June 21, 2015
Preached by Kirsten Nelson Roenfeldt
For Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Sturbridge
B Pentecost3 2015
Mark 4:35-41
Jesus Rebukes the Disciples
Prayer of the Day:
O God of creation, eternal majesty,
you preside over land and sea, sunshine and storm.
By your strength pilot us, by your power preserve us,
by your wisdom instruct us, and by your hand protect us,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
The Gospel according to St. Mark. [Glory to you O Lord]
35On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
The Gospel of the Lord [Praise to you O Christ].
+ + +
Did you know that the The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Senior Pastor of “Mother Emmanuel” AME church in South Carolina was a graduate of one of our ELCA Lutheran seminaries? So was The Rev. Daniel Simmons, another one of the congregation’s pastors who were in that Bible study Wednesday night.
Pastor Pinckney went to seminary my colleagues, specifically my friend Mark Petersen, a pastor here in Massachusetts.
It is easy to think racial problems are all below the Mason-Dixon line. But with these victims, we are connected as believers – somehow that hits home more because we walked in the same institutions – of our same beloved church.
But the fact remains that, if I so chose, I could quickly delete every email or pass by every Facebook link offering a conversation or voice about this event. That’s my privilege. And for any of you that share society’s perception of you as white, that’s our privilege. White privilege.
African American men and women hearing this story cannot sweep it under the rug as a random act of isolated violence by one insane man; it is too easily connected to every roughed up young man or woman or teenager by a white person in authority.
What does it mean to be privileged?
It means that when a storm is raging outside, we can choose to stay inside. I’d like to say we “get off the boat” because that fits so well with our parable for today, but the truth is that we rarely get ON the boat in the first place.
We decide to choose a different form of transportation.
We ignore, or maybe acknowledge, but never GREIVE this loss.
The loss of human life. The loss of black lives.
Today we grieve. Today we get real. Today we get scared. With our black brothers and sisters.
We are on the boat with the disciples of Jesus of every color. We are scared out of our minds. We are grabbing Jesus by the shoulders and saying “Wake UP! Don’t you know we are perishing! Help bail us out!”
And Jesus gets up—and does something. He does something amazing.
But we aren’t ready for an awake Jesus until we are awake. Awake to the very real storm of racism and violence raging around us. The storm that has taken petty criminals and innocent lives, and parishioners in Bible study.
Did you know that the suspected shooter at that Bible Study that night was a member of an ELCA Lutheran congregation?
He almost changed his mind. Because they were so nice. But his heart was too hard. There were 12 people in that study, 9 of them died.
We need to deal with this; it is our problem. Have people in our Lutheran pews heard the good news? That we are all liberated from the slavery of sin: those with skin of black and brown and white? We are liberated, when we are together? Have people in our Lutheran pews heard the good news? Guns are not trustworthy. God is trustworthy. He alone will deliver us from evil.
We have ties to both sides of this event, through our expression of our denomination, and more importantly, the one Body of Christ.
In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus rebukes more than the wind; he rebukes the disciples—Don’t you trust me? Don’t you get it?
Jesus reminds them again of the good news: I can stop the wind and rain! I am the source for every tiny atom of the creation. I am the strength of love in every interaction. Because of who I am, you can do scary things. I make you who you are, People of God. So you can and will live through storms.
We who have let evil make this storm—we can weather it. We – black and brown and white together- can live through storms. “Just trust me,” Jesus says.
We trust Jesus. For our God who creates, redeems and sustains; God who is LOVE will be with us in the storm. Until we come through the other side united together in love.
We trust Jesus to bring us together to knit us into one Body of Christ—and that is no small feat.
Did you watch the video of the bond hearing? The family members of those who were killed that night forgave him. They spoke words of truth about what happened, about what he did. They named the sin. And then, the very people who have the most license to be outraged and retaliatory, they began forgiving the murderer.
We start with love. We start by reaching beyond ourselves—reading the stories and knowing the faces, feeling the pain of this tragedy, yes, of Baltimore and Ferguson and Walter Scott and Trayvon Martin and all the others we must name…. Yes all that—the deep historical ongoing tragedy of racism. To listen and learn and talk with the people experience it every day because we are IN THIS TOGETHER.
In this life.
In this Body.
In this world.
So when shall we have this conversation, church? This conversation about race. And maybe a whole separate conversation about gun violence?
This matters.
In Pub Theology last night we talked about it. We scratched the surface on all the various social issues we are addressing and how racism is a product of our culture, and our fallen humanity.
But we need to go beyond grand philosophy and scratching the surface. We need to seriously examine the white privilege and most of us here benefit from. And if we have any willing partners, we need to be in real relationship with people who experience the world from the underside of that privilege. These are complicated issues, and they deserve our time and attention. For though we may not change the world on our own, we can join God in what is already being done – we can see where God is breaking in, over and over again to reconcile and redeem that which has been broken and lost. We can see the act of forgiveness breaking in through the broken voices to a broken man. We can see through the cracks of our brokenness God’s light shining through to us.
Jesus has gotten into the boat. He has invited us to join him. Jesus is crossing over. Crossing into alien territory where people of different religions and roots are. To be with them. To be as one body.
When we are in the boat, we will get to see the storm stilled. We will get to see God’s power change the pain and hatred we thought was impossible to stop.
Jesus gets up and says, “Peace, be still.”
And the raging storm stops.
When peace is put into action. Not immediately, we have to live through the storm together first.
But peace, precious peace, is our hope.
Please pray with me:
Almighty God, look with mercy upon this fallen world, again the subject of violence.
Be with us in our grief, that we may know your consolation. Be with us in our anger, that we may receive your peace. Be with us in our confusion, that we may be led to your truth. And be with us in our fear, that we may delivered into your surpassing love.
We pray this day for the victims of violence in Charleston, South Carolina
We pray for the families of Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Ethel Lance, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Myra Thompson, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Rev. Daniel Simmons, and Susie Jackson.
We also pray for Dylann Roof, that he may come to repentance, and for his family.
We pray for all those touched by racism and violence in so many other places. Strengthen us as your people to be with those in need, in their grief and the tough conversation to dismantle racism. Lead us to forgiveness and help us to make our churches safe haven, that your grace may be our sustaining Word, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(Prayer adapted: Paul Bellan-Boyer, St. Matthew Lutheran Church)
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