Grace to you and peace from Jesus the Christ who never stops coming to find us. AMEN.
Let me set the scene. We’re in Colorado. Way up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, about 13,000 ft.. Two days up from our trailhead, and about 15 or 20 miles from Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp, our base out of which this whole adventure is organized and led. Heather and I, our three SVLC high schoolers -- Wes, Jake, Sophia -- our 2 guides Cody and Savannah (who everyone called Savage), and 2 random Welsh Corgis that had been following us on the trail, and toward whom we had quickly given much affection. (Jake named one Jeffrey and the other Oreo.)
All nine of us packed under a small tarp, stretched out and hung from 4 trees, and eating dinner. It’s raining. Strike that: it’s pouring. And we’re actually getting along ok in our rain gear sitting on trash bags, shoveling in pasta from our little metal sierra cups, which act as both bowl and mug. We kept lowering the tarp to protect ourselves, as the wind was blowing the rain under our cover, I remember the tarp got so low that it pressed against my head and I could feel the raindrops tapping on my head. Yet we’re still having a pretty good time! Until it starts coming down even more, and suddenly, we see and feel the water rolling down the slight hill we’re on...and starting to wash us out, from under us! Not just pounding down on the tarp above us, but now also under us. And it’s all rushing to what we guys claimed and thought would be the most scenic place to put our tent, overlooking this beautiful mountain lake. All this water is rolling toward our tent, which was our only hope of anything staying protected and dry. And it’s getting dark, as if every drop of rain is like a tiny light switch in the sky turning off. Uhhhh......
(*Why can’t I get any volunteers? *People keep asking me how my vacation was... a) high schoolers [who were awesome, but still] and b) rain.)
All of this, of course, is a metaphor for life, right? Trying to do everything we can to protect ourselves (tarp, rain gear), maybe making some hasty, greedy decisions to secure the best for ourselves (tent site), only to wind up learning that we probably should have been a little more thoughtful and careful, and that there are some things over which we absolutely have no power.
So when I read our texts for my first Sunday back on dry CA land, I couldn’t help but laugh -- first reading about Elijah: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord...now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting the mountains and breaking rocks in pieces.” And then this Gospel text: Jesus goes off by himself to pray, but it says, “the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.” Where are you in those stories? Ever feel tossed and rocked in the boat? Terrified. Waterlogged. Windblown. Shaken and soaked from above and below? [pause]
I’m not going to move on to the punchline just yet (which is Jesus). Let’s just sit with this; let’s just sit in the downpour, in the storm.
You know one of the gifts of this backpacking trip, was having to sit in the downpour. We worshiped at two different Lutheran churches in Colorado, one before the backpacking, when we first arrived and one at the end of our adventure, and we prayed for the poor and those who have no place to lay their heads both times. But after sitting in the rain a night or two, we heard that prayer very differently the second time. Experiences like this make us feel small, mortal, helpless, and more compassionate.
Many of us are well aware of our mortality, but we sure can try to avoid reflecting on it in our culture, in our younger years, in our older years. We Christians find ourselves a death-denying culture. So to be battered by the waves, to sit in the downpour, to endure the storms -- this is where we can only place ourselves in God’s arms. It’s important to note: Elijah didn’t find God in the storm itself, neither did the disciples. (Nature, as you know, is indifferent.) Rather in the tiny places during the storm, the “sheer silence”. Disciples thought they saw a ghost -- that’s one translation “phantasma”, a blurry vision. God does not always appear clear and booming and powerful like thunder. Rather as a blurry vision amid the storm, a friend who reaches out, a sliver of light through the clouds, a warm drink from a stranger, a blanket or sleeping bag that miraculously stayed dry...
You know, I think, that crazy, stormy night, was the most memorable and the most fun, of our whole trip? I didn’t finish telling you what happened: We were being so pelted (oh yeah, it was hailing too) that finally our guides after trying to direct us to clean up and protect as much as we could finally just surrendered, and shouted “Run for your tents! Let’s call it a night!” And we raced for our tents and jumped inside. Would you believe that it was actually dry in there? There was water literally rushing all around us, but those tents were so waterproof that I had my best night sleep of the whole trip! I mean, that’s as miraculous as walking on water! But we didn’t go to sleep right away. It was only 6:30 when we ran for our tents. That night we played card games, we worshiped, and we laughed and laughed -- guys in our tent, and we could hear the girls in theirs, laughing and laughing. We were fine -- thanks be to God -- when you’re that close up against the elements, there’s no one else to thank for keeping us safe.
Sisters and brothers in Christ, Jesus never wearies of coming out to look for us. He even crosses the turbulent seas. He even crosses death and the powers of hell to come find us, to reach out to us and to say, “Do not be afraid. Have courage. I am here.”
Today, you are pulled up, you are rescued, you are saved from drowning. Even in the storms, God has got us.
So let’s not be afraid anymore. Let’s have the courage to get out of the boat, to get out of the “nave”, the ship, to get out of the nice, dry, safe church and into the choppy seas of this world! Let’s take a risk like Peter, and be Christ’s voice for the voiceless, sheltering children who have no place to call home, feeding the hungry who have no table around which to gather, nursing the sick who no one else wants to touch, speaking out in the face of violence begetting more violence in the Middle East...and in our own backyards. Our children just pretend to shoot each other like it’s no big deal. Where is the Church’s voice in all this? We’re huddled in the nave, in the ship, terrified. What does Jesus say as he’s reading our newspapers? And what would Jesus do? These are our downpours. We are huddled under a tarp. And Christ comes out to meet us in the midst of raging storm, to rescue us, to feed us, to send us out, and to make us whole.
Today, we are being pulled up, we are being rescued from our fears and saved from our sins. Even in the heaviest of storms, God has got us, and God has got this whole world -- it’s not ours to save, only ours to serve.
Christ stops at nothing to wade into our humanity, into our downpours, into our sorrow, with a powerful word of peace and hope, and strong arm to lift us out. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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