20; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41

“Let’s go across to the other side”…and he went with them in the boat “just as he was.”

The other side. Which side is which here? And why dies it matter? And what had Jesus just been up to “on that day, when evening had come?”

A side bar here: It’s important to check in our Bibles to see what happened just before a reading we’re contemplating, and then also what happens next. It’s important because it puts the reading we’re dealing with into a context so it can make more sense to us.

What Jesus had been up to at the end of that long day was a marathon teaching session. Jesus had been telling one story after another, teaching the crowds who’d gathered on the beach. And the crowds were so big that Jesus had to get into a boat and teach from there. Finally, after this very long day, Jesus is tired.  He turns to his disciples and says, “I’m exhausted. I’ve had it. Let’s go over to the other side.”

The other side? Do you know what that is? That’s enemy territory. The Decapolis. The land of aliens. The spooky place where unfriendly, suspicious, pagan folk live. 

So instead of heading on home for a meal and an early night, Jesus and his disciples head for the other side, across the lake, the sea, with a violent storm in between. And he goes just as he is, no equipment, no special preparations. I suspect that the cushion he falls asleep on is NOT a life preserver.

This is the story of Jesus’ life, isn’t it? Plunging into unpleasant, risky, even dangerous places because there is a need to go there, rather than taking the easy way out. Jesus’ whole life is one trip after another to the “other side.” Because he knows he needs to go there.

Once upon a time, when David and I lived in England, I took our first Labrador retriever, Elsa, to a dog trainer for a few sessions, to socialize her. Mr. Buckle was a retired policeman who raised German shepherds (Alsatians, as they call them over there). He was a tall, imposing man and I was not a little bit intimidated by him. (I was the one being trained, of course, not Elsa, and I loved watching him take the leash and demonstrate. I quaked whenever he put the leash into my hand and it was my turn and he watched me). We’d go with Elsa into crowded towns like Kingston, into department stores, up escalators and elevators, onto busy sidewalks, the noisier the better. And into parks.  

In the parks, Mr. Buckle would keep his eye out for other dogs, especially packs of unruly dogs, dogs unleashed, mean-looking dogs, dogs with no owner nearby, or dogs whose owners seemed to be having trouble controlling them. And rather than turn away, he would head right over to them. He plunged into potential trouble, taking Elsa with him. He crossed over to the other side, just as he was, no weapons, no Mace, right into the storm. 

Mr. Buckle dared to take risks because he knew he needed to: to train me by showing me how to protect young Elsa. Amazingly, he seemed to find the strength and the words and the gestures to use every time, in every situation. And he trusted me to do the same.

Another story. Years ago, I did my required Clinical Pastoral Education work at the Eliot Hospital in Manchester, NH. After some preliminary briefing, my group was released onto the floors we’d each been assigned to for patient visits. Our first day on the job. We went pretty much “as we were,” no special equipment, no scripts to read from.  I remember walking around and around the loop on the 6^th floor, my floor. “No, not that room……….woops, not there, that patient looks too sick………what’ll I say?...........there’s a curtain around that bed, good I can’t go in there……” I was afraid to take the plunge, afraid to risk the consequences of saying the wrong thing, afraid of the storms I might meet, afraid to cross a threshold to the other side. Paying more attention to my own fears than to the greater need of the moment.

Just as young David “ran quickly” to confront Goliath, so, too, Jesus turned the boat around at night, to cross over to the other side, whatever that might bring. And what it brought was a terrible storm at sea and once on the other side an encounter with a demoniac, shunned by everyone but Jesus.

The gospel writer, Mark, was telling this story to the young church, just getting organized after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The church was facing a dangerous opposition, a stormy time. The church has been tossed by storms ever since. Sometimes the church has crossed over to confront the storms head on; sometimes the church has chosen to shrink back in the safety of its home turf. What is true of the church is also true, I suspect, in our own individual lives and in our lives as citizens within our communities.

The church may feel swamped these days. The Episcopal Church is no exception. Our upcoming General Convention has a long agenda, as it always does every three years. Given Jesus’ call to us to remember above all the needs of the poor, the hungry, those suffering from disease of body or of mind and the threat of environmental decline, the homeless and near homeless, the victims of needless violence (isn’t most violence “needless?”), the exclusion of many, still, from the full sacramental life of the church, given all of that, how can we not to follow his voice and example, how can we not turn our boats into whatever storms face us as we boldly find ways to confront those injustices? A docile church is not “church” at all.

 I believe that Jesus, with the help of Mark the gospel writer, is showing us how to do our job, how to turn our boats around and head for the other side, that the way of the gospel is the way of the Cross. I believe that Jesus is telling us also that there will always be risk in that journey over to the side we’d maybe rather not go to. That the nice walk in the park with our dog may have to be more than a mere “walk in the park” or caring for the sick more than strolling the hallways where it is safe.  

Jesus shows us how to do our job. Jesus also tells us not to be afraid. It may appear that he is fast asleep on his cushion, and unaware of what we are going through; but we are always, don’t forget, always in the presence of him whose strength is greater than the power of any storm. Jesus trusts that his power dwells with us as well!