The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
St. James Episcopal Church
Greeneville, TN
Year B - Proper 7 - June 24, 2018
I don’t mind saying that storms can be scary things! I have a bit of storm fear left over from 1989 and the infamous Hurricane Hugo. That category 5 hurricane that made landfall at the Isle of Palms… a barrier island just off the Charleston, SC peninsula. I was living and working in Charleston at the time and I was considered “essential personnel.” So, I left when the last folks were evacuated… I was able to travel as far inland as Kingstree, not far from Columbia, and rode out the storm huddled in the center of a small house with 2 great friends.
Regardless of the 3 of us being there together, with each other, comforting each other… we were terrified… and we prayed… A LOT! At one point I think we literally felt the house lift off of its foundation and set back down…
Now, was raised on the water. I have generations of salt water in my blood. I have been through some pretty serious storms in my life… storms that came up out of nowhere. As the sky blackens and the wind picks up and the small boat we are in took on water… I’ve been through some pretty serious storms… But I the worst I have ever been through was Hurricane Hugo.
So I’m a little afraid of storms. ok… I’m A LOT afraid of storms. But that’s ok for me to say…
Not so much for our Gospel Writer, Mark. It wasn’t necessarily good for him to say… “A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat against the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.” It wasn’t good for the writer to tell us that the disciples were so worried they went to Jesus, who was asleep on the stern and woke him up… In their fear, they ask Jesus “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
They were afraid of the storm… and for professional fishermen in that day and time and culture, them fearing the storm was considered a great weakness. So great a weakness, it would have been considered dishonorable. So, by admitting their fears to Jesus,
by going to him, as he was lying there on the stern of the boat asleep, they were bringing dishonor on themselves and their teacher.
But storms can be scary and make us do irrational things. They can push us to a state of panic and fear regardless of how much we’ve prepared or thought it through. Storms can sneak up on us, as they come out of nowhere. They sneak up, and cause us to take in and understand just how powerful the forces of nature really are.
Job also finds himself in a bit of a storm this morning as he perceived that God answers him out of a whirlwind. As Job challenges God, he learns and begins to understand the might and majesty of the creator of everything that is, everything that was, and everything that will be.
Storms happen all the time. And they don’t always involve clouds, lightening, thunder and wind. Sometimes storms happen because of the events we are going through... when the chaos starts to grow and we lose control and things start spinning around us. The anxiety and fear starts to rise. It can feel like we’re being swamped, but there is no water. It can feel like were being tossed about, but there is no boat. Never the less, the storm still exists.
Mostly we experience the storms that we have no control over. Storms of violence and hatred acted out by others. Storms of injustice and oppression against those on the fringes of society. And storms are scary things - scary when we don’t know what to do, scary when we feel there is no shelter.
Jesus was on the back of a boat that was being tossed about by a violent storm. A storm that came up all of a sudden on the Sea of Galilee. A storm that I wouldn’t think would be strange to these fishermen, in a region of the world that was prone to these pop-up, violent storms.
But, regardless of how horrible the storm was, or how much it tossed the boat around, or how much these skilled seafaring men were afraid, Jesus slept! There on the back of the boat, Jesus was resting in peaceful slumber.
And when the disciples woke him up, he got up and rebuked the wind, and spoke to the sea,
PEACE, BE STILL! And the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
Maybe the storm wasn’t as bad as the disciples originally thought. Or, maybe Jesus was the only one who was not afraid. We don’t know, we weren’t there. All we know, is that Jesus of Nazareth spoke and the wind stood still, and 11 able-bodied men were trembling in fear.
Storms are scary things… they can cause us to act out, and bring dishonor to ourselves and others, but Jesus can calm storms. The lord of restoration, can make all things right. Jesus can calm storms.
We could sit here this morning and probably name thousands of storms that we’ve experienced in our lifetime. If we sit and think about the storms in our life. The ones with wind and rain and thunder, and the ones without. The ones that possibly came up over the mountain that we can see in near distance as the lightening struck and cracked. We can take cover and prepare, but we can’t always avoid the storm.
Just like the disciples in the boat who were afraid, we too follow Jesus, but it doesn’t mean that we won’t have storms in our life or that our storms are any less than anyone else’s storms. It is true that the disciples panicked when the storm arose, but they had enough faith to do something very productive – they asked Jesus to help them.
See, Worry is always useless, but prayer is always effective. I told you, when I was sitting in the middle of that house in Kingstree SC… I prayed… and I prayed HARD!
Although when we pray, we may not get what we want, but we will always get exactly what we need. Jesus can calm storms. The words spoken by Jesus in the passage this morning, even after he was accused by his disciples of not caring, were words of PEACE and STILLNESS…
Peace, Be Still! Jesus speaks peace to the violence of the storm, and stillness to the raging of the sea. Like the disciples, we are challenged in the midst of our storms to rediscover our faith in the promise of God’s calming word. Peace, Be Still. Say it with me, “Peace, Be Still.”
Peace, Be Still! it’s all we need sometimes, breathe deeply and simply say Peace, Be Still
“Peace Be Still”
Poem by Doretha Barwick
When winds of doubt are wailing
and storms on my head fall,
it's on my knees that I get down
and on my Master call.
For Jesus slept through the fierce storm
and He could calm the sea...
the winds that stopped at His command
will also stop for me.
For it is in my Jesus' name
I call when in distress,
and Jesus comes and whispers soft,
"Be still...and I will bless!"
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