Storms and Shark Fins

 Sermon 8-9-2020

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Did you know that something really exciting is happening today? It’s Shark Week! Thought it’s not quite as exciting as having 4 baptisms all in one day, as we are having in just an hour from now. For the uninitiated, Shark Week an entire week on the Discovery Channel dedicated to the beauty, power, and general awesomeness of all sharks - mini sharks, super-fast sharks, deep sea sharks, sharks with whip tails, great whites, even sharks that glow in the dark. We are in awe of them, and rightly so, because they possess a power that we can’t tame, control, or even fully understand. Unfortunately though, we have a tendency to fear what we cannot tame - a tendency that Stephen Spielberg banked on in his classic summer blockbuster, Jaws!

You all know the plot – Big White Shark terrorizing Beach Resort Town. The sheriff fights to keep people safe… AND with the local mayor, who puts the economy above the lives of his people.

The first time we see the shark up close, huge teeth and all, the sheriff is tossing fish bits from the back of a boat piloted by a crusty sea captain…. He turns around, and finds himself face to tooth with the jaws of… well, Jaws. Here is where we get one of the most remembered lines in movie history - the sheriff realizing that “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Now, the Sea of Galilee is no Atlantic Ocean, but there is definitely something that makes us nervous about what we can’t see below. And to make matters worse, danger lies both below and above the surface – in how large bodies of water react to the weather ABOVE the water. Wild wind, driving rain, huge waves, and low visibility caused by storms are even more dangerous when all that protects you is a tiny fishing boat.

We definitely don’t need a lot of imagination to place ourselves in the boat with the disciples,  after what happened this past week with the Tropical Storm EEs-EYE-EE-Ahs (“meess a clean this”).  And to add terror on top of utter terror, out of the storm, the disciples see – not a shark fin, but something almost as scary - a man! Walking on water!

Jesus walking toward them through the wind and the waves might as well been a shark fin, based on their reaction. It’s easy to judge their slowness and disbelief, since these men had just seen Jesus feed twenty thousand people with just a little bread and a few fish. Jesus had already showed himself to be master of storms by calming one seven chapters before this in the Gospel of Matthew. It is natural to believe that, had we been in their place, we might have been quicker on the uptake to realize that this was Jesus, a shark, or a ghost, or insert any scary monster here.  

But despite our active imaginations, we were not actually there, drenched in water and battered by the wind, literally being tormented by the crashing waves in a small fishing boat, probably wondering by now why in the world Jesus isn’t there to calm the storm, like that other time. By the time Jesus DOES show up in this storm, it’s nearly morning, and these poor guys were most likely in the brink of complete exhaustion from the enormous physical and mental energy it takes to NOT sink.

However, though we weren’t there, in living on the east coast, most of us do have a story or two about living through a big storm that came through these parts. Hurricane Irene, Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Storm EEEs-EYE-EE-As, not to mention the mid-winter Nor’easters and the feet of snow they bring.

But there are others storms that don’t need moisture, wind, and the ocean to form. These are the storms that damage the heart: The hurricane-force winds of hopelessness that knock you down. Every day coming like another wave, of grief pounding and pounding your fragile little boat, making you wonder if the next wave will be the one to cause you to sink? And all the while, the constant rain of stress, or disappointments, or depression beating down on you, mingling with your own tears, blinding you from being able to see what’s ahead.

Maybe your “storm” is called Hurricane Covid. Or Superstorm Grief. Or Tropical Storm Depression, or Anxiety. The storms might not show to the world any external damage. But we can feel the devastation all the same. And we too are exhausted from the enormous physical and mental energy it takes NOT to sink.

Being following Jesus did not stop the storm for Peter and the rest that day. The winds still came and the wave still crashed, and the land and the dawn seemed so far away. Obeying a command from Jesus’s own lisps did not prevent Peter from going under. Peter took a leap of faith, but he still began to sink into the waves.

The people we love still get Covid….hospital roofs get ripped off, putting small children in danger… power goes out for days at a time… we lose our jobs and health benefits… we lose touch with someone because of an addiction or a toxic relationship… perhaps we are in the middle of fraught family systems (like Joseph was) with siblings or family members who are preventing us from flourishing as human beings.

We feel so unprepared for what life throws at us, once we experience the violence of the storm… or the teeth and jaws of the sharks that seem to be chasing our little vessel… It certainly makes us want to go in search of a bigger boat. But there is no boat big enough to protect us and those we love from what we fear. But we have something better than a boat. 

The mighty winds and waves of the storm DID not and COULD not prevent Jesus from coming to the aid of his followers in that little bitty boat, because no storm can stop Jesus.

When the disciples were so frightened that they thought Jesus was a ghost, Jesus said, “take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”  When the raging storms of OUR lives are so frightening to us that we see specters instead of a helping hand, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.”

If you have been reading along in our 90 Day Bible Challenge you may notice that God tells us to “Fear not” and don’t be afraid” an awful lot. God isn’t telling us that we shouldn’t be scared of what’s happening around us. I think God is trying to tell us that we should not fear that God is not going to show up in the midst of it. Courage and bravery isn’t the absence of fear – it’s looking the storm in the face, staring down those big scary jaws, and not letting them stop us from doing the right thing.

When we listen to the wind, and reason out how inadequate we are, how much we are failures and nobodies and unlovable, how our boat is nowhere near up to the task… Jesus reaches out his hand and catches US, just as Jesus caught Peter.

The good news is that we don’t have to abandon the boat in order to be brave. Sometimes it’s enough to carve out a few minutes to hear a word from God. Sometimes, it’s knowing the difference between our own storms and someone else who is trying to give us theirs. Sometimes even navigating our daily lives in this new world can feel as difficult as walking on water.

But one thing remains the same. Jesus is not going to let us sink, no matter what storms try to get in the way. No “bigger boat” is necessary. The winds will subside, the rain will dry up, and the waves will calm, and there will be Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.