Sermon Notes for June 25th

June 25, 2006
“Peace! Be Still!”
Mark 4:35-41

1. Unlike my Viking ancestors, the Israelites were not seafaring people. They were people of the land and the desert. In short, they often feared the sea and its depths. They associated God with the earth and with land -- solid ground.

To the ancient Jews water was thought to be the domain of
Leviathan or even Satan. It was chaotic and under the sway of demons. Let us think no further than the famous flood in the days of Noah – a frightening thing, no doubt. And, then, of course there was Jonah, who was swallowed up by a whale. Ancient stories full of fear of nature and particularly the ocean.

Perhaps this was true of other ancient people as well. Such as the Greeks who knew that, like life, the sea could be a precarious place. In Homer’s Odyssey, the Glorious Odysseus sets sail on a balmy day … with fair winds, watching the stars for direction. But after seventeen days, the gods decide to give him some trouble. And a great storm is let loose, the seas rise, and he is in peril. Odysseus becomes fearful and cries out, “Oh unhappy, me! What is going to happen?” And that is only the beginning!

2. In these days of air travel, few of us go out on the water, unless it
is for recreational purposes. So, we forget what an adventure it was to go out in a boat or to earn a living by fishing – things like that.

And so it is with great curiosity that many people went to see the popular movie Titanic … which sank so many years ago and captivated the imaginations of people throughout the world.

Even its name, “Titanic” seems too good to be true. A metaphorical name derived from Greek mythology – literally the Titans – a race of giant gods – implying someone or something of great strength, power, and size.

But of course, it sank after hitting an ice berg in the north Atlantic partly due to the arrogance of the captain who felt that his shop was un-sinkable.

And, although we do not believe in fate or the power of Greek gods to interfere in our mortal lives … the Greeks would, no doubt have understood, for it was they would invented the word “hubris” – which means arrogance resulting from excessive pride or passion. Had the captain been more humble, one might think, he would have taken greater precautions.

3. Well, the disciples in the Gospel story for today were certainly not too arrogant about things as they, too, found themselves in the midst of a storm on Lake Galilee. They were scared stiff.

This must have been a quite widely told account in the early church. And it quite closely parallels the other story of Jesus walking across the water and also calming the wind in Mark, chapter six. The first story occurs in Mathew, Mark and Luke, (but not John) and the second story is in Mathew, Mark, and John (but not Luke).

Here is the account in John of Jesus on the water:

16-21In the evening his disciples went down to the sea, got in the boat, and headed back across the water to Capernaum. It had grown quite dark and Jesus had not yet returned. A huge wind blew up, churning the sea. They were maybe three or four miles out when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, quite near the boat. They were scared senseless, but he reassured them, "It's me. It's all right. Don't be afraid." So they took him on board. In no time they reached land—the exact spot they were headed to.

4. Many people have tried to make sense out of these stories.

We can basically take them on two levels.

The first is the more literal level … which implies that Jesus (or God) has power of nature. Jesus (or God) speaks and the sea is calmed. This is a more primitive way of looking at things. In ancient times, people feared the elements, particularly the sea. And they believed, or wanted to believe, that God or the gods had the power to alter the wind and storms (as in the Odyssey, where it is the Gods who cook up the storm).

We all have perhaps been in that situation. It’s a bit superstitious but sometimes it works.

5. The other day I was talking to someone who was describing being on an airplane flying out of Bemidji and looking over and noticing that a well known local minister was also on the plane and thinking to herself, “I know things are going to be okay.”

It’s a little different, of course, if you happen to the minister, I suppose!

Once I was flying back from New York with a good friend who was a Lutheran minister. Suddenly, we were in the midst of a huge thunderstorm over Wisconsin. The plane was bouncing around, there was thunder and lightening, and we were getting white knuckles holding on to our seats.

Finally, at one point, I turned to him and said, “I’m glad there is a clergyman on this plane!” And he smiled and said to me, “I was thinking the same thing!”

6. The only problem, however, with the literal approach is that it doesn’t always work. God does not intervene in preventing natural disasters such as the recent Tsunami and the hurricane in Louisiana.

More likely, and this is now being done, the answer to tsunamis is to have better early warning devices and there are things that can be done to deal with hurricanes, as well. Human error, like in the case of the Titanic, is more apt to be to blame than God or the gods.

And the truth is that Ministers, too, are not necessarily immune from injury or accidents. I can give you plenty of examples.


And besides, we need to be careful when we attribute to God the will to cause damage and loss of life as a response to what we believe is sin or wrongdoing. Lastly, if Jesus has the power to restrain a storm, how does that work in our life?

7. Which leads us then to the second interpretation which is that
The peace which Jesus brings is not so much literal … but spiritual. William Barclay points out that Jesus brings peace in the midst of the storm of sorrow; he brings peace when life’s problems cause doubt, uncertainty, and tension; And he brings peace in the face of anxiety and fear.

Perhaps this makes more sense to us in the more modern world where we tend not to see God controlling natural events.

And this is a valid viewpoint. Yet, we must be careful, as in all scriptural accounts, not to push it beyond reasonable conclusions.

One pastor writes about how he “flinches at stories of people killed when tornadoes are tearing off the church roof or hurricanes are flooding their houses – even as they pray for Jesus to rebuke the wind and the waves. He doesn’t. They die, why they shouldn’t have been afraid.

And at the same time he says,

“I don’t like this “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?’ business. Of course Jesus’ disciples are afraid!”

8. We have to be careful, then, not to imply to others, or even ourselves that we can or will always be strong enough to remain calm in the midst of a crisis.

It’s like when you complain to your friend about something … and they cut you off by telling you to “just be patient.”

And, yet, people do find peace in the midst of trouble. People do somehow reach down deep somewhere and find the courage to face up to trouble in their lives. It happens.
This same rather cynical pastor goes on to tell about a woman whose husband had recently died after suffering many years with a stroke … and people asked her “how did you keep on going.” And she said, “I didn’t know either,” but somehow, once the time came, she explained that she had experienced something “from beyond” in her Christian faith which gave her the strength to sail in peace through even that sea of troubles. “It was a miracle,” he writes.

9. Now every time this Gospel story comes up in the lectionary, I have to retell the account of Charles Albert Tindley. Rev. Tindley is someone whose name is hardly remembered. But, what he did, you will all recognize, in a moment. It’s a great story.

Charles Albert Tindley was one of the earliest and most influential writers of gospel music. His two most popular songs are "I'll Overcome Someday" (which is popularly know as "We Shall Overcome", the anthem for the civil rights movement) and "Stand By Me." "Stand By Me" became a national hit when Ben E. King and the Drifters sang their version during the 1960's.

Charles Tindley was born in Berlin, Md. As a child, he never received any formal schooling. In fact, he taught himself to read and write. He married Daisy Henry around the age of seventeen then moved to Philadelphia to make a better life for both of them. In Philadelphia, Tindley worked as a hod carrier and a sexton in John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. He wanted to become a minister but lacked a formal education.

10. How could this poor young black man earn enough money to take care of his family and get an education? Well, Tindley took correspondence classes so that he could keep his job and support his family. The classes he took enabled him to pass his examination to become a minister. Afterwards, he pastored congregations in New Jersey and Delaware. In Wilmington, Delaware, Tindley was appointed elder of the Wilmington District. Then a wonderful thing happened! Tindley was asked to become the minister of the church he had been a sexton when he first moved to Philadelphia!

He accepted becoming the new minister of Bainbridge St. Methodist Church, as the church was now called. Starting with 200 members, Tindley used his intellectual ability, eloquence, and spiritual singing to amass a congregation of over ten-thousand members. During this time he worked for civil rights, took care of Philadelphia’s poor and disadvantaged and wrote over forty-five hymns. Tindley died in 1933 at the age of 82.

11. What a remarkable story … of one man’s faith and ability of overcome difficulty and to share his life with so many people
And so we marvel, not just at how Jesus calmed the waters, but at how many times it does happen in peoples lives that there comes, in the midst of trouble, a peace from beyond us somehow, that transforms us, strengthens us, and helps us to deal with life and all its problems.

So, rather than talk about it, let’s end this sermon today by singing about it … as only a black gospel song can do …

Let’s turn in the Red Hymnal … to Page 512 … one of my favorites … STAND BY ME …

And pay attention … to the words … what is it that this song is about … its about

1. THE STORMS OF LIFE
2. ITS ABOUT TRIBULATION – TROUBLE
3. ITS ABOUT OUR FAULTS AND FAILURES AND BEING MISUNDERSTOOD
4. ITS ABOUT PERSECUTION AND TRIALS
5. AND ITS ABOUT GETTING OLDER, AND ILLNESS

Can we all relate to this? And who are we asking to stand beside us ...

Let’s sing it now.

Sermon Notes for June 18th

June 18, 2006
Mark 4:26-34
”When the Grain is Ripe”

1. Tell about trip to England and Westminster Abbey where all the kings and queens are buried.

My English friends, the Careys, have always been a little poo-poo about the Royalty. They think is all a side show.

But, Mrs. Carey is warming up to Camilla. She has the common
Touch.

But of course Kings and Queens went out of business in America. In fact,
The whole Revolutionary War was all about getting rid of the Monarchy – Mad King George and all that.

The Founding Fathers were inspired by the ideas of the enlightenment and wanted to create a country that would not
allow any one person to have all that much power.

In short, in America there would be no king. And without a king there is also No Kingdom.

2. Today, although we do have Presidential libraries around the country, there is no Westminster Abbey where the bones of all
the Kings and Queens are buried. (It’s like a cemetery above ground.)

So, the whole idea of Kingdoms and Royalty is foreign to us now in the 21st Century.

In fact the whole idea of kings and kingdoms is becoming a word that is going out of use. For when we think of kingdoms is sounds a little like a fairy tale world. And in addition, Kingdoms often evoke images of mail chauvinism, imperialism, domination, and Emperors like Caesar -- which clash with newer concepts like freedom, liberation, individual rights and many other things we cherish today.


I have always had a problem, therefore, when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. What does that mean in today’s world?

3. Well, a very popular church renewal author, Brian McLaren, takes up this case in an recent article in Sojourners magazine.

McLaren is particularly known for being involved in the emerging church movement which is trying to reach out to the unchurched in America and he says that when we in the church talk about “God’s Kingdom” it falls short of creating much excitement with many people today.

In short, we in the church sound out of date talking about something which sounds “churchy” doesn’t resonate with todays world.

In fact, McLaren says that if Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t
Use the language of kingdom at all.

So, what then?

4. McLaren comes up with a plethora of possibilities, some good, some not so good:

The dream of God – which is kind of like “the will of God” or
“God’s wish.”

The Revolution of God – this is more of a social justice concept in that it seeks to overthrow the powerful forces which enslave us such as fear, illness, oppression, death.

The Mission of God – which means “to be sent.” More like a calling. As Christians were are called to serve not merely to be subjects of a King.

The Party of God - as in the banquet to which we are all invited.
For this is kind of the sense of communion.

The Network of God - where we are all interconnected in our common faith.

The Dance of God – a dynamic relationship which is creative and not static.

5. Well, it’s interesting. But nothing quite works as well as the Kingdom of God.

One person responded to McLaren by saying that one of the problems people may have in America with the idea of Kingdom is that as free democratic people we don’t like to have anyone telling us what to do – right? We don’t like the idea of having to obey someone. And yet, he points out that Jesus does call one us to obey, to trust, and to serve. In short, the Kingdom of God is not just a free ride where we can do anything we want and God will bless it.

So there has to be a balance in the idea of God’s Kingdom between the power domination theme of an autocratic ruler on the one hand and a God who is rather wishy washy on the other.

Well, it is just hard to come up with a better metaphor than the kingdom of God, I guess. So, no matter how we try to describe it … the question remains one of what kind of God is God and what is his “kingdom” all about?

6. With that in mind let us take a look at today’s scripture reading about Parable of the Mustard Seed

30Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? 31It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. 32Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

Now like most parables there are many layers of meaning and many possible interpretations. I am going to just elaborate on one or two ideas (or we could be here all morning!).

7. First, some background. Most nations would like to believe that they are invincible … isn’t that right?
Therefore, to maintain some level of pride and confidence, leaders must show progress, win battles, over come obstacles … so the people will be strong – or so we think. And all nations have certain beliefs about themselves which are kind of mythical statements. Like believing that we are “the leader of the free world” back when we were in conflict with communism. We were “free” – they were not.
Now a myth is often what holds people's lives together. Groups, communities, nations all must have myths. Myths are a necessary attempt to resolve the tensions of everyday life by promising an idealized future in which we will be rescued from all the problems of ordinary life. However, when a myth begins to falter, great leaders may try to find ways to recapture the glory of earlier days, like John F. Kennedy's effort to rekindle the American dream by sending a man to the moon. American astronauts did go to the moon, but meanwhile the Vietnam war devastated the prestige of American invincibility and with it the American dream. In some ways, we are still suffering from the Viet Nam War – even today.

8. Well, the same was true of Israel in the time of Jesus. What had happened was that for the Israelites of Jesus' time, the tension between everyday reality and their mythical vision of Israel as God's chosen people was felt with particular urgency. From the heyday of national power and prestige during the reigns of King David and King Solomon, Israel had been on a downhill slide for several centuries, its kingdom conquered and divided several times over. Now if one lives in occupied territories, as the Israelites of Jesus' time did, the question naturally arises, "Is this ghastly oppression by the Romans a punishment from God, or is our suffering just part of the human condition?" So, we can see that in the particular myth in which the people of first-century Israel were living, the Kingdom of God had specific connotations of power, triumph, holiness, and goodness.
The kingdom, when it came, the Israelites believed, would introduce a glorious new age of universal peace, with God's chosen people at the head of the nations. That was their understanding of the Kingdom of God.

9. Instead, Jesus proposed this parable, "What is the kingdom of God really like? It is like a mustard seed"--proverbially the smallest and most insignificant of all seeds--"that someone took and sowed in his garden." For an alert hearer of Jesus' day, the detail about the garden would be a tip-off. In the Jewish view of the world, order was identified with holiness and disorder with uncleanness. Hence there were very strict rules about what could be planted in a household garden. The rabbinical law of diverse kinds ruled that one could not mix certain plants in the same garden. A mustard plant was forbidden in a household garden because it was fast spreading and would tend to invade the veggies. In stating that this man planted a mustard seed in his garden, the hearers are alerted to the fact that he was doing something illegal. An unclean image thus becomes the starting point for Jesus' vision of the kingdom of God in this parable.

For, if the starting point of the parable is an unclean image, the rest of the parable becomes even more perplexing. What do we know about a mustard seed, botanically speaking? It is a common, fast-spreading plant, which grows to about four feet in height. It puts out a few branches, and with some stretch of the imagination, birds might build a few down-at-the-heel nests in its shade. Not exactly a powerful image.

Steeped in their cultural images of the great cedar of Lebanon, the hearers would be expecting the mustard seed, Jesus' symbol of the kingdom, to grow into a mighty apocalyptic tree. Jesus' point is exactly the opposite. It just becomes a bush. Thus the image of the kingdom of God as a towering cedar of Lebanon is explicitly ridiculed. According to Jesus, the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which some man illegally planted in his garden. It became a shrub and a few birds nested in its modest branches. That's all. The parable subverts all the grandiose ideas about what the kingdom is going to be like when it finally arrives.

10. In other words, Jesus idea of the Kingdom of God is not what they expected. In fact, far from it. Jesus is saying “don”t wait for God in some distant future which may not happen at all. Stop, look around, God is at work in the world right now. In large and small ways. God is here right now. Right now, today.
What then are we to do?

Father Thomas Keating, a well known Catholic spiritual teacher has this to say…
If we are looking for a great expansion of our particular religion, nation, ethnic group, social movement, or whatever, into some great visible organization that fills the earth, we are on the wrong track. This is not God's idea of success. Where are the mightiest works of the kingdom accomplished? in our attitudes and hence in secret. Where there is charity, there is God. Opportunities to work for the homeless, the starving, the aging, are all readily available. No one may notice our good deeds, including ourselves. The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God, not great external accomplishments.

To paraphrase this parable we might say…

"To what shall I liken the kingdom of God?" Jesus asked. The kingdom is manifested in ordinary daily life and how we live it. Can we accept the God of everyday life? If we can, then we can enjoy the kingdom here and now, without having to wait for an apocalypse, the end of the world or someone powerful Messiah to deliver us from our difficulties.

11. Well, you know I don’t tell parables myself, but I do tell stories.
Let me try to illustrate Father Keating’s and Jesus’s teacher with a story about some friends of mine (and myself)

In brief, I had two friends and one of them was going with this girl. But, they broke up. And she started going with the other guy!

It was a mess. And they couldn’t move out until the end of the term. Eventually, the first guy started falling behind in his studies. He was getting into real trouble. So, what to do, I thought. I need to get him out of there, somehow.
What I ending up doing was to take took him with me to the library every night to get him out of the dorm and to get him to study. It worked and he was able to get his grades up by the end of the term. Then, I moved in with him and the other guy moved out. Years later, he said, “you saved me from flunking out of school.” I said, “gee, I don’t even remember it” – and I didn’t.

It was a small thing. I wasn’t trying to be hero. I was just reaching out to try to get him to survive. And besides, I needed to get my grades up, too.

A small thing … an insignificant thing … a small seed which turned out in the long run to be a great big bush! That is what the Kingdom of God is all about.
Amen