A sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost
A sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost,
June 21, 2009
by The Reverend Diana Carroll
In the name of God, the holy and undivided Trinity. Amen.
Well, I have to say that this morning’s gospel reading seems especially appropriate considering the weather that we’ve been having for the past few weeks. It almost seems as though all of the wind and rain has been building up to this moment! I know it’s pretty calm out there right now, but at one point there was a storm forecast for this morning, and I was really hoping it would start to thunder and lightning during the service, just to provide a sort of dramatic backdrop for the sermon. No such luck, I guess.
We have certainly had our fair share of storms recently. Just walking down the street in one of them, one can begin to feel a little bit like the disciples with waves beating against the boat. But a storm in the city is one thing. A storm out on a lake is a completely different matter. And that is where the disciples find themselves in today’s gospel. Not just being soaked by the rain or inconvenienced a little, but fighting for their lives against waves that threaten to overwhelm them completely.
Maybe the weather has had something to do with it, but I have felt a little overwhelmed myself this week. I could certainly identify with the disciples as I came back from England on Monday and found myself having to catch up from jet lag and from being away. Looking ahead to these next few weeks is also a bit overwhelming. Alan will be going on vacation soon and yes, he’s leaving me in charge! Talk about overwhelming!
At the same time, I’ve entered the home stretch for wedding planning—a process that is complicated slightly by the fact that I’m here in Philadelphia, the ceremony is in New Haven,
and my partner is in England. As I’m finding out, good and joyful things, like weddings, can often be overwhelming, too!
Even looking at the readings for this morning felt overwhelming at first. So many possibilities! So many potential topics to preach about! These texts are full of great stories and images. Here we have the Israelite armies cowering before the giant warrior Goliath, and the courageous (or possibly foolhardy) boy David boldly going out to face him in single combat. The disciples battling against the storm and Jesus telling the waves to be still. There are those beautiful verses at the end of the epistle, when Paul appeals to the Corinthians to “open wide your hearts also.”
And there is that great moment, which I think is one of the funniest stories in the bible, when Saul dresses David in his own armor and David can’t even walk with it on. With all of those great options, how could I possibly choose just one? It was kind of, well, overwhelming.
We all know what it is like to be overwhelmed, to feel like the disciples in their little boat or like David going out to face Goliath. We all have times in our lives when it seems as though we are being swamped, and we find ourselves out on a lake with the waves crashing into us, or staring a giant in the face with only a stick and sling in our hands.
Sometimes it is the events around us that seem overwhelming, and sometimes it is our own perceptions and feelings about those events. I received an email from a parishioner this week in which he apologized that he had not been able to accomplish a particular task he’d been asked to do. He said that he was simply swamped with all of his other responsibilities and would not be able to get it done. The task itself was not large, but I could tell from the email that it had started to feel like this was one thing too many. It was that one last wave threatening to overwhelm his boat and send it under.
And as if our personal storms and giants aren’t enough, there is usually more than enough going on in the wider world to make us feel extra overwhelmed. The threat of an escalating conflict with North Korea. The storm brewing in Iran as thousands of people protest the outcome of the recent election. The ongoing effects of the global recession. And, although it has turned out milder than expected for the time being, the illness and disruption being caused by the virus formerly known as swine flu. All of it can seem very overwhelming.
Feeling overwhelmed is an inevitable part of being alive. As Christians, we are not immune from that experience, despite what some may claim. We are not guaranteed calm seas and smooth sailing when we choose to follow Jesus. In fact, following Jesus will quite often lead us directly into the storm, directly into confrontation with those things that make us afraid and that threaten to overwhelm us. After all, it was Jesus himself who suggested to the disciples that they should cross the lake that night. He’s the one who got them into the storm in the first place. Jesus does not promise us a life without storms and giants. Julian of Norwich once wrote: “He said not ‘Thou shalt not be tempested, thou shalt not be travailed, thou shalt not be dis-eased’; but he said, ‘Thou shalt not be overcome.’”
This is the message of our readings this morning: that we will not be overcome. God is bigger than the storms and the giants that we face. God is bigger than the chaos, bigger than the insecurity, and bigger than our feelings of being overwhelmed. Sometimes, it may feel as though God is asleep in the back of the boat, oblivious to the danger that we are in. We may want to shout, in fact we may actually shout: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” “Do you not care that I am perishing?” But even in those moments, God does not abandon us to the wind and the waves, or to the situations and people who seem so much more powerful than we are.
In a recent issue of “The Christian Century,” pastor and poet Kate Layzer wrote: “[Jesus] speaks to the storm and utters that word of power spoken over the waters from the beginning. He speaks, and the eternal word is present—greater than the wind and the waves, greater than our fear of conflict, greater than our drive for power and domination, greater than sin, greater than death. His is the word that is able to bring peace where peace seems out of the question.”
God speaks that word of peace to each one of us, and whatever our storm might look like today,
whatever giant we may be facing, we will not be overcome.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
