So maybe I’ve told you this story before.
But one day, I was sitting and meditating
in the chapel of Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham Massachusetts,
waiting for the Friday noon Eucharist to begin.
Glastonbury Abbey is the Benedictine monastery
that was down the road from the first church I served.
I attended the service there every Friday.
I found that chapel to be a true refuge for myself –
away from the church that I felt so ill suited to serve –
away from the denomination I was realizing more and more
was not the place I was meant to be –
away from all the stresses of life of full time work and family and just –
life - and all its stresses.
That place was like a safe haven in the storm of life for me.
I’d be willing to bet that some of you feel that way about this place.
You come here and sit quietly – maybe the only still and quiet hour of your whole week,
you listen to the prayers and the music and the sermon,
you look at the colorful windows,
you receive communion and are fed.
What a wonderful pace changer in the midst of hectic life, right?
An oasis in the storm.
If you know that feeling, then you might know how I was feeling that day sitting there.
I was, feeling calm, peaceful, grateful, serene.
Then all of a sudden – and I mean really all of a sudden –
it got dark outside – very dark.
we could hear the wind whipping the trees outside
and we soon saw a flash of lightning.
A few seconds later there were rumbles of thunder in the distance.
My first thought was, Yay!
I love thunder storms!
How great – experiencing a thunderstorm while I’m here at the monastery.
The lightning got brighter and began to come more frequently.
The thunder got louder and louder.
I looked around at the others gathered there for the service.
As the storm got closer, we started looking at one another,
raising our eyebrows at each increasing thunderclap.
This was shaping up to be quite a storm!
I’m not sure I have the words to explain to you
how strong the storm suddenly became.
Tree branches begain slapping the roof and sides of the building.
The lightning flashes became almost constant,
the thunder began to literally shake the building.
People were clearly becoming quite unnerved.
Even me – the queen of the thunderstorm –
Even I began to feel afraid.
I’d never experienced a thunderstorm that dramatic before or since.
Then came the mother of all thunderbolts.
The lightning illuminated the chapel with unnaturally bright light –
like the transfiguration or something,
while at the very same moment a crack of thunder hit –
shaking even the ground beneath our feet –
and every one of us ducked at the same time.
It sounded like the roof had split apart.
My hair literally stood on end. Maybe the lightning had actually hit the steeple.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
That thunderclap was followed by another, then another.
It became almost solid thunderbolts
and it seemed to go on and on.
At that point, there was no hiding the fear in our eyes,
no stopping my pounding heart in my chest.
It seemed to me that any moment lightning would slice open the roof
and we would all go up in flames.
That was the moment I truly understood the phrase, “Fear of the Lord.”
A feeling of overpowering awe and respect
and absolute powerlessness –
and, like, fear.
I thought of that moment when I read this gospel this week.
I thought about how those disciples must have felt being in a storm like that –
out in the middle of the sea - and in an open boat no less. Wow!
The disciples must have faced, as I did that day in the chapel,
The presence and reality of adrenalin.
We human beings are simply wired for a certain response in dangerous situations.
I know how my body reacted to that storm.
No matter how much my mind was telling me – you love thunderstorms –
my body was in full fight or flight mode.
I certainly would have been incredibly surprised
if any of the other people with me in that chapel
were napping at that moment on a seat cushion,
and believe me they weren’t.
So I can really imagine
the disciples confusion and shock
when Jesus remained sound asleep on a pillow in the stern of the boat.
How can you be sleeping through this?
Don’t you care that we are all, like, dying here?
What is wrong with you?
And Jesus wakes up, rubs his eyes,
and turns to the wind and says, “Peace, be still.”
And then the storm just, like stops.
It became dead calm.
Then he turns to them and says, “Why are you afraid? Where’s your faith?”
And then maybe he yawned and lay back down again,
leaving the disciples with their mouths hanging open
and asking who IS this guy?
Oh My God! Literally!
Those disciples had read Job 38.
They had read psalm 107.
They knew that God was a cosmically powerful God.
Just who is this guy in our boat?
The thing for Christians about having Jesus
is that he helps us approach God – to get closer to God.
He makes it so that the Christian God is a both/and God –
both the transcendent and immanent, to use theological language.
God is at once the (Aladdin voice) omniscient, omnipresent, all powerful,
lightning bolt striking creator of the cosmos
that inspires overwhelming awe and respect
(that’s what theologians call the transcendence of God)
and God is at the same time also
right here in the same boat with us
even when the storms of life strike
(what theologians call the immanence of God).
Christians have a vertical relationship with the transcendent aspects of God –
the god we can never understand or even approach,
and a horizontal relationship with the immanent aspects of God –
the God with skin, the spirit of the living God,
the God who is as close as our very own breath.
And it is Jesus that is at the intersection of that cross –
he is the image of the invisible God
in his own person.
Sticking close to Jesus keeps us from leaning too far either way
and getting out of balance –
either always thinking God is mighty and distant
and only concerned with judging us –
or thinking that God, as Nadia Bolz Weber says,
is your best buddy and life coach
that hooks you up with sweet parking spaces.
God, for us, is both fully awesome
and fully intimate.
God, for us,
is both fully divine and fully human.
Until that that day of the storm in the Glastonbury Abbey,
I think I had perhaps made God so personal and familiar
that I no longer touched the mystery and mastery of God’s powerful holiness.
I had lost a sense of awe in God’s power.
God reminded me of that aspect of God’s self
in a very visceral way that day.
And it happened in my church.
In the place where I usually felt safe and secure
and all chummy with my personal, immanent God.
The church, which had become kind of like my personal pleasure craft –
a platform boat where for an hour I could enjoy some crackers and wine with friends.
That pleasure craft suddenly became a life raft
that saved me from what felt like certain death.
And I was reminded that the church is not about just being a pleasure craft,
no matter how much pleasure I get from being in church –
which I do.
The church’s most important role list to be a life boat
in good times and bad –
A life boat that saves us from ourselves.
A life boat for us and for the world.
So this gospel story today, prompts us, along with the disciples,
To ask some very important theological questions, like,
who IS this guy Jesus?
He doesn’t get all fight or flight like the rest of us do
and he can stop a storm with just a word.
Yet he’s right here in the boat with us,
putting his own life in peril to show us the way.
And what IS this place? The church?
This boat we’re all together in
here in the middle of life’s ocean?
Why do we come here? Why do we need it?
Why does the world need it?
Take a few moments now to think about who Jesus is to you. What the church is to you. In
what ways have they saved your life? Turn to a neighbor and share.
Let us pray:
Dear God, you are as awesome and powerful as a thunderstorm, yet as vulnerable and weak as
an infant in a manger. Open our eyes and awaken our hearts to the unpredictable, surprising,
and downright unsettling character of your grace and mercy. Shake us to the core with your
radical love, even when we think we don’t want it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.