Hearing a Calling

If you missed church on January 15^th, you missed a fabulous rendition of the story of the Calling of Samuel, performed by two of our own kids.  In the story, found in 1 Samuel 3, a 10 year-old Samuel hears a calling from God.  He doesn’t know right off, though, whose voice it is, or how to respond.  His mentor and teacher, the old, bearded Eli, finally recognizes that Samuel is being called by God, and tells him how to respond: “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

The kids are so cute that I hate to block out their faces, but I don't have permission to use their images on this blog.  Alas.

This story speaks loudly to all faith communities trying to raise up children in their midst.  We are the Elis of the world ; we must listen carefully to what our children are saying about their lives, and to help them hear where God might be speaking to them.  If this sounds like a daunting to you (like, if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t even know if God is speaking to ME, let alone someone else!”), fear not.  Eli wasn’t actually able to hear God, either.  But he was faithful in his attempts to be a good steward of Samuel, and through that both of them were able to hear God.

Here are some practical ways we can do this today:

1.  Talk to the kids.  At the next coffee hour, challenge yourself to ask one of our children what they learned in church school, and what they think about it.  Learn their names.  Ask what sports or instruments they play, or what they’re excited about this week.  Maybe even ask if anything reminded them of God this week. 
2.     Support their parents.  Whether or not you’re a parent yourself, you have a listening ear that can hear what’s going on for parents, and how they might need support in showing God to their children.
3. Volunteer with them.  We need a rotating slate of volunteers for our nursery, because we have a lot of children in there!  We also need help with our special family events, like Shrove Tuesday.  Talk with me for more info.
4. Pray for them.  All of us need prayer, especially our children.  They face so many challenges in this crazy world of technology, bullying, and peer pressure.  Pray for them, and you’ll likely be changed, too!

Let us all pray together: Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening!  Amen.

Seeking Epiphany

Here is my most recent newsletter article:

Seeking Epiphany

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

                      -- MLK (and probably lots of other people, too)

Skeletons of trees line the sides of the road; the winter has turned bitter cold.  Gift wrap has been buried in confetti, which is now buried in the local landfill.  The kids have already broken or gotten bored of some of their toys.  Christmas and New Year’s have passed, and we are faced now with the cold dark of winter, school- and work-weeks that are actually five days long, and very little to anticipate…

What can the church teach us about this time of year?  A lot, actually.  The season of Advent encouraged us to wait with anticipation, and now the season of Christmas, which lasts until January 6^th, teaches us that the story does not end with the birth.  Indeed, the Christmas story gets dark and cold after that beloved manger scene, with the slaughter of the innocents, the fleeing of Jesus’ family to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, the continued tyranny of the Roman empire.  The wise men have barely arrived to give the Lord their gifts when the scene turns from joyous December to frigid January.  The bright hope is easily dashed if one dwells too long there.

Enter the season of Epiphany!  January 6^th marks the end of Christmas, but the beginning of a long Season of Light, a celebration of the revelations that this God incarnate, this presence of the holy among us, can bring.   It starts with a fast-forward to Jesus’ 30^th year, when even he – God on earth – got baptized, was renewed and repented of sin (a word that can mean a great number of things!).  He was declared then to be God’s beloved, just as we each are declared to be beloved of God at our own baptisms.

In Epiphany we are reminded by crazy John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord.  We hear of the callings of the disciples to drop everything and follow Jesus; we are invited to the baffling Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop.  These strange and wondrous – unbelievable yet in some ways truthful – stories invite us to think upon light and all its strange facets in these dark months.   

We can celebrate this season by being on the lookout for the ways that light breaks through the darkness, where a spark of inspiration, joy, or laughter suddenly lights our hearts.  With our children, we can help them recognize these as God-sightings; like shooting stars, they are easy to miss, but if you look for them, they’re more common than you think!

As we dwell in the dark, cold months, we have the memories of a happy Christmas and the promise of a brightened future; keeping our eyes wide open, we take steps toward getting closer to our God, our light, the hope that we celebrated being born at Christmas. 

Happy Epiphany!

Blue Christmas 2011

The following was my homily for our church's Blue Christmas service this year.  it's a time to honor those feelings of pain, grief, or sorrow that can feel especially jarring among the joys of Christmastime.

Blue Christmas 2011 Sermon

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—

there we sat down and there we wept

when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there

we hung up our harps.

For there our captors

asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’

How could we sing the LORD’s song

in a foreign land?

John 1:1-5

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

This past weekend, I took my annual tour with a group of friends to look at the Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue. It’s a fun time every year of eating chestnuts, catching up, and gazing at the lavish displays of creativity.

This year, I was struck by the starkness of the Saks windows. They depicted a made-up scene of a girl descending into a cave and finding a labyrinth of people in very elegant (of course!) black and white clothes, all working strange machinery to create bubbles.

A storyline at the bottom of the windows says that the girl named Holly went from room to room, wondering at the bubbles and why they were being made. She never really gets an answer, but she does get exposure to some very pricey and beautiful fashion.

It left me feeling a bit hollow. It seemed just like art for the sake of selling clothes. It felt as cold and hollow as the plastic bubbles themselves, bouncing mechanically from top to bottom of the window.

For many of us, that hollow feeling might feel familiar about this time of year. Whether it’s due to loss of loved ones recently or long ago, a rift in the family, a loss of dreams or expectations, the dazzling lights and joyous songs of the season can seem just like bubbles, encased in another world behind the glass of our grief.

This clash of cultural celebration and emotional state is nothing new to those who have grieved, now or in centuries past.

Psalm 137 is a particularly poignant example of grief “in a strange land.” You who are hearing the hollow echoes of “all I want for Christmas is you” pumped in through every store’s intercom system might empathize with them.

This psalm was composed in response to one of the most tragic events of Jewish history. Their temple, which they understood to be not just a place of worship, but God’s very house, had been sacked, destroyed, and defiled.

The Israelites had been captured by the Babylonians and taken as slaves to this foreign land. There, the captors mocked them, demanding that they sing their upbeat songs of Zion, of Jerusalem, of joy for their God – the God who had not protected them. They were exiles from their homeland, and exiles from joy.

It is utter despair. We hear in this verse, and in the several that follow, almost every element of grief:

• Disinterest in former things

• Remembering of better times

• Weeping

• Anger

• Disbelief

• Torment

As the psalm continues, the psalmist even imagines gruesome images of revenge.

But here is the beauty of this passage; it, too, is in our holy book. This psalm, with all its pain and despair, is honored as a prayer to God just as equally as Psalm 150, which consists mostly of the repeated phrase “Praise the Lord.”

This prayer of grief comes, as commentator Kate Huey has said, “from deep within the very human hearts of a people who knew what it was to suffer and to question, to believe and then to doubt, to feel loss and devastation, rage and a desire for revenge.

Aren't those all just as much at the heart of the human experience as feelings of joy, gratitude, and praise?

And isn't prayer the place and the way we can take those experiences, for better or worse, to the God who knows our inner hearts better than we do ourselves?”

What strikes me as so powerful about this psalm is that it is a prayer, which in the Jewish culture means it is also a song.

They are singing even when they say they cannot sing.

They are not singing the jovial tunes they were known for, but they are singing from their hearts to the heart of God,

singing with all the hope they have left,

singing out the deepest, cruelest, most painful thoughts they have ever had.

In the midst of grief and mocking, they sing.

Five hundred years later, the Jews were again experiencing a time of great distress. Their land, which they had regained, was now occupied by Roman soldiers. Grumblings of revolt were often on the margins of society.

The people were desperate for a messiah, someone who would rise up and throw off the Roman mantle, someone who would save them.

It is into this environment that the writer of the Gospel of John speaks his opening – and world-changing – words:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The light was not what people anticipated; it was not a military victor come to defeat the Roman Empire.

Instead, the light was what the Jews had been longing for since that first siege of the Temple; it was a touch of God in their midst. It was a fleshy, human message from God declaring an undying love and support.

It was a new hope.

Now, two thousand years later, we have this story to remind us each year about this deeper truth. God, who may not appear in ways we expect or desire, will, in fact, appear. The light will shine in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.

The Christmas story comes around once a year, whether we are ready for it or not, whether we feel like singing “Deck the Halls” or whether we feel like a cold plastic bubble in a story with no ending. The Christmas story is relentless. It comes. It reminds us that, no matter our despair now, there is hope for the future. God is not finished with us yet.

In this Christmas season, we sing of joy not because we have it, but because in the process of singing it, we bring ourselves closer to it.

The photo on the front of your bulletin was taken in Bethlehem this spring. Two thousand years after Jesus’ birth in that city, there is a new kind of oppression; after decades of conflict erupting from both sides, the nation of Israel has created a giant wall between itself and Palestine.

Bethlehemites are stuck behind this wall, forced to apply for permits and wait in hours-long lines just to go the six miles to Jerusalem. Most Bethlehem teenagers have never been to Jerusalem; they dream of going someday.

The wall, the stark grey symbol of oppression is covered in graffiti, some of which would make the writers of Psalm 137 blush. But most of it, miraculously, tells this story of hope. Most of it is covered in prayers for peace, for hope, for redemption. It tells of a belief that darkness will not last always, that there is a light that will overcome the darkness.

I offer this image to you as a gift tonight. Whether your sense of hope is crystallized like a Swarovski ornament on the Rockefeller Christmas tree, or scrawled with spray paint over the other, more painful graffiti in your life, it is there. It is real. And in some unexpected way, in some dark corner, joy will spring forth again. The light will shine in the darkness.

Amen.

Thoughts on an Occupation

This was my most recent newsletter article for our church's newsletter:

Some of you know my secret: I have been spending some of my free time hanging out with fellow clergy and protesters at Zuccotti Park as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I am part of the 99%.

This week, I was part of a group of faith leaders called Occupy Faith NYC that marched to the occupiers’ new temporary encampment on Canal Street after they were forcibly removed from Zuccotti in a clandestine midnight raid that no media were allowed to cover.  When we arrived there, expecting to see grumpy and disheveled people, we were greeted with cheers.  The crowds parted for us and we were ushered to the center of the crowd, where one of our leaders gave a moving speech and said a prayer.  All of his words were echoed by the “human microphone” of people repeating what the original speaker had said, amplifying it. 

The human microphone system has an amazing power for building community and hearing out differences.  Each listener takes the responsibility not just of hearing what another says, but repeating it, word for word.  You are forced to take in the meaning of their words.  Then, if you disagree, you, too, can call for a “mic check,” and have your words taken in by others.  It is a profound experience of letting ourselves be changed and influenced by one another, and giving each other the space to truly be heard.

An Occupier convincing people to charge the fence because "it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission."  I did not agree, nor did many of my clergy friends, but we stayed on the public side of the wall as witnesses.

After a lot of discussion, the scene became more troubled; part of crowd decided to trespass onto property owned by Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church.  Our faith leaders had been in negotiation to get permission to occupy that space, but the occupiers went in before permission was granted (and it never was granted).  We clergy stayed outside, but acted as moral witnesses, and then later human shields separating crowds of people from police in riot gear.  Eventually the occupiers inside the church’s grounds were raided, and we witnessed some violent attacks by the police.

So much, so fast.  So many ethical quandaries in just a few hours.  I know that some of you think that the church should stay out of politics entirely, and some of you might feel alienated by calls to support the 99%, seemingly demonizing the richest 1%.  I assure you that I struggle with these things, too.  But at my first march with OWS in early October, a friend of mine helped me make a sign.  The sign said, “On Earth As It Is In Heaven.”  At that moment, I was convicted.  I was reminded yet again how much of our faith is based on the belief that God celebrates all of God’s children equally.  Our faith encourages us to share, to care for the least, to bless the poor, to offer jubilee (relief from debt) regularly.  The Lord’s prayer, which we say weekly with our children because it is so fundamental, asks God to help us forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors, to deliver us from evil, to enact God’s will on earth, not just in heaven.

Our faith has everything to do with money and power.  It challenges us often in ways we might prefer not to be challenged.  It threatens to occupy parts of ourselves that we might rather remained compartmentalized, sterile, and free from influence.  Our faith is messy, and calls us into sometimes frightening territory.

But what is the reward?  When we delve into these uncomfortable places and allow ourselves to be thrown off kilter, something awakens within us.  Deeper love, stronger compassion, greater strength.  We are moved.  We become occupied by faith.

Whether you find the OWS movement a convicting one or not (and it certainly has some drawbacks), I wonder if you might find within it a lesson on the power of letting ourselves act out our faith, the power of challenging the status quo, even when the status quo seems so fully entrenched.  The OWS movement is shifting the dialogue in this country.  So, too, can we, if we allow ourselves to be occupied by God’s Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A "What Not to Wear" Children's Sermon

I realized that I don't have any of my children's sermons on this blog.  Mostly this is because they are so improvisational that I don't have a written text, but rather an outline that evolves as the children interact with me.  The one I did this week was so much fun I thought I'd post it here, even though most of the idea came not from me, but from this fantastic blogger, Rev. Sarah.  I'll reconstruct it as best I can.

As the Children's Time began, I was nowhere to be seen.  My college, Rev. Grenley, acted like I was mysteriously absent, perhaps having gotten stuck in traffic.  Just then, I raced into the sanctuary in my bathrobe, slippers, and towel-turbaned head.  The response was just what I'd hoped for: gasps, laughter, and children pointing while asking, "WHAT are you doing?"

I talked about clothes, and what is appropriate to wear for certain occasions.  For some reason, the kids did NOT seem to think that what I was wearing was appropriate for church!  Then, I told the story of Jesus' parable in Matthew 22:1-14:

Jesus told his followers a parable.  A parable is a story that makes us think really hard about something in a new way.  In this story, Jesus told us that the kingdom of God is like a king who threw a wedding for his son.  Can you imagine what a big party that must have been?  How many of you have been to a wedding?  What kind of clothes do people wear for a wedding?  [Answers included: "Nice" and "Fancy clothes."]  Yes!  Fancy clothes!  And this wedding was for the son of a KING!  So they would have been really fancy clothes! 

But this king sent out his invitations, and then something sad happened.  All the people who were invited said they couldn't come.  They had reasons, like having to milk their cows or visit their mothers.  But the king got very angry and sent people out to destroy their city.  But he still had all this food left, so then he told his servants to go out and invite anyone they saw: people who lived in the streets, poor people, anyone!  Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a poor person invited to a king's house for a wedding?  Pretty amazing, right?
Well, these people came and were really enjoying the feast.  At that time, when you came to something like a wedding, the fancy clothes that you put on were given to you by the host, so everybody was given fancy clothes.  The king was walking around and enjoying his new party when he saw that one of his new guests was not wearing the fancy clothes.  He was there and eating the food, but not dressed up like he should be.  The king got angry again and threw him out of the wedding. 

The king felt insulted and shocked because it was a little like me coming here today in this bathrobe.  Do you think this outfit shows that I care about church and think that it's special?  [Answers were shouted out, "NO!" and "You look silly!"]  That's right.  One of the reasons we dress nicely for church is that it helps show that we think this is a special place, that this is God's house and we respect it, like the king wanted people to respect his party.   

But what God REALLY cares about is not what clothes we wear, but what kinds of feelings we put on.  When we want to be with God, it is good to put on clothing like joy, kindness, and love.  Those are the garments that God gives us to wear. [Question: "What a garment?"  Answer: "It's a kind of clothes."]  Those things help God to know that we are really grateful for the things we have been given.  We put on our joy, and kindness, and love, and we can really celebrate the party that God throws for us. 

So now, we'll say the Lord's Prayer and then go off to Church School.  I'll meet you there in slightly different clothes.  [From one child: "Yeah!  YOU need to put on something more appropriate!!"]

We prayed and they left, and I swiftly took off the robe and put on my suit jacket, miraculously ready for church!

Here's a pic to prove it really happened:

The Brian Lehrer Show, Jesus, and Occupy Wall Street

I had 15 seconds of radio fame today in the NY-area call-in show, The Brian Lehrer Show.  The topic was religion and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which I have begun to support.  You can hear the segment, during which I am the first caller, here:  http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/2011/oct/10/open-phones-religion-and-occupy-wall-street/

And here's a photo of the sign.

Part my ramping up to this level of support was a devotional I wrote for a previous church's daily devotional blog.  I'll post that here, too.  I think that, if I were to add anything else to this, I would add that part of our job as ministers is also to help people realize that it is actually in their self-interest to change, that a life lived with God as our guide is a life worth living -- it's a hard sell, but worthwhile!

Psalm 103

Of David.¹ 
Bless the Lord, O my soul,   
and all that is within me,   
bless his holy name. 
² Bless the Lord, O my soul,   
and do not forget all his benefits— 
³ who forgives all your iniquity,   
who heals all your diseases, 
⁴ who redeems your life from the Pit,   
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 
⁵ who satisfies you with good as long as you live^*  
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 

⁶ The Lord works vindication   
and justice for all who are oppressed. ⁷ 
He made known his ways to Moses,   
his acts to the people of Israel. 
⁸ The Lord is merciful and gracious,   
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 
⁹ He will not always accuse,   
nor will he keep his anger for ever. 
¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins,   
nor repay us according to our iniquities. 
¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,   
so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him; 
¹² as far as the east is from the west,   
so far he removes our transgressions from us. 
¹³ As a father has compassion for his children,   
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him. 
¹⁴ For he knows how we were made; 
he remembers that we are dust. 

Last Sunday, driving home from church, I passed by the usually-quiet local Catholic church.  That day, though, the quiet road had become a gauntlet of signs, nearly all held by women of every age, child to elder, all proclaiming the evils of abortion.  Signs read things like “Abortion Kills” and “Mothers Who Abort Have Regrets.”  Thankfully, they refrained from the signs with the gory pictures that I have seen elsewhere.  Perhaps it was the quiet silence of this vigil that unsettled me.  It was not so easy to ignore them as it would be to ignore a group of noisy, screaming protestors.  It was not easy to ignore people from a church of which I knew many former members. 

This got me thinking about the ways in which we proclaim what we believe is God’s message. While I was offended by some of the signs, and I would venture to argue with many of them about the practicality of simply banning abortion without also providing major support to families with unplanned pregnancies, I appreciated their willingness to be silent witnesses.  It made me take them more seriously. What it did not do, though, was change my mind.  It gave me no way to enter into relationship or dialogue.

As you know, in my new hometown of New York City, a major protest has been underway for three weeks.  This is a protest whose message resonates more with me; the Occupy Wall Street movement is growing in its nonviolent rebellion, and I will be joining in on some of the demonstrations.  I do love a good protest!  I love the enthusiasm of a crowd; I love the ability to unleash pent-up frustration; I especially love the clever signs. 

What I am aware of, though, and what was made more clear by the abortion protestors I saw on Sunday, is that these rallies are not really good tools for changing hearts or minds.  They are excellent tools for boosting the spirits of like-minded people.  When nonviolent action is taken that challenges the status quo, they can also be really good tools for getting a message into coverage by the media.  Perhaps the best that can be hoped for with signs and protests is to rouse the apathetic into caring.

But as long as there is a stark us-vs.-them attitude of dueling placards, hearts and minds will not be changed.  The change happens when people of different minds build trusting relationships with each other and begin to hear each others’ stories.  Change happens when empathy, not righteous anger, is aroused in the other.  It happens when we humble ourselves enough to see God in the other, and to allow them to see God through us.  It is much harder than making a sign.  It is lifelong work, to which we have all been called.

I will wave at you all with love from Wall Street.  Who knows – for the right cause, I might even let myself get arrested.  But I pray that I will do only whatever actions are necessary to build up the kingdom of God and to spread the message that ALL of God’s children – Wall Street executives and homeless people alike; mothers who have had abortions and the Pope alike – ALL of us are part of God’s beloved community.  All of us are capable of arousing God's great wrath, and all of us are recipients of God's steadfast love.  Ours is a message of great humility, which leads to great praise for the God who inspires us all to be better than we are today.  (And if creating a good sign for a protest helps you do that, too, then by all means, do it!  Just know what you're doing it for.)

Prayer:

Bless the Lord, my soul.  Keep me humble, keep me working toward righteousness, keep me working toward reconciliation.  Most of all, keep me always mindful that my strength and power reside in you.  Bless the Lord!  Amen.

Walking on Water

Date: August 7, 2011

SUNDAY: Ordinary 19A, Proper 14

SERMON: Walking on Water

Text(s): Matthew 14:22-33

© 2011 R. F. Small

Click here to see a video of this sermon.

When I told her the passage I was preaching on, Leslie[1] said, “Huh.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sermon on that before!”  When I thought about it, neither had I.  Not surprising, since it contains one of the most unbelievable stories in Scripture.  But it occurs to me that to dismiss this story is a shame, because while it is unbelievable, it is, in another way, very true.

Does this story of Peter walking on water feel familiar to any of you?  Now, I don’t mean, have you ever actually walked on water... Although, if you have, please raise your hand and then come on up here, because you’re going to give the sermon!

But I mean, have you ever been given the power to do something that felt impossible because you called on God’s power to help you?

Peter has sort of become the head disciple at this point in the Gospel, which happens right after the miracle of the loaves and fishes.  He is eager to please, eager to follow, but also scared in a boat full of scared people.  He gets just enough courage to ask for direction from God, and lo and behold, the direction is laid before him. 

On faith, he steps onto the water, wind whipping around him.  His focus is clear.  He has been called by Jesus to do something amazing!  His eyes are on the prize:  Jesus, his teacher, his guide, his Lord.

His eyes are focused, anyway, until the wind whips just right across his face, and draws his attention with it.  Suddenly, it is no longer the reassuring face of his friend and mentor and teacher that he is looking upon, but crashing waves and dense fog.  And his feet are trying to walk on water! 

In that moment of lost focus, chaos wins, and Peter begins to sink.  It is then, when he has realized that all control is lost, that he is no longer a “faithful disciple” and the chief among his peers, but a man with the tar scared out of him that is about to drown – it is then that he calls out not for Jesus to give him a tall order of a task, but simply to help him, to save him.

Peter being saved.  Note the giant waves, and scared ship-full of disciples.  Image borrowed from this page.

This story reminds me of one of these moments in my own life.  It was one of the first times I ever truly prayed, ever truly asked for God to do with me as Thou wouldst (when you’re that desperate, you’re willing to use Old English!).

It was my first summer as a church camp counselor, a job I thought would be a fun way to spend the summer.  Never mind that I had very little experience with children, except for some carefully honed door-slamming skills when faced with the visage of my little brother. 

Our training week as camp counselors really built us up, helped us feel like rock stars.  We were going help these children develop a deep faith in God, and we were going to have fun doing it!

At the end of the week, they gave out assignments for which counselors would be assigned to which camps.  I was nervous, but faithful.  I was really hoping for the elementary ages, because they were the cutest. 

They had assured us that new counselors would be paired with experienced counselors for the first week, to help us ease into things.  What I didn’t notice was that there was one more new counselor than there were experienced counselors.  Nor did I notice that, to fill that hole, we’d be getting in an adult volunteer.  And that that volunteer and one other counselor would be sent away from camp for the week with 17 middle-schoolers for a biking trip.  I didn’t notice any of this, because I was busy preparing myself to be a great counselor of elementary students.

Imagine my surprise when I, a rookie counselor, was called up as the lone staff counselor on the bike trip.  Fear started to set in.  As I stepped out of the boat of my fellow fearful followers and into the ocean of the 15-passenger van of hormones that I had to drive for the week, I heard the wind whipping around me.  And yet, I maintained my focus.  I believed I could do it.  I put on my big-girl bandana and drove off into the sunset.

After sunset, though, things got tough.  A carsick girl exploded all over the van.  The church kitchen we had to cook our meals in only had one burner that worked, which made our spaghetti very time-consuming and encouraged a lot of whining.  Then, my co-counselor then dropped the bomb on me: he didn’t feel like he could lead any of the devotional stuff.  He’d like to leave that up to me, since I was trained in it.  Gasp! 

I gathered the troops for grace.  They talked through the whole thing, ignoring me.  After dinner and cleanup, I gathered them again for vespers.  Everything I tried was declared “dumb” or worse.  My co-counselor looked on silently, with what I could only assume was scornful judgment.

As we climbed into our beds, which in this case meant each of us having an individual pew in the sanctuary of the church that was hosting us, tears were rolling down my face.  I was no longer a superhero counselor.  I no longer felt faithful.  I only felt a frantic sinking feeling, and a desperate need for help.  I began to pray.  Helplessly, I begged God to save me.  I said I would do whatever was necessary, if God would just help me survive this week.  I prayed until I slept, until the winds calmed.

The next morning, I awoke with a new sense of peace and confidence.  I wasn’t sure where it came from – well, I was, but was kind of afraid to admit it.  I went with it.  I led the morning prayers and didn’t hear a peep of complaints (maybe because they were all really tired from horsing around all night).  Suddenly, it occurred to me that these kids I had been sent to serve might actually want someone to pay attention to them.  I began listening to the campers, getting to know them and their stories, and I altered my games and prayers to fit their context. 

Before I knew it, I was really doing it – I was really being a counselor!  I had been saved! 

The week was by no means perfect, and on those West Virginia roads I surely hadn’t seen the last of carsickness, but from that morning on, I no longer felt alone.  I knew I had help, a source of power greater than myself, a true God to turn to.

This same story has happened for me numerous times in life, over and over because I have to learn this lesson over and over, this lesson that God is faithful and present, willing and able to help if I will ask. I regularly repeat the process of trying to follow, then taking pride in my own sense of control, then being distracted by the chaos of life and falling into deep fear, and finally, finally, asking for true help, no strings attached.

I wonder if this story resonates for you, too.  I wonder if you have had moments of feeling like you were really trying to do the right thing, to follow God’s calling, to be the best disciple you could be, only to have fear and trembling crumble you into a sinking mess.  I wonder if you have found yourself begging for help, being willing to do whatever is necessary just to be saved from the current circumstances.  Willing to pray with all your heart.

Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers, says that there are only really two prayers: “Thank you thank you thank you” and “Help me help me help me.”[2]  Often it takes these times of great distress to force us onto our proverbial – or maybe even literal – knees, begging for God’s help.

If we go back and think about the story a bit more, we realize that Peter and Jesus are not the only characters in this story.  There is a whole boatload of disciples watching this scene unfold, too.  These are the ones who never wanted to step out of the boat, never had the hubris to think that they, too, could walk on water, and in fact were simply just dumbstruck by the whole scene, pretty sure it was some kind of nightmare. 

As they watched Peter take his life into his hands, what were they praying?  Were they praying at all?  Did they really think that Jesus could do such things, even though they had just witnessed him feed 5,000 people on a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish?  It seems that they did not believe that it was possible.  They stayed huddled on the boat, watching. 

Plus, the disciples weren’t just afraid of the storm.  They were afraid of Jesus, too.  When he came strolling over to them on top of the waves, they were probably MORE scared of him than the roiling sea.  At least they knew what to expect in a storm!  The divine incarnate is another matter.  Several of them probably would have liked to be able to walk on water just to be able to run away from Jesus.  Like many of us, believing in a supernatural miracle-worker might have felt to them far crazier than simply dying in a storm.

Jesus recognizes this and shouts to them: “Be not afraid.  It is I.”  He uses a key phrase here that can be translated both “It is I” and “I AM,” I AM being the holy name of God.  Jesus was both invoking the power of God and being the power of God.  It was scary.

It’s not until both Jesus and Peter are back in the boat and drying off that the disciples begin to identify this man as the Son of God.    As they watched the scene unfold, you know they were wondering if Peter would survive.  But Jesus proved himself to be not only more powerful than they had imagined, but also more gracious.  When Peter doubted, faltered, Jesus did not let him languish.  He immediately reached out to help as soon as Peter asked for it.  He used his power to save Peter’s life, and in so doing, also saved the spiritual lives of everyone on that boat.

As a group of people changed by witnessing the power of the holy in someone’s life, the disciples here remind me of a story told by the church I attended in Seattle.

It was 1980, and the winds were whipping up on the United Methodist Church around issues of human sexuality.  The Council, what we would call the General Board, was approached by a quiet man in his 40s named Chuck. 

Chuck had recently been divorced, but now seemed to have a new joy about him.  He told the Council his story, of how his wife had left him, and he had been so grief-stricken that he had prayed desperately for god’s help.  As months went by his grief slowly lifted, and he began to make new friends.  With one friend, he found a deep connection, deeper than he’d ever known in his life.  He realized that he was deeply in love -- with a man. 

It was like a new world of joy had opened up to him, and he believed God had given him a true gift.

Now, surrounded by the rocking of the boat of of church policy, Chuck asked the Council to take a public stand against the denomination’s policies and the city’s new law that gay teachers like Chuck could be fired for coming out of the closet. 

The Council was silent for a few minutes.  Then, the Council’s resident curmudgeon -- every church has at least one! -- stood up.  Standing was not a regular practice a these casual meetings.  Everyone held their breath. 

Then, the curmudgeon said, “I have seen a transformation in Chuck that seems to me like the work of God.  And who are we to go against the work of God?”  He sat back down.

As the next hour unfolded, the other Council members told their own stories feeling lost and out of control, only to be saved by a power greater than themselves. 

They voted unanimously to take the stand that Chuck had asked them to take.  By the time I was a member of that church, 20 years later, they were well-known in the city as a church on the vanguard of LGBT rights, as well as many other issues of social justice.  By witnessing the salvation of one of their members, the whole church had been saved.  And this gave them the power to bring that saving grace to others, just like the disciples in that boat eventually did for thousands of others.

All of this happened because one man was courageous -- or maybe, faithful -- enough, to try walking on water.  And even when that became too hard, he was able to ask for help.  This act, witnessed by other frightened people, transformed their understanding of God’s power, and in turn transformed their ministry to others.

Whether you identify more with Peter or the disciples, there is good news for you in this story.  Both are saved.  Now, lest you think I’m getting all southern Baptist on you and am about to preach hellfire and damnation, let me assure that my understanding of salvation is in a much more practical sense.  I’m talking instead about real, in-the-moment, right-here-on-earth salvation. 

In the Gospel, the disciples were saved from death by drowning.  In our regular lives, we are often in need of saving from both literal and figurative storms.  We find ourselves in need of saving in the midst of deep debt, relational turmoil, helplessness in the face of injustice, uncontrollable pride.  We need salvation from fear, anxiety, and suffering.  We are a people in constant need of saving, because we are humans, and we mess up, and we are affected by others who mess up, too.

And the good news of this story is that God, as revealed in the person of Jesus, is capable of that saving grace, and waits for us to call out and ask for it.  Even greater is the good news that God is not just there to save an individual, like Peter.  Through the ways that God works in one person’s life and we in the boat are there to witness it, we too are saved.  We, too, grow in our faith that God might actually be able to help us, if God could help that sap, Peter.  Perhaps, if we ask for it, we might even be able to walk on water long enough to help others get a glimpse of that faith as well.

Who could we become, all of us together on this ship of stormy times in the economy, embroiled in many wars, with the widest gap between rich and poor ever seen in this country?  Who could we become, as a church facing generational shifts and their accompanying undercurrents of conflict? 

Who could we become if a few of us trusted enough to step out of the boat, relying solely on God’s power?  Who could we become, as a church, if we witness that power, hear those stories, let ourselves be changed?  Imagine what might be possible!

Imagine if we shared with each other the stories of facing unemployment or an underwater mortgage, and a job coming through at the last minute... Might the church, witnessing to this power of God, be moved to form a job resource center, or ban together for affordable housing?  Imagine if one of us were to share her experience of being liberated through divorce from an abusive relationship, and we found ourselves with renewed vigor to advocate for others who’ve been abused...

Whether we are like Peter, eager to take a risk on the power of God, or simply witnesses to Peter’s faith journey on the water, can we open ourselves to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, with God’s love and power, it is possible to walk on water?

Could we, as William Sloane Coffin once put it, decide to commit as much of ourselves to as much of God as we can believe in,[3] and see what happens?  As we face our next storms, let us be not afraid, but call upon the great I AM to save us, and watch what happens!

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[1] My partner, known well to the congregation

[2] Anne Lamott.  Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.  Anchor Books.  2000.

[3] William Sloane Coffin.  Letters to a Young Doubter. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. P. 40