The story of Jesus calming the storm always reminds me of a supervision session I had with my supervisor during Clinical Pastoral Education. Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE is like a chaplaincy internship, giving students practice offering pastoral care on a regular basis. In addition to our work as chaplains, part of the program was a weekly one hour meeting with our supervisor to talk through our visits to patients and evaluated how we could improve. In this particular supervisory session, after I finished sharing with my supervisor a conversation I’d had, I stopped talking, waiting for him to respond. Only, he didn’t respond. After a few long moments had passed I confess I got frustrated. I thought, OK, apparently we’re playing the silent game. I can handle this, I will not be the next to talk. So I didn’t. We sat in total silence for two minutes and forty-seven seconds. There was a clock behind his head; I timed it. Him thinking about whatever he was thinking about, me stubbornly refusing to be the next to speak. Finally he broke the silence. To put this in context, it is helpful to know that my supervisor was an avid fisherman. So a lot of his anecdotes were fishing analogies.
“Ah that was good,” he said, with a look of serene satisfaction on his face. “I felt like when you were telling me that story, I got to be in your boat with you for a while and paddle around, see what things look like from your perspective. It was helpful to be in your boat to understand better where you were coming from. And then, in the silence, I felt like we each got back in our own boats for a while and paddled around and reflected on our time together in the one boat, and, you know, that was good too.” I nodded, because what else do you do when the guy who writes your end of term review is rambling on about boats, but in my head I’m thinking, what in the world are you talking about? Because here’s the thing. I don’t really even like boats all that much; I get motion sick pretty easily. The way I understood our relationship, I told a story, his job was to give me feedback, that’s all I was really looking for. Sometimes, a boat is just a boat. [Pause]
Sometimes a boat is just a boat. In our Gospel reading for this morning, we find Jesus and his disciples standing on the edge of the sea in the evening time. Before we get into the meat of the story, let’s remember some facts about first century Palestine and the sea. The sea, remember, is terrifying. The sea is vast and wide and uncontrollable, filled with monsters like the leviathan. The sea in Biblical times is the very essence of chaos, disorder, and destruction. To enter the sea was to take one’s life in one’s hands. Which, as fishermen, the disciples would have done every day for their livelihood, but they would have done every day knowing the perils that awaited them, the very real chance that they may not return. This is also, of course, a time before GPS and electricity. So to enter into the sea at night, was to enter into a place of total darkness, total sensory deprivation. Maybe it was a clear night; maybe there were stars when they started out. But if a storm was to blow in, which, of course, we know one does, the clouds would block what little light there was, leaving no way of separating the sea from the sky.
Then Jesus said, “Let us go across to the other side.” So they got in a boat and went out onto the sea. Why would they do that? Why would they get in a boat and go into the sea? Was it because the boat was a great salvation from the terrors of the waves? Was the boat a metaphor for something? Was the boat a life lesson in how to trust? I don’t think so. I think they got in the boat because they needed to be on the other side of the sea, and a boat was the only way to get there. Sometimes, a boat is just a boat.
So they got in the boat and went out onto the sea. And Jesus went to sleep. This seems a little weird, but it was, I suppose, nighttime. While he was sleeping, a huge storm blew up. And the boat was being ravaged by the wind and the waves, and the disciples were yelling, and Jesus was just sleeping away. So they woke him up and they were like, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing!” This boat is going to sink, Jesus. And I know this doesn’t seem like a problem to you, but it is kind of a problem to us, and let’s see if we can’t get to the bottom of the storm, before we end up at the bottom of the sea. So Jesus got up and said, “Peace! Be still!” And the storm stopped. And here too is where we want to stop. We want to stop, or I should say, as a preacher I want to stop, and say, hey, look, Jesus calms the storms. Just let Jesus into your boat, and when storms rage, you can call out to Jesus, and he will calm the storms, and it will all be ok. But guess what, you know and I know that this is a nice thing to preach, but it doesn’t match up with the world we live in. Because sometimes Jesus is in our boat and we are calling out, and the storm is still raging. Faith, prayer, calling out to Jesus is not some magic good luck charm that makes storms go away. On any other week a sermon about how Jesus promises to calm storms would be trite and untrue, any of you who have grappled with illness or pain or grief or prejudice know this already. You know that sometimes we cry out and we don’t get answers. On any other week I would struggle to preach those words to you, knowing them to be hollow. But this week. This week when nine people were shot and killed in South Carolina, in a church, in Bible study, for the crime of being black, this week, preaching such weak words as Jesus calms the storms feels not just hollow but dangerous. If our black brothers and sisters are not safe even in their churches from the storms of racism and prejudice, storms that I in my privilege have contributed to brewing, to preach that Jesus will calm the storms that I have inflicted on my sisters and brothers is not only hollow but it is sin. Storms of racism, of poverty, of war, these storms are of human origin and it is not enough to tell each other that Jesus will calm these storms if we just pray hard enough. The Gospel tells us there were other boats in the water that evening, our actions have consequences that affect other people, and we must take responsibility for calming the storms of our own making.
Luckily, the Gospel does not leave us at “Jesus calms the storms.” Jesus said, “Peace! Be Still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. Think about the implication of that sentence. A dead calm. Last week, sitting in a friend’s basement listening to the tornado sirens cut through the heavy stillness, I longed for the storm to just come so that it would be over. The only thing scarier than the storm itself is the calm before. The storm I can rage against, the storm I can fight, in the fury of the storm, the disciples in our Gospel reading could struggle at the oars, fight the sails, bail and rush and work to keep the boat on course, stay upright amidst the waves. But in the calm there is nothing to do but wait. Wait for God to move, wait for the journey to end, wait to reach the other shore. Waiting, for me at least, is way more terrifying than the fury of any storm.
The disciples, I think, felt this same fear when they realized that the storm they had so feared had calmed, but the sea, the big, bold, uncertainty, that was really at the heart of their fear, still surrounded them, and there was nothing to do but wait. And Jesus then said to them, “why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
The promise in this story, then, has nothing to do with boats, or storms, or calm. The promise in this story is not that Jesus will calm the storm, or that Jesus is with us in our boats. That isn’t the promise, because that isn’t enough, and we know that, and Jesus knows that. The promise in this story is that there is another side. There is a way across the sea of chaos and fear and uncertainty. We will get there. Notice Jesus did not say to the disciples at the beginning of our Gospel reading, “YOU go across to the other side.” No, he said, “Let US go across to the other side.” The promise is that Jesus is leading us somewhere. Leading us to a new place we have to be, another shore for us to go. What happens in between here and there, storms or calm, Jesus calming or Jesus sleeping, Jesus is leading us through it. So often the good news is the journey, but in this story I think the good news is the destination, that whatever happens in the journey is secondary to the promise that there is a destination, there is another shore, there is another way, and somehow we will get there, because Jesus is leading us. And when we get to the other side, we will be changed by the journey. When our location changes, our perspectives change, we can see the world through new eyes. That’s how change works. Blogger Mandy Hale writes, “Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.”
Sometimes a boat is just a boat. Sometimes the sea is just the sea. But through boats or seas, storms or calm, the promise we have in this story is that Jesus is leading us somewhere. And we will be changed by the journey. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Note: My thoughts on this text were heavily influenced by Dr. Karoline Lewis's article on Working Preacher, "The Other Side." You can read Dr. Lewis's article at https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=3645.
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