Beau Surratt
Lectionary 12b
June 19/20, 2021
After the Storm
I have a confession to make:
I am not a boat person.
I mean, I know people who are boat people, in fact, I’ve long been surrounded by them: Jon and Steve with the Rita Marie. The Sevigs in their pontoon on the lake. My friend and mentor Bishop Bonnie in her kayak. But I’m just not a boat person.
In fact, everything I know about boats I’ve learned from the gospels.
And here’s one thing I know about boats:
If you want to be comfortable, do NOT get into a boat with Jesus.
Jesus offered a simple enough invitation…”let us go across to the other side.” Spoken so nonchalantly, like it was no big deal at all. A simple invitation to get in a boat and cross a lake. And will all those boat people around (it seems like most people ARE boat people), who wouldn’t want to take Jesus up on his offer? It sounded like a perfectly relaxing time.
Sounds like they didn’t know…
If you want to be comfortable, do NOT get into a boat with Jesus.
Even the most adventurous among us usually want to know where we’re starting from and where we’re going before heading out on a trip, so what about the disciples on their ill-fated sailing excursion with Jesus?
Well, these disciples, they’ve gotten to know Jesus, he has called them, and when God calls, some kind of change is bound to be involved. But it can sometimes be difficult to remember what it felt like to experience that initial call from Jesus- for us, that moment of baptism or confirmation or that time when whatever the next step was seemed so clear and compelling.
The disciples are starting from something of a place of comfort and maybe a bit of complacency. They’ve gotten used to life with Jesus. And Jesus has been telling them all these weird parables about seeds, trees, and lamps – parables about the mind-blowing upside down, life-changing, unexpected kin-dom of God – but they don’t realize what it is all about because they, like we, are often more than a little dense.
But perhaps they understood a bit more than I give them credit for. After all, they didn’t think to ask Jesus just what they would encounter on the other side. If they had, they would probably never have gotten into the boat in the first place.
If you want to be comfortable, do NOT get into a boat with Jesus.
“So, um, Jesus….could you tell us what’s on the other side…you know, before we get into the boat with you?”
“Well, over across the lake in the country of the Gerasenes there’s this demon-possessed dude who lives in the cemetery. And when we get there YOU are going to cast his demons into a herd of a couple of thousand pigs who will then go jump in a lake.”
No thank you, Jesus. I’ll just stay over here in my comfort zone, thank you very much.
But the disciples didn’t ask, so into the boat with Jesus they went.
Now I may not be a boat person, but I AM a storm person.
And here’s one thing I know about storms:
Nothing is ever the same after the storm has passed.
In January of 1999 an F4 tornado hit the neighborhood where my family and I lived. Our home was virtually untouched but my grandparents’ home just up the street, a house that they had built themselves, was completely destroyed.
“Do you not care that we are perishing?”
My grandparents were in their home when the storm hit, and fortunately they came out of the whole situation unscathed. In fact, in a family meeting just after the storm when my dad and his 7 siblings were trying to figure out what to do, they asked my grandfather “Well, did the roof blow off the house during the storm?” His answer: “I don’t know. It was raining too hard inside the house and I couldn’t see.”
After the storm, even though my grandparents were okay, everything had changed.
Nothing is ever the same after the storm has passed.
The home that my grandparents had made together was gone. Everything they knew was now different. My aunts and uncles had to figure out how they were going to take care of them, so their lives were changed too.
Though it felt like everything they knew had been taken away by the storm, what remained was relationship- the love and care of their family and the grace of God to pull them through. What remained was what really mattered- just the essentials.
Nothing is ever the same after the storm has passed.
Dear friends, we have already gotten into the boat with Jesus.
Jesus has said to us, “let us go over to the other side.”
What will we find when we get there? Or, better yet, what will we have helped create once we get there?
Jesus has something in store for us greater than anything we could ask for or imagine.
But let’s imagine anyway, shall we?
Imagine a world in which systemic racism has been eradicated and our siblings who are black, indigenous, and people of color have had restored to them the dignity and resources that have for far too long been denied to or taken away from them.
A world in which ALL LGBTQ+ people can live and love without fear.
A world in which each of is seen, loved, and valued in our fullness.
Here’s the thing, though…to get to that other side requires change. And as we know, significant change is among the greatest of challenges to overcome.
While we are in the boat with Jesus, while Jesus is trying to get us to the other side, some severe storms of what may seem like apocalyptic proportions are bound to come.
Some of us may find the privilege that we have lived with for so long it feels like it is part of our DNA ripped away by the storm.
Some of us may find layers of guilt and shame about who we are or who we love pulled from us – guilt and shame that feels so familiar we imagine we will perish without it.
We may find some of the things we thought were most important about church blown away by the wind of the Spirit as we seek to collaborate with our partners at Grace Place and the Lakeview Lutheran parish to more faithfully love and serve this world that God so loves.
Though it may seem like we are perishing, let us not forget that Jesus is with us in the boat. Jesus is with us, embodying the peace that the world cannot give. We, who have gotten into the boat with Jesus, we are MADE to survive this storm and once the storm has passed and everything has changed, to thrive. To thrive for the sake of the world.
Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”
He has brought us safely through the storm, safely home, safely to the other side where we find our most true selves, our mission- God’s mission for us as the Body of Christ.
After the storm has passed, nothing is the same.
Thanks be to God.