Will you pray with me? “Lord,
may the words of my lips and the meditations of all
our hearts be
acceptable in your sight. Amen.”
A reading from the Gospel according to
Matthew: “And when
[Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that
the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord,
save us! We are perishing!’
And he said to them ‘Why are you afraid, you
of little faith?’ Then he got up and
rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm.
They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man
is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’” Here ends the reading.
Reflecting on boats both biblical and not,
Simon Jenkins,
editor of shipoffools.com, “the Website of Christian unrest”, wrote
this poem:
what
ship plays with icebergs
and plays soft music as it sinks into the ocean?
what ship on the throw of a dice
feeds a prophet to his fishy destination?
what ship breaks its spine on the rocks
and turns the waves black with lubrication?
a
ship of fools
but there are fools and
those who seem to be
what
ship is built on a dry highland
is launched by a downpour
and flies on watery wings to the peak of a mountain?
what ship has a crew
of
taxmen thieves and fishermen
who decide in the howling storm
to make a small sleeping carpenter
their captain?
yes
a ship of fools
but there are fools and
those who only appear to be
“What ship has a crew of taxmen, thieves, and
fishermen/ who
decide in the howling storm/ to make a small sleeping carpenter/ their
captain?” The ship in Jenkins’ wonderful
question is, of course, that first boatload of those who had make the
foolish
decision to abandon life as they knew it to follow the itinerant son of
a carpenter
as he lived the realm of God in a world that did not welcome such
behavior. Put another way, Jenkinds’ ship
of fools is
the church.
A bold and delightfully heretical statement,
to be certain
(I told you it came from the Website of Christian unrest), but the
church as
ship is an image that has been around since the earliest days of
Christianity. It can be seen painted on
the walls of early Christian catacombs. Saint
Hippolytus, a martyr who lived at the turn of the
second century,
said, “The world is a sea in which the Church, like a ship, is beaten
by the
waves, but not submerged.” The part of
the church building where you are sitting, the part between the
narthex, or
lobby, in the back and the chancel up here in the front, is called the
nave. It’s a term that derives from the
Latin word navis, from which we also get the words
“navy” and “navigation”. It means—you
guessed it—“ship”.
It is a wonderful image. The
church, the body of believers, as the
vessel in which we Christians ply the waters of the world.
The place where we take shelter from the
storm as did Noah, or head out to brave the storm, as did those first
foolish
disciples of Christ. In it, we find the
aids and tools for navigation left behind by those who have traveled
these
waters before us. From its lofty decks,
we see that the horizon, the ending that we thought we knew when we
floated
alone, is no ending at all but simply the limit of our sight.
From its decks, we scan the waters for the
foundering and
the drowning, those who find themselves about to hit bottom, and we
throw to
them lifelines, shouting good news of great joy and inviting them to
journey
with us and our captain. From its decks,
we are fishers of people, though not with nets and hooks, but the good
news of
the life we know: that with our God, you can cease struggling to keep
your head
above water, and instead go adventuring. We
haul the drowning ones on board even as we were hauled up
in our time,
we pull them close, we tell them we love them, and we put them to work
on the
crew.
And if the church is a ship, then it is God’s
breath, God’s
Holy Spirit, that fills our sails and sets us running over the waves. On this ship, there are no engines, no oars
that we might move ourselves through the water. Only
the Spirit. The Spirit is
the force, the power by which we move and take our direction, and whose
absence
leaves us adrift.
“Adrift” is good description of the disciples
when we come
upon them in today’s story from the book of Acts, though “agape” might
be more
to the point. Some of these ones are the
very ones that had been in the boat with Jesus on the day of the
terrifying
storm. Now, having died and having been
resurrected, he promises them that they will receive the power of the
Holy
Spirit, power they must use to proclaim the good news unto the ends of
the earth. He charges them with living an
enormous and
fabulous adventure, and before they can even respond, so the story
goes, he is taken
up into a cloud and disappears. They are
left standing, dumbfounded. Two figures
robed in white, messengers from God, we presume, appear out of nowhere
to tell
them to stop gaping at the heavens and get to work.
The work will not be easy, and they know it. The small boat that stood them in good stead
on the Sea of Galilee while Jesus was
with
them in the flesh will no longer serve. The
only guidance Jesus has given them is to be patient, to wait for the
power of
the Holy Spirit. They know that if they
are to reach the ends of the earth with their message, if they are even
to make
it much beyond tomorrow, they will need to build another kind of vessel
than
their tiny fishing bark, one that will endure, one equipped to catch
and use
the power of the Spirit that Jesus has promised them. No
longer simply a movement foolish in the
eyes of the world, they, this motley band of sinners, prostitutes, tax
collectors, working people, and outcasts, must figure out how to become
the
church.
The first step they take is a good one. It is the first step that we in the church
always take when faced with a crisis. They
gather together, and they devote themselves to prayer.
Then the next step becomes clear: they turn
to the question of how to replace Judas, who in betraying Jesus has
chosen to
face the sea alone. They choose two that
meet their initial criteria. Then they
pray to God for guidance, and, following Jewish tradition, place the
decision
entirely in God’s hands—some would say in the hands of luck—by tossing
dice. Matthias gets the nod.
It is a foolish way to select a new leader,
and yet there is
something wonderful in the deep and simple faith of it.
They have not yet received the power of the
Spirit Jesus promised them, have not yet had the Pentecost experience
of the
Spirit’s fiery presence that we will celebrate next week.
And yet, they are prepared to believe that
that Spirit is with them, that the presence of God is still among them
even
when Jesus no longer is, and to live their lives accordingly.
The ship of the church is not yet built, the
prototypes are
not even in production. And yet here are
Peter and Mary and the others, already putting on the canvas to catch
the
Spirit’s wind and see where it will take them. Even
in the midst of their anxiety and confusion, they raise
their
prayers and unfurl their souls to see on what adventure their God will
lead
them next.
In the eyes of the world, casting lots to find
leaders,
raising the sails before the ship is in shape, is a foolish way for
them to
have proceeded, but then again, in the eyes of the world, they were
only ever a
ship of fools to begin with. “yes/ a
ship of fools/ but there are fools and/ those who only appear to be”.
And after all, it worked.
The ship that Christians have been sailing through the
centuries, seeking
to witness to Christ in all the world, navigate the heavy seas, and
throw out
lines to those about to go under, this ship is still afloat. To be sure, from time to time it has sprung
leaks or been becalmed by souls close-furled and unable to catch the
Spirit’s
wind. Its crew has sometimes sought to
move it with nothing but their own power and ingenuity, and gotten us
nowhere. Sometimes, it has fought unholy
battles with
other good ships. Sometimes, God help
us, the lost and drowning have been ignored and it has seemed more like
a pirate
ship than anything else. Sometimes these
days it feels like a ghost ship with a skeleton crew.
But when it sails, it sails. When souls are open and prayers are earnest,
in worship here in naves, in reaching out beyond the walls and in
fellowshipping within, in the grand dreams of visioning processes and
the frustrating
minutia of committee meetings, when our sails are well and truly
raised,
doesn’t our ship fly through the
waters.
And by the grace of God we strike out again on
God’s mission
to save the lost. The vision and the
hope of the people expand beyond the old horizons.
The good news is shouted from the decks and
the drowning are dragged on board and invited to work once more. The people find a place to protect them from
the surges and find themselves equal to adventuring again.
My sisters and brothers, it is good to be
together on this
voyage, with one another and with our God. So,
like Peter and Mary, like Joseph and Matthias and all
those who have
plied these waters before us, let us unfurl the sails of our souls, let
us
raise aloft the sails of our prayers, let us catch the Spirit’s wind
that even
now is blowing across the face of the waters, and together, let us go
a-voyaging
on this good old ship,
Amen.
