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“The Olympics: Sailing”

Mark 4:35-41

August 21, 2016

[HAVE UP RIO SLIDE.]

According to the official website of the International Olympic

Committee, the Rio Summer Olympics have 306 events in 42 sports. I

chose only three sports for this sermon series: archery, gymnastics, and

today, sailing. Sailing is a sport in which I have taken part, certainly

not as a competitor, but as someone who has enjoyed participating in

it. I enjoyed it so much that I managed even with my lifelong problem

of motion sickness to participate in it. I learned to use a doctor-

prescribed patch to wear while I was on the water, and it helped a lot,

even though sometimes, after getting back on land and taking off the

patch, nausea would hit me then! My dear and long-suffering husband

Michael knows well my motion sickness; he has learned to always be “at

the ready” with an airsick bag when we fly, even when I take

Dramamine!

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Anyway, years ago, when I lived in the Washington, DC, area, I

dated a guy who loved to sail in nearby Annapolis, Maryland. He took

me sailing and taught me a bit about it, and he also encouraged me to

take sailing classes there, which I did. (Ah, the things we do for love,

hmm?) I wasn’t the greatest sailor; it took me several times before, on

the “man overboard” drill in which we used a dummy, the instructor did

not say, “You just killed the man overboard.” But over a period of

weeks, I did finally obtain a card which allowed me to captain up to a 40

foot Tanzer. And even though I was probably in the bottom third of my

sailing class, I always knew there was a beauty to the sport, and I just

loved being near and on the ocean, which is still true to this day.

My relationship with this guy eventually ended, but I still

continued to sail. I may have told some of you this before, but when I

was in seminary, a group of professors and students took a spring break

to travel in three sailboats on the Chesapeake Bay. We had a lot of fun,

and even blended in some theology, making all kinds of analogies like

the captain was God the Father, the first mate was God the Son, and the

cook was the Holy Spirit. I served as the first mate to the captain on one

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boat, the captain being my New Testament professor, and, I have to say,

it was and is the one and only time in my life I was compared to Jesus!

Competitive sailing such as in the Olympics includes events by

both single sailors and groups. [PUT UP SINGLE SAILOR ON

BOAT.] Here, a lone sailor is responsible for everything on the boat.

As you may know, sailboats are powered by the wind, but they must be

steered with a tiller or a wheel, and the sails must be directed carefully

for speed and direction. [PUT UP GROUP SAILING PHOTO.] Here, a

group divides the tasks of working on the steering and sailing. When I

was sailing, I learned quickly how hard this work is; one needs both

strength and good leather gloves to handle the ropes that manage the

sails. And one needs a bit of agility to stay out of the way of the boom!

In the Olympics, sailors must sail their boats on a designated

course which is marked by buoys. The speed they attain is amazing.

[PUT UP SLIDE OF STEERING.] The strength, skill, and experience

the sailors need is even more amazing. And somehow, somehow, they

usually remain calm throughout.

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Many of the disciples of Jesus were fishermen on the Sea of

Galilee and thus sailors. Though their boats were much different than

modern boats, they still were powered by the wind and directed by a

tiller or wheel. Speed and racing were not the objects of the disciples’

time on their boats as fishermen; they simply wanted to catch fish.

Because of the location of the Sea of Galilee---low in a valley

surrounded by hills---storms could often pop up quickly, and the winds

could rise to great speeds. One would guess that the disciples who were

fishermen had experience in handling such storms. In the Biblical text

for today, however, the disciples seem to have real fear in a storm. Let

us look at the text together to see the full story.

Just before the Biblical text for today on which we focus, Jesus has

been teaching to a large crowd on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The

crowd was so large, he had to teach from a boat so that all could hear.

After a long day, he is tired, so Jesus tells us his disciples that they

should go to the other side of the Sea. They take him, in the boat and

tired, “just as he is,” as the text puts it. Other boats are with them;

perhaps they have been listening to Jesus teach and want to continue

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following him. It’s interesting that we don’t hear more about those

boats, but the focus is clearly on the boat with Jesus in it.

A sense of foreboding is introduced in the text right away. It is

evening, probably not the best time to set off across the water. Further,

the “other side” is not a Jewish area. We see that right away in the story

which follows this text; the area is Gentile, a place where swineherds

keep pigs, animals unclean to Jews. Also, in the Bible, the water and the

sea often represent chaos, a place where all is in disorder. We wonder

what might happen.

Sure enough, a great windstorm comes up, a storm not unlike the

whirlwind out of which God speaks to Job in the book of Job when Job

demands to know why he has undergone difficulty. The fishermen

among the disciples probably did what they would do in such

circumstances, taking more control of steering and the sails, and perhaps

trying to get the water out of the boat, but nonetheless, the storm seems

to overwhelm them. Jesus, however, is so tired that he is able to

continue sleeping.

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Being afraid, the disciples wake Jesus up and ask him, “Don’t you

care about us and this situation in which we find ourselves?” Jesus

responds by rebuking the wind and saying to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”

What follows is a dead calm, no wind at all.

Then Jesus turns to the disciples and says, “Why are you afraid?

Have you still no faith?” The disciples move from fear of the storm and

not a little frustration with Jesus to a kind of holy fear of and respect for

him, responding with great awe, and they say to themselves, “Who then

is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” They also learn that

this man who commands even the wind and sea does care for them.

As Biblical commentators note, when this incident happened and

the story was initially retold, it was to show that Jesus, as the Son of

God, had power over nature. It was also used to show that Jesus had

power over demons; this is particularly true if the sea and the wind are

seen as representing a lack of order, and when the story is viewed in

light of the story that follows it, his ability to cast the demons out of the

Gerasene demoniac. Further, the text was used to show that the

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disciples had the power to cast out demons which Jesus had given them

earlier in Mark; they just did not have the faith, the trust, to do it. As

preacher Stephen McKinney notes, addressing both of these latter points,

“In Mark, the sea is a metaphor for demonic and chaotic forces that

stand against the Kingdom of God that is even now at hand, and it [is] a

boundary, literal and metaphorical, between Jew and Gentile. Though

this sea, with devils filled, threatens to undo them, Jesus wants to cross it

because the Good News of the Gospel is never for those on just one side

of the sea. In their attempt to cross to the other side to bring hope and

healing and good news, the demonic forces within the sea, lying in wait

under the boundary like a troll under a bridge, stir the waters into a

horrible whirlwind of a storm. It's enough to terrify even the most

veteran sailors. It's never easy to bring the Good News of the Kingdom

to the other side. Demons stir when God is on the move. Jesus knows

this, but he chooses to sleep, because as he taught in the parable before

they set off in their boat, God's power in the Kingdom is at work even

while we sleep. Jesus trusts the disciples to lead him to the other side,

through the sea. A chapter earlier, when he commissions the disciples,

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he gives them the power to cast out demons. They have the power to

rebuke the demons that stir up the wind and waves. They just don't have

the faith.”1 Certainly, all these interpretations of the text are valid.

Over the years, the text took on additional meaning; so it is with

scripture, its richness continues to be discovered over time and with

additional study. While it was first interpreted to mean that the mission

to the Gentiles would be fraught with danger, and those who carried out

such mission were not to be afraid, but trust in Jesus always to be with

them, later, this was later expanded. Once the mission to the Gentiles

was fully underway, the text came to be applied to all of discipleship, to

what it means to follow Jesus and trust in him no matter the

circumstances, for he cares for his disciples. No matter what it seems

like, the text tells us, Jesus is there and sovereign over all things. A

perfect image of this is the Christ the Redeemed statue in Rio de Janeiro

where the Olympics are taking place; wherever one is in Rio, they can

look up and see Jesus, with his arms outstretched. [PUT UP INITIAL

1 Stephen McKinney, “We Of Little Faith.”

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SLIDE AGAIN.] Wherever we are in life, we should see that same

image. No matter the circumstances, we are not to let those

circumstances define our faith; we are to see God as in control, the God

who came to us in love in Jesus, a love so great it went to the cross for

us.2

So what might this rich text be saying to us today, in our

circumstances? Well, let’s think of ourselves for a moment as sailors in

a boat, and a storm arises. What do we do? Certainly, we pray for the

storm to subside, and we ask for God’s strength to help deal with it if it

does not subside. But the text tells us that we can do something else, if

only we have the faith, the trust in God: we can ourselves do something

about it. In addition to seeking to steer the boat, if you will, using our

human skills in dealing with the storm, God has given us, his disciples,

the power to stand against evil, and so we should. We should speak,

act, and work against it, where we find it. And we need not fear as we do

2 See Henry Blackaby’s book Experiencing God in which he talks about always seeing circumstances against the backdrop of the cross.

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this, for Jesus is right there with us; he is in the boat with us. Think,

then, of Christianity and the church as the boat, and think of the storm as

outward evil, such as the persecution Christians face in the Middle East

and other areas. Think of it even as the spiritual abuse, rejection, and

harassment we can face even as Americans. With Jesus in the boat, we

can stand against that.

St. Augustine writes that we forget Jesus is there with us when we

succumb to fear in these situations. He says, “When you have to listen

to abuse, that means you are being buffeted by the wind. When your

anger is aroused, you are being tossed by the waves. So when the winds

blow and the waves mount high, the boat is in danger, your heart is

imperiled, your heart is taking a battering. On hearing yourself insulted,

you long to retaliate; but the joy of revenge brings with it another kind

of misfortune--shipwreck. Why is this? Because Christ is asleep in

you. What do I mean? I mean you have forgotten his presence. Rouse

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him, then; remember him, let him keep watch within you, pay heed to

him.”3

But perhaps the storm is not in the form of an outward evil like

this. Perhaps the storm is, as it has been for me in the past and recently,

the news of a terminal diagnosis for a family member. Of course disease

is not God’s will but the result of living in a fallen world, and of course,

we seek all medical skills at this time. Miracles can also occur. But

there are times when that storm will not be stilled. In the midst of this

kind of storm, it can really be a time when we experience Jesus and his

presence. One woman tells of a time in her life when she came to

remember that Jesus was with her, when she became truly aware of it.

As preacher Lewis Galloway tells the story, “Reynolds Price tells of an

87-year-old woman who wrote to him about one of those moments in

which the clouds scatter, the darkness lifts, and we see Jesus. She was

facing her own time of difficulty as she was going through exhausting

3 I am indebted for this reference to Sarah Jackson Shelton in her sermon “The Sleeping Jesus.” The quote is from one of Augustine’s sermons.

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medical tests in preparation for surgery. One day she had a kind of

vision. ‘I went out along the Galilee hills and came to a crowd gathered

around a man, and I stood on the outskirts intending to listen. But he

looked over the crowd at me and then said, 'What do you want?' And I

said, 'Could you send someone to come with me and help me stand up

after the tests because I can't manage alone?' He [Jesus] thought for a

moment and then said, 'How would it be if I came?' ‘How would it be if

I came?’ This is precisely what God has done in Jesus Christ. God has

come to us in our suffering and pain, in our struggle to be human, in our

fear and anxiety, and in our doubt and uncertainty. Jesus put off deity

and put on humanity. He became one of us--one with us--one for us.”4

Preacher Christopher Edmonston puts it this way: “Pastor and

writer Michael Lindvall has written, “Instead of saying, ‘There’s nothing

to be afraid of,’ the whole truth would be for the mother comforting her

frightened child to say, ‘Don’t be afraid, because you are not alone.’ The

easy part of the truth, which every child figures out sooner or later, is

4 Lewis Galloway, “Does Jesus Care?” quoting Letter to a Man on Fire.

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that some things that frighten us are real and some are not. But the rest

of the truth, the deeper truth that only faith in the God who raised Jesus

from the grave can teach, is that even though there are real and fearsome

things in this life, they need not paralyze us; they need not have

dominion over us; they need not own us, because we are not alone in the

boat.”5

Let me conclude today with words from writer Frederick

Buechner. He says, “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and

whatever we do in whatever time we have left, wherever we go, may we

in whatever way we can call on him as the fishermen did in their boat to

come awake within us and to give us courage, to give us hope, to show

us, each one, our way. May he be with us especially when the winds go

mad and the waves run wild, as they will for all of us before we're done,

so that even in their midst we may find peace...we may find Christ.”6

Amen.

5 Christopher Edmonston, “Obey?” 6 Again, I am indebted to Shelton for this reference from Buechner from his Secrets in the Dark.

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