“Holy Terror, Holy Faith”    

Date:  June 21, 2009

Script:  Mark 4:35-41

Revd William F. Meier    ~   First United Methodist Church, Saint Cloud, Minnesota

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It was a beautiful fall day.  High blue skies were seen through the turning leaves on the trees that hung over the river.  The plan was to hunt ducks from our canoe as we paddled or drifted with the current down the river— my father in the back steering, my brother in the middle, and me up front.  It began as a fun adventure, slowly making our way down the river…and it turned into a terror, and when I think about what could have happened so easily that morning, even now my hands begin to sweat.

It had rained heavily that fall and so the river was high.  Better than scraping bottom I thought, but the powerful waters that bore us above the sand bars held a danger I was unaware of.  When my father ascertained the reality of the danger we were in, he planned on landing the canoe and walking the rest of the way, but just then as we came around a sharp bend and then under a railroad trestle (which narrowed the waters even more and made us choose an opening before we saw the other side) we came upon a huge tree that had fallen into the river ahead of us.  The force of the high water slammed us against the branches so that, there we were— in the most vulnerable position possible in a canoe— sideways to the current and pinned in the middle of a powerful river.  One quick movement or leaning would have flipped us into the river and held us powerless against the branches…under the water.

My father calmed us with his voice, strength and wisdom, all the while assessing the situation.  Then he began to describe the slow process of how we were going to attempt an escape from this danger; grabbing the branches, we would slowly pull and inch our way around, which is what we did somehow.  A few seconds after freedom we beached the canoe in a pasture and shook with fear for some time.  That day ended with warm grateful hearts for life, my father, and home.  It could easily have ended differently.

Jesus told his friends, “Let us go across to the other side” and what he proposed was no less dangerous than what the three of us faced on that river when I was a teenager.  Jesus instructed them to cross over into gentile territory… his mission included peoples of other cultures and religious sensibilities, yet his tactic for getting that done was dangerous.  The Sea of Galilee is known for its quick rising storms (like Lake Superior) and venturing across it, especially at night or dusk, was considered foolish.  Sensible sailors either didn’t go out at all, or hugged the shoreline to be able to put in if a storm arose.  But Jesus was heading in a whole new direction.  When the storm came, the disciples did the best they could to hold it together… and Jesus is asleep!

This story is normally used to prove that Jesus is God’s son with the miracle of controlling nature.  The moral of the story comes at the end: “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”  But I sense there is more going on here than just credential or resume building miracles. 

We can see this story on an individual level— what life changing and threatening storms are you living through now, and how might God’s presence seem asleep to you.. and how might you find some peace in it?  We can look at this story for what it says to the church— the church is often depicted as a ship.  What crisis is the church facing?  What challenges call for not only some peace, but also God’s power to reach the other side?  We can look at it in terms of our society or culture— wrecked by change and storms, how can we survive and make it to another side, and what does that look like?  We can look at it in global terms— climate change is upon us world-wide in a storm that is looming… the near economic collapse…rogue states with less than rational leaders… fear that is transformed into terror tactics and policy… an environment so polluted that it that kills species, loses fertility, and poisons us.

The world is a ship in trouble on the sea and God seems to be asleep at the wheel.  The disciples learned in that wave-tossed boat the limits of their own abilities, and they learned something of God’s power in Christ Jesus when he spoke to the wind and sea.  It seems that that is part of our learning curve as humans too— we are learning that our abilities and powers have limits— we have tremendous technological abilities to split and smash atoms, genetically engineer, and sustain life artificially… but there are limits to those powers, and it seems that we need something of the sacred to help us use those technologies wisely.  Our ability to think ethically and spiritually is lagging far behind our ability to do things.  Our world is heading for an Edmund Fitzgerald moment, unless we can awaken spiritually and tap into God’s presence.

Part of the crisis of the church involves finding its course in a sea filled with other boats.  When the church is no longer the only show in town, how can it fulfill its mission?  How are we as Christians to relate to other religions without our exclusive claim to truth, God, and spiritual fulfillment?  The church is changing… no one knows that it will look like when we reach the other shore.  I mean that on our local church level, but also on a national and world-wide scale too.

So how do we understand this “crossing”? 

This time of transition for us as Christians and for the world?  Jesus says, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

One way to understand the present is to look at the past.  I’ve been reading a book titled, The Lost History of Christianity; The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia— and How it Died, by Philip Jenkins.  He describes a thousand years of a diverse church beyond the Mediterranean and European worlds— present day Iraq, Iran, India and China…all the way into the heart of Africa.  This Christian movement was larger and more advanced than some of our ancestors’ in Europe.  After Islam emerged, periods of struggles and tolerance of each other ensued, but eventually the Christian minorities were nearly eliminated.  An intense period of genocide, persecution, and forced conversions began about 1300 A.D.  This final push nearly wiped out all Christian communities in those continents, with cathedrals and churches becoming mosques. 

But Jenkins also notices that this same time period was also when Christians in Europe were becoming increasingly and intensely intolerant of Jews and other minorities.  All Jews were kicked out of England, then France… pushed all the way to Poland and Lithuania.  The Pope declared witchcraft an evil alternative religion.  The Knights Templar were arrested on false charges of devil worship, heresy and conspiracy.  Other scape-goating and violence against lepers, Jews, Muslims and other vulnerable minorities broke out at this time too.  Why this sudden world-wide intensification of violence against religious minorities?

Jenkins suggests two things: climate change and pandemics.[1]  Sound familiar?  A “Little Ice Age” emerged in much of the world, making the agriculture that produced a doubling of population during the warmer time period unsustainable; starvation, desperation, anxiety, fear, cannibalism… followed by the Black Death pandemic.  Whether it was Christian Europe or Muslim Persia, they attributed these disasters to God’s will and to blamed the heretical minorities in their midst.  And so they wiped them off the surface of the earth with violence unimaginable.

While this time of crisis we are heading into might bring about intolerance and destruction, it doesn’t have to.  In the great Axial Age of 1,000 B.C. down to the arrival of Jesus, we see an infusion of spiritual growth and understanding world-wide.  The sense of God, justice, social justice, rights of individuals and minorities, and morals all grew immensely during that time period which emerged out of horrific change and violence.[2]

In this upcoming global crossing my sense is that we have the same opportunity to reach a new shore together.  What it will take is a trust…the type of trust Jesus talked about there in the boat…a trust that God is bringing about a new thing… that our faith and life may look different to be sure, but be perhaps even more powerful and deep.  We will be threatened and fearful of this change and new thing, yet trust is what is called for.  Calmly listening to our inner conscious, the voice of Christ within, as those disciples did in the boat…as my brother and I listened to our father, we can find a way across.

Perhaps an image of this is from the movie “Gran Torino”, based upon a story by a St. Paul native.  The story revolves around an elderly man, “Walt” played by Clint Eastwood, who is living in a neighborhood that has transitioned around him from white working-class to mostly Hmong.  Through some clashes of culture he eventually sees that he has more in common with these new neighbors than with his own family, and in his gruff way begins to love and protect them. 

The story is a picture of this experiment we call America (and beyond that, the world).  How can we live together in this world community?  How do we treat the minority? How can we honor each other and still be true to ourselves?  Jesus “went across to the other side” in order to meet them, even though it was dangerous.  The ancient Prophets of Israel called us to treat the minority with respect and justice. 

In Gran Torino, Walt and his new Hmong neighbors find that ultimately, “the way across” was not violence and intolerance, but the path of self-giving…self-sacrificing love.  The final words of Walt in the movie are, “I’ve got a light.”  Peace was found in that kind of love. 

As we make our voyages “to the other side”, may the presence of Christ deep within us make us secure— quelling fear, encouraging us to self-giving and hard work, and opening our hearts to the power of God to bring that peace on the new shore that awaits.  So be it.  Amen.