Sermon Opoho Church Sunday 24 June 2018 Pentecost 5

Readings:  Job 38:1-11    Mark 4:35-41

We pray: Gracious God, open our hearts and minds to your word for us today – challenge us, encourage us, guide us in your way we pray in Jesus name.  Amen.

Asra is twelve years old.  From Syria.  Now in New Zealand.  The other side of the world – in every sense.  Old enough to remember the idyllic life of happy childhood – that was until the war came to their village.  Old enough to have nightmares still over their escape in the middle of the night – they were separated from their father for days – but they met up again in the camp.  Old enough to recognise the tension and anxiety over food, confinement, future – seeing the parents having to be so careful of what they said, so protective of the children, so worried about what might happen.  Old enough to recognise that opportunity for resettlement was both exciting and scary – not sure which was going to win.  Young enough to adapt to this new place, to accept the different ways – and old enough to sometimes be a parent to the parents who were less sure.  Old enough to have lived several lifetimes – for that is being a refugee.

I do not know what it is like being a refugee, not me who is living a settled, choice filled life – and so, imagining,  I wrote that story – wondering if in doing so I could find just some of the reality of what is the lot of so many people in our world.  In 2016, in Syria alone, the UN estimated that of the 22 million population, 11 million were displaced from their homes, either within Syria or outside.  That is just mind boggling.

While the story of Job is different, it holds much of the pain and displacement and anguish of someone torn from their home, their family, their life as they knew it.  Job was down to the bare bones, frustrated out of his relatively calm acceptance by both the silence of God and the well-meaning but not so helpful advice of his friends. He had got to the point of demanding an answer of God – and goodness did he get one – not necessarily what he expected but got one.   And his question would be our questions would be the questions of anyone whose world is suddenly turned upside down and not in a nice way.

What have I done to deserve this, what can I do to make it better?  I  don’t know if the people of other faiths have the same propensity to blame God when things go wrong or if it is our strategy alone but I imagine that any experience of extreme pain would have many people questioning the loving presence of God in their lives.  I may have mentioned to you before the story of the young woman in North Canterbury who was killed on an icy bridge in the most horrible way – for her mother the Council’s lack of gritting the road was the focus of the most immediate anger but God copped the long term blame for allowing this to happen.

When we come to the Gospel reading, the disciples who were in the boat were men who had no doubt experienced some of the worst things the Sea of Galilee could throw at them, yet they were struck by blind panic at the immensity of the storm before them.  You have to wonder at their very human response of ‘do you not care that we are going to die?’ Was it the fact that Jesus was calmly sleeping through it that got them is such a tizz?  Would they have preferred a ‘we‘re in this together’ brotherhood moment where he joined in with their anxiety?  They woke him, and they got their answer – and it also unexpected.  ‘Be still, be at peace’ he said to the wind and the sea - and the storm abated, the calm returned.  But not for long – for his next words disturbed their peace again.  Jesus points to their lack of faith as the source of their fear.  It is not exactly a comfortable place for the disciples, this response.  The NRSV says ‘they were filled with great awe’ but the KJV translates if as ‘they feared exceedingly.’

The point Jesus was making: that his authority over chaos, the source of peace and calm found within the tumult of living, comes from his living in obedient faith in God.

And the disciples are told they don’t have that faith yet – for if they did they would not be afraid!

How do we relate to this?  If we were to see our life journey metaphorically as being a journey across the Sea of Galilee with Jesus, I wonder what unsettling images might come out of our imaginations?

The perils of our journeys – yes?  We set out on a really calm looking sea, having checked the forecast, supplied the boat and thought of all the contingencies required. We pray that the sea would be calm all the way across, don’t mind a bit of rowing or bailing out but nothing to worry about.  Then somewhere on the journey, usually over the deepest part, we are aware of the fragility of this boat we are in, the things that could go wrong.  And then there are the clouds gathering on the horizon, dark, threatening, coming closer and there is nothing we can do.  Nothing.  We are no longer in control!

Yet we are in company with someone who sleeps in peace – which makes us even more frustrated.  Torn between wanting Jesus to fix it and being aware of our own vulnerability in this moment of crisis, the sudden calming of the storm at his command is uncanny and unexpected.  Who is this man who can take away the terror and restore the calm, bring peace into our hearts in the midst of life’s crises?

It is important make a distinction here.  Jesus in not saying that there is nothing to be afraid of – there is plenty to face in our lives that can cause us pain and despair, just think on those who are refugees - a loss of all that they know and hold dear, every foundation they held dear gone.  Fearsome things are very real; isolation, illness, rejection, failure, death – but Jesus is telling us that they do not and will not have the last word. The message that Jesus it trying to get across here is that the God we know is bigger than the storms of life and we can in all faith completely rest in a God who is way beyond our greatest imaginings, who has authority over the chaos of creation itself – listen to those words again from Job: 

‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
   Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
   Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
   or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
   and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?’ 

It’s the dazzling picture of the majestic panorama of God’s creation that basically stops Job’s words of complaint in his throat, renders him speechless.  This is his God in whom he trusts to hold him in the midst of all that life throws at him – he see that suddenly and is at peace.

We have some Galilee Sea moments coming up here at Opoho – and might I say in the church at large.  But let us think about here for the moment.  Much as we would like our journey to be calm, predictable, safe there are definitely stormy clouds on the horizon.  Over the next few months there will be opportunities for discussions about resourcing, energy, our place in the community, our way of being the church in this place - all have the potential to disrupt our journeys quite dramatically.  None of us know what the outcomes might be – that is something we as a congregation will pray for and discern in the Spirit, but the message I hope we can all take from today is for all of us to approach our future remembering Jesus’ words, with a sense of peace and calm for our faith is strong and deep and we will not be afraid.  Amen.

Margaret Garland