Creekside Church Sermon of June 22, 2003 "The Storm Shelter " Mark 4:35-41	Rev. David Bibbee
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"Vicissitude" isn't a word we use very often, if ever, in our daily discourse, but we have all experienced it. Vicissitude isn't in my daily vocabulary, either, but I think about the word now and then, because it is linked to a significant person in my life. Paul Robinson had a rich legacy of leadership in the Church of the Brethren. For twenty-five years, he was president of Bethany Theological Seminary. Before that, he was an influential pastor, and in the estimation of many, the denomination's greatest preacher of the 1900's. Following his retirement in 1976, he wanted one more pastorate, which lead him to the Crest Manor Congregation in South Bend. A great blessing of my life was a year-long internship with Paul and the church in 1980.

It was a tremendous learning experience, but near the end of the internship, the unexpected happened. Paul began to stumble and fall. I remember the Sunday he collapsed as he approached the pulpit. There was a collective "gasp" from the congregation. I dashed over to help him up, which was no slight task since the stature of his frame matched that of his persona. "Get me up into the pulpit and I'll be alright," he told me. I still hear his first words to the congregation, "As you see, I do not have a good leg to stand on."

Paul's diagnosis was Diabetic Neuropathy. Over the next weeks he preached from a wheelchair. On my last Sunday, Paul delivered a sermon called, "The Vicissitudes of Life." A vicissitude is defined as "a favorable or unfavorable event or situation that occurs by chance." The vicissitudes he addresses were the unfavorable ones. He said the test of Christian character is how we respond to them and how, with the assurance of Christ's presence, we may overcome them.

When chance imposes upon us, we are all on equal ground. It is like the game we learned in our preschool years, "Ring around the rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" We don't know when or how, but we all take our turns at falling down. But faith in Christ helps us get back up, and gives us resolve to not just "get through" hard times, but learn and "grow through" them.

Jesus had put in a long day teaching the crowds by the Sea of Galilee. He spent time with the disciples talking about the parables he had shared, and offered insights into the journey upon which Jesus had invited them. It was late. He had had enough of the crowds, so he gathered the disciples into a boat to go to the other side of the sea… in the dark. No one suggested it. It was Jesus' idea.

You have heard me say that whenever mountains are mentioned in the Bible, something significant is about to happen. It's also true when boats are mentioned in the gospels. You can count on one of three things - fish, no fish, or a storm. In our story one of those sudden, intense wind storms for which the Sea of Galilee was notorious, errupted. Jesus' decision put them in the thick of it.

If you have a fear of water, a film not to see is "The Perfect Storm." It depicts what likely happened to the swordfish boat, The Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the storm of the century off the northeast coast in 1992. The boat had a make or break load of fish to get to Gloucester, Massachusetts, and the crew went into the eye of the monstrous storm to get there, but the storm swallowed the Andrea Gail..

Jesus is no reckless, fool-hardy captain, but if you get in a boat with him it will not be a joy-ride down the St. Joe on the River Queen. This story is a parable of what it is like to go to sea with Jesus.

The journey was Jesus' idea. The second observation we make is that Jesus and the disciples undertook their journey together. Here I think about the two boys who walked into a dentist's office. The older one did the talking: "I want a tooth taken out and I don't want to fool around with it. We've got a ballgame today and we don't have time to mess around. I don't want any of that deadener stuff, just get this tooth out of our way." The dentist replied, "I'm impressed. You must be a real brave guy. You just want it pulled with no deadener?" "That's right, just yank it out!" "OK," the dentist said, "but you'll have to show me which one it is." The spokesman then said to his silent partner, "Show him your tooth, Robbie!"

Its easy to endorse a plan and ask someone else to do it! "How many of you think this is a good idea? Great! Who's going first?" Someday I am going to preach a series on "The Bible's Most Important Words." One of them is…"with." The Twenty-third Psalm says, "…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me…" At Christmas, we read from Matthew, "…and his name shall be called Emmanuel." (Which means God with us), (1:22). At the close of the same gospel, Jesus says to the disciples, "I will be with you day after day after day, right up to the end of the age." (28:20). In the conclusion of the book of Revelation we read, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with mortals. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people…" (21:2).

Christianity is not a "do it yourself" project. We can't go it alone. We will need help - lots of it, precisely because of the nature of the journey before us.

A third observation is not that storms are possible for Christians - they are inevitable! I remember a little poem that Julie Osborn wrote to a friend whose husband was fighting cancer: "Life is a whirlwind. Life is not a breeze. It hurls us up, it casts us down, then leaves us on our knees…" This adventure of faith that Jesus invites us to join - he never said it would be easy, only that it would be worth it.

Beware of any Gospel talks about the elimination of pain. Jesus promised us peace, but not the worldly sort that offer immunity from the vicissitudes of life. Look at the words from the Presbyterian preacher, George Buttrick, in the bulletin:

"And perhaps I ought to say to you bluntly about this peace of Christ that he didn't cancel Roman taxes, and he didn't drive the Romans from his land, and he did not make people finally immune from sickness, and he did not outlaw death. And as for escaping the actual sorrows of the world, he carried them to a cross…"

Speaking as one who struggles with "worrywartitis" it is important to see from this passage that Jesus is not bothered by what bothers us. Jesus' disposition to the world is not one of fear. Situations which terrified the disciples, Jesus treated as occasions for greater reliance upon God.

As strange as it sounds, I get a rush out of storms. I like being outside watching the cloud formations change with the advance of the system. As the sky grows dark, the birds stop singing and there is an ominous quiet before the leading edge of cooler wind arrives. The time elapsed between lightning bolts and thunderclaps shortens. In the distance, the trees begin to bend and the storm gets down to business. I should add that I enjoy doing this with the security of shelter just a few steps away. I wouldn't enjoy it if I were in a little boat, on the water, in ferocious winds, in the dark!

Picture the disciples, pitched and rocked on the heaving swells of water, their knuckles white from clinging for dear life to that tub, the water washing over the gunwales filling it almost to the point of sucking it under. Meanwhile, oblivious to what is going on, Jesus sleeps like a log with his head on a pillow!

A slumbering Jesus brings us to the pivotal point of the text. The disciples shake Jesus awake. "We're on the verge of drowning and you're sleeping without a care in the world. Don't you care if we die!"

What could be more assuring than being in the presence of Jesus? Yet as wondrous as it was, it still was not enough to keep them from crying, "Does it matter to you if we die? Do you care?" If Jesus cared as much as he said, he would keep them out of dangerous situations. Wouldn't he? Leaving everything to follow him, they assumed they would be spared the storms and hassles to which other people were subject.

According to legend, Saint Teresa was on one of her missionary journeys. Things were not going well on one particular excursion. To add insult to injury, as she walked along a riverbank she slipped and fell in. That was it. Teresa looked to heaven and hollered at God, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them!" Translated: "Do you care?"

Your dreams for your retirement years go up in smoke because the stocks in which you invested nose-dived, and you cry out, "Jesus, do you care?" Your once vital spiritual life, for no reason you can discern, becomes barren as a desert. Your repeated question, "Where are you, God?" yields nothing but the echo of your own voice, and you cry out, "Do you care?" The one you love is wasting away from cancer, and you cry out "Do you care?" "We're getting pounded by the wind and waves. The Galley is filling with water. May-Day, Jesus! May-Day! We're going down! Do you care?"

It is easy to believe Christ cares in calm seas, but storms cast us into the turbulence of doubt. But Jesus, "God with us", remains faithful. "Peace! Be still!" Jesus said to the sea. If only the disciples could have been as peaceful. "What are you guys afraid of? Where's your faith? Did you think I would let you perish? Have I ever let you down? But he didn't give up on them. He didn't exchange them for stronger, braver, and more faithful men. They had much to learn. They had more storms to endure. And Jesus had much to give. Because Jesus does care.

I got a call this week from someone who picked the church's number at random from the phone book. When there is nowhere else to turn, as a last resort, try calling a church. She said she didn't know what to do. She was dealing with crisis on top of crisis, and throughout the conversation she kept saying, "I don't understand why all of this is happening to me. It's not fair! It's just not fair!" I told her she was right. "Smell the coffee…life isn't fair!"

After we talked I got to thinking about fairness, and how glad I am that life isn't.

In Victor Hugo's "Les Miserable", Jean Valjean spends nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread and then trying to escape. When he is finally released he is a bitter man, because of the grave injustice done to him. With no place to stay, he seeks lodging in the home of the Catholic bishop who treats him with care and kindness. But Valjean used the bishop's kindness as an opportunity to exploit. He steals most of the bishop's silver, but as he is fleeing, he is apprehended by the police. They bring Valjean back to the house for identification, but to their surprise, the bishop acts as though he has given him the silver. He hands Valjean two candlesticks and says, "Here, you forgot these." After the police left, the bishop said to Jean Valjean, "I have bought your soul for God." He wasn't treated fairly when thrown into prison for stealing bread, and he wasn't' treated fairly by the bishop's act of grace. As a result, the bitterness was broken and Valjean was a changed man.

There is a book that Twig and I will give to a husband and wife who have endured incredible pain. I have mentioned the book to you before. It is by Gerald Sittser, a religion professor at Whitworth College, who endured a debth of suffering we could scarcely imagine. While on a family vacation, a drunken driver ran head-on into their minivan. His wife, four-year old daughter, and mother were pronounced dead at the scene. His book, A Grace Disguised, is a memoir of his grief.

We think the world should run according to rules. It is a world where the good are rewarded and the bad pay the bill. And it is a fantasy! Sittser says that "Why me?" questions are inevitable, but never for a moment did he believe the accident was God's way of giving him what he deserved. He then realized that instead of asking, "Why me?", the better question was, "Why not me?" He did not deserve the accident, but neither did he deserve God's grace that had given him a wonderful wife, mother, and daughter who had given him so much.

What would you rather have in your life, fairness or grace? Listen to what Gerald Sittser says:

"I would prefer to take my chances living in a universe in which I get what I do not deserve. That means that I will suffer loss, as I already have, but it also means I will receive mercy.

"I will have to endure the bad I do not deserve; I will also get the good I do not deserve. I dread experiencing undeserved pain, but it is worth it to me if I can also experience the underserved grace of God in Jesus Christ… despite the fact that I had been a Christian for many years before the accident, since then God has become a living reality to me as never before…God spare us from a life of fairness!"

It's a frightening thing, to be caught in a storm, especially the kind that weather radar can't detect. I'm talking about the storms that can't be seen…the ones that rage inside you…the ones known only to you.

Perhaps it's the storm of conflicting impulses. Perhaps its some emotional storm you thought had passed long ago but is on the horizon and bearing down on you hard. Perhaps the storm is a concern for someone you love dearly but can't help…not in a way that will make everything work out.

I don't know what all of your storms may be, but I also know that you need not face them alone. Jesus is no fair weather friend. He's the Lord over all our storm. Our shelter from the stormy blast and our eternal home.

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