Christ Church Sermon 20th February 2022 – Genesis 2.4b-9, 15-25 & Luke 8.22-25
It's been a while since I posted a sermon on here, I lost confidence for some reason. But I was recently encouraged to start again, and so here is this week's sermon. Do read the passages first if you can, and let me know if you'd appreciate an audible version.
Isn't it satisfying when we open the pages of the Bible, and hear a story that speaks directly to modern day life? I don't know whether this is God's sense of humour pervading into our worship, but it certainly helped me get a feel for the disciples experience as I pondered and wrote this sermon.
We know that some of the disciples were fishermen, they would have been used to bad weather. But this wasn't just bad weather, this was Met office red warning, risk to life weather. The boat filled with water and they were in danger. There was nothing that could be done by the most experienced of human hands.
Whether the disciples woke Jesus because another pair of hands to bail water out would help, or that they thought that perhaps he could do something, we don't know. Jesus is woken to the sound of shouting disciples and wind whipping around him, and peeling his eyes open he sees the towering waves. In what must have felt like a lifetime to the disciples, he stands, he rebukes the wind and the raging waves. They ceased and all was calm.
I don't suppose that the winds and the waves around them were the only winds and waves supernaturally calmed in that moment – I expect that each of the disciples had winds and waves going on in their bodies, their minds and their spirits. I know that that will be a feeling familiar for all of us – perhaps we've had moments like that just this week, perhaps our lives feel like one storm after another. I don't think that Jesus' question to the disciples would be something I would want to hear in crisis – 'where is your faith?' The disciples are scared, the ones who know what they're doing think they're going to die, they are in panic mode. Jesus calms the storm, turns to them, and asks: where is your faith?
Now here in my sermon, I told an anecdote about my time as a camp leader, but it wouldn't be appropriate to share the story here for confidentiality. The long and the short of the story is that I was in 'panic mode' trying to deal with a tricky situation. It resolved, by luck, by chance, out of nowhere and....
Another leader looked at me and said 'I don't know why we think God won't do what we ask' and I, slightly shell-shocked, said 'I didn't ask'.
So where was my faith? It had gone out of the window. And as I have reflected on that event, I have realised that God taught me that day the same thing that Jesus taught his disciples on the day of the storm.
Each of us has been blessed with a myriad of gifts and skills, and these things, often the ones most used, closest to hand are the things we look to to help us in times of crisis. That's okay – did you notice that Jesus calmed the storm first, and then challenged the disciples? He didn't wait for them to conjure up enough faith before he calmed it, he met their human need, their vulnerability. What I forget, and what the disciples forgot, is that the most powerful gift we have is that of prayer. God loves to hear from us, to rest with us, to weep with us.
Sometimes the crises, the storms of this life, are big. They don't just send wheelie bins spinning down the road, but they uproot trees and peel roofs back as easily as if they were a tin of beans. We do what we can in those moments – sometimes we scrabble to hold it all together, sometimes we just sit on the floor surrounded by the debris. Each of those moments are moments for prayer: sometimes the traditional hands together, eyes closed, sometimes the kind of prayer that shouts, that shakes, that makes us certain that if God wasn't awake to our situation, God must be now. God is with us.
In fact, God is within us. The same wind that rested on the waters at the creation of the world, is the spirit that is breathed into Adam's lungs, it is the life of you and I and all those around us. The very essence of our being reveals the goodness of God, the presence of God. God is with us as surely as our breathing. Instead of a wind that threatens to kill and destroy like the storm in Luke, like the storms this week, it is a gentle breath of life that abides in us.
I want to close with some words from a poem by Amena Brown. It's taken from a book edited by Sarah Bessey, called 'A Rhythm of Prayer' and Amena's poem is called 'How do you know when you're hearing from God?' Her poem is a response to that question, and at the end, she says:
'I want to tell her
that sometimes the best thing we can do is put our hands in the middle of our chest,
feel the rhythm there,
turn down the noise, in our minds, in our lives,
and whisper,
God
whatever you want to say
I'm here
I'm listening.'
To close today, I'm going to ask you to do something with me. Please bear with me: the first time someone tried to lead me in this, I was less than impressed, however, it's a prayer that I have found extremely helpful in many situations.
It focuses in on our breath, it encourages us to feel the rhythm of life within us, God's presence in our lives as central to our being.
So, I encourage you: get settled, some people find two feet flat on the floor helpful, others don't. Whatever is comfy for you. Close your eyes if you want, and place your hand on your chest. Notice it rise and fall as you breathe. Take a few deep breaths.
As you inhale, pray: Be still //
As you exhale, pray: and know that I am God. //
Pray it through a few times, and then Amen.
