UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon for Sunday, June 21, 2009
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Sunday, June 21, 2009 9:06:34 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


To Be Continued...
Psalm 133
Mark 4:35-41

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
How good and pleasant it is, when brothers and sisters dwell together
in unity.  It is like the cup of blessing, like the oils of anointing,
poured forth freely and generously.  It is like a command from God for
everlasting blessings.
    
How good and pleasant it is.
    
When we speak of unity, we should unpack the word a little bit.  Some
hear unity to mean conformity, whether conformity of style, or of
thought, that we should all be the same.  Does the God of the aardvark
and the armadillo, the ostrich and the sparrow want everyone they
same?  Does the God in whose image we are all made, each with our
different colors of hair and colors of skin want us all to be the
same?
    
Does the God who gives each one gifts in different measure, different
callings, different ways of seeing the world and responding to grace
want us all to think the same way?
    
To have unity does not mean having no disagreements.  It means to work
out or disagreements by speaking the truth in love and listening past
our own agendas.
    
To live in unity does not mean to have no conflict.  It means working
out our conflict with the compassion of Christ, so that our vision of
the good is wider than simply our own personal good, our own ego
needs.
    
How good and pleasant, indeed.
    
But there are times when the best of us don’t think too clearly.
There are times when the most individual of us herd together and
stampede towards we know not what.  Because when we panic, we just
aren’t that bright, are we?
    T
That is the story of the disciples in the boat.  Jesus is asleep in
the back.  (The Lord does not panic.)  And the storm has come up and
is already swamping the boat.  And they panic.  They go and wake
Jesus, “Do you not care that we are perishing.”
    
Let’s think about this for a moment.  Several of the disciples are
trained fishermen.  They are used to the sudden storms and the
difficult sailing of these waters.  But in this moment, they go and
they wake up the carpenter.  There have been miracles before, of
healing.  Nothing in Mark’s Gospel so far has anything about weather.
But going to a carpenter who heals people and preaches God’s kingdom
to save them in this storm seems a bit panicky to me.
    
To be fair, we don’t know whether the storm was more than the
fishermen could handle.  We don’t know that they weren’t doing their
best, but everyone else was panicking and making it worse.
    
We do know that they were afraid.
    
And they cried out to Jesus, “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
    
And Jesus gets up, and speaks, “Peace, be still.”  It says he said it
to the sea.  But don’t you think the disciples were listening as well?
Who were these words for?
    
Peace.  Be still.
    
The Lord does not panic.
    
And so the disciples cry to the Lord, and the story continues.  The
wind ceases and there is a great calm.  They got their wish.  Now they
have to row to shore.
    
But the story continues.
    
This is true from the earliest stories of faith: Abraham and Sarah, in
their elder years still childless.  How can the covenant pass down
from generation to generation unless there is a next generation?
    
But God is faithful and the story continues.
    
Joseph sold into slavery, taken to Egypt.  His family back home
starving.  They come to Egypt and beg from the chief steward for some
food, not recognizing their brother.  Egypt is saved, as is the
covenant.
    
God is faithful and the story continues.
    
David, anointed king but hunted by Saul.
Jeremiah, Isaiah, the other prophets, speaking to a beat down people in exile.
Throughout the story of faith we hear like a distant refrain:

God is faithful and the story continues.

And we come to our story today.  We can’t tell which is worse, the
storm or the panic.  We just know that those closest to Jesus are
panicking.

And we know that sometimes our own panic has caused the storms we face.
    
But God is faithful and the story continues.

Even when Jesus is killed and the disciples lock themselves in the
room for fear, the Lord does not panic, God is faithful, and the story
continues.

I am saying these things to you this morning partly for your benefit,
and a whole lot for my own.  It is going to be difficult for me not to
be involved in the life of this church over the next three months.  My
days have been ordered by the church calendar.  My life has been
scheduled around worship week to week.
    
I realized the other day that there is a grieving process involved in
getting ready to go on my sabbatical.  The good news is, when you guys
have difficulties, you won’t be calling me.  The bad news is, when you
guys have difficulties, you won’t be calling me.
    
But the story continues.  You have people in place who are more than
capable of dealing with whatever comes up.  You have people at every
board and committee meeting able to offer prayers to remind us of our
true agenda.  You have people to draw on for support, for guidance,
for comfort.  You have people reminding us that we must be responsible
stewards and walk by faith.
    
And you know your mission over these next three weeks.  Many of you
know it by heart, for we say it every Sunday.
    
And I envy you the opportunity to hear the people lined up to preach
over the summer in person.  I look forward to hearing the tapes.
    
And September 20th, after you and I have both had an opportunity to
grow through this time, our stories will continue together.
    
And then we....
    
Well, I guess this sermon is "to be continued" as well.

Thanks be to God.
Amen.