Pentecost 8

Sermon for Hope Episcopal Church
The Reverend Martha Frances
Year B, Pentecost 8, Proper 12
30 July 2006

Text: Mark 6: 45-52

Other Readings: 2 Kings 2: 1-15; Psalm 114; Ephesians 4: 1-7, 11-16

Immediately after Jesus has fed the 5,000 men & who knows how many women & children, he makes his disciples get into the boat & head toward Bethsaida on the other side of the lake. Why? Well, it’s pretty obvious if you remember last weeks’ reading. At the beginning of the Gospel lesson last week, Jesus invites the disciples who have returned from their first preaching & healing mission to come away to a deserted place & rest awhile.

That wasn’t a very successful move, was it? When they got to the deserted place, there was a crowd that, by dinnertime, had swollen to well over 5,000 hungry people. Jesus had deferred their rest ‘till after he had fed all the gathered crowd, first with spiritual bread & then with a physical meal. Now, he’s pooped! He tries again to get at least some rest & prayer time for himself. He sends the disciples across the lake in a boat, perhaps so they can rest while he’s not with them, & he goes up on the mountain to pray. We don’t know how much prayer time he has had, but I can promise that it’s not enough.

I can really relate to this situation, for much goes on when I am in the church office, & between the interruptions which are when much real ministry happens & caring for a disabled husband, I have to work to find time for daily prayer & meditation. If Jesus had to have it, it’s pretty clear that those of us called to do Jesus’ work need time for re-creation & getting our batteries recharged just as Jesus did. That’s why I’m taking the next 2 weeks off & will spend a few days in Florida this week. A couple of my colleagues will be on call in case a priest is needed. Such time for prayer & meditation & “down time” is as necessary for you lay people as it is for us priests.

Does Jesus have a premonition that his disciples are in trouble? The text doesn’t say but only tells us that about 4:00 in the morning, he comes walking on the sea toward them, seeing that they are straining at the oars against an adverse wind. A curious line follows in the story: “he intended to pass them by.” Why would he not intend to help them? There’s a good indication that his water-walking antics are actually what we call a theophany, an appearance of Jesus that shows his divinity. The disciples are indeed dense, for they believe him to be a ghost & are terrified. He responds with still further evidence of an epiphany or theophany much like God’s appearance to Moses in the burning bush. He says, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” God told Moses, “I am who I am,” much like “it is I.” How many times do we hear in the Bible God or God’s angels telling mere mortals not to be afraid? Yeah, right!

Then Jesus does a very human thing: he gets into the boat with the disciples. What is extraordinary & miraculous is that the wind ceases! The disciples, still not catching on, are astounded. Mark adds curiously that their astonishment comes from not understanding about the multiplication of the loaves, not from his calming the seas. Their hearts are hardened so they do not see Jesus for who he is—the messiah. The part of this story which is left out is that the crowds on the other side of the lake, people not nearly so close to Jesus as the disciples, recognize Jesus & run through the neighborhood to bring the sick to him for healing. Why don’t the disciples recognize Jesus’ divinity?

Do we always recognize what Jesus is doing in our own or others’ lives? Of course not. We often try to explain away miracles or take credit ourselves for Christ’s work in our lives. This past weekend, my husband Bill had another spot arise on his chest like he had had when we were at home. This time, he was in the hospital where the doctors recognized an infection & another surgical procedure was necessary. Had we been at home, we would not have recognized its significance. Being alert & open to see God’s work in our lives is part of maturing in a faith journey. For the 10 chapters after this incident in Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus helping the disciples grow in the faith. We’ll be exploring that deepening faith walk in the next several Sundays in worship & are already in the midst of that study in our 9:00 adult formation class.

Today, we get a glimpse of the marks of a mature Christian by focusing on the Ephesians selection in the lectionary. We are encouraged, just as the Christians at Ephesus were urged, to lead a life worthy of being called a Christian. Character traits mentioned are humility, gentleness, patience, loving each other even when others are hard to bear, & striving to live in peace & unity with each other. Sounds like a tall order, wouldn’t you say? Yet it’s one we’re all called to strive for if we’re ever-maturing Christians. Can we do it on our own? Absolutely not. We need to establish the habit of watching for the miracles, the healings that happen in our lives that are only attributable to the Holy Spirit’s guiding us. And then we’re given a Christian community to grow with. We’re not alone in this road to maturity.

Whenever we have a baptism or confirmation in the Episcopal Church, we begin the service by quoting from this scripture from Ephesians. We affirm that there is one body & one Spirit, one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God & Father of all. Notice how many times the word “one” is repeated? We’re called to work on being unified. Does that mean we’re all going to think or behave just alike? Of course not! What a dull world this would be? However, we have a solemn obligation to learn to live together in love even when we disagree. We’ve done an extraordinary job of fulfilling this expectation of God’s here at Hope in the last year.

The Ephesians are told, as are we, that all of us are graced with Christ’s gifts for building up the church community & for reaching out into the larger world. Whether you or I is gifted to be an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a pastor and/or a teacher, we are all—& I emphasize every one of us—saints who are being equipped for the work of ministry. My sisters & brothers, God doesn’t choose the equipped, as we have often been told; God equips the chosen. All of us are chosen; no one is left out.

Right here in Ephesians, we’re told two important things that we often forget. God gives us gifts not so we can be better than everyone else & win in competitions with weaker Christians. No! God’s not in the business of making super-hero Christians. God gives each of us gifts to build up the body of Christ—that’s the Church. Keep today’s lectionary insert someplace you’ll see & read it often; it’s our instruction for our parish these days. Our Spiritual Workout for ministry which begins today & continues two Saturdays in August & two in September is Hope’s next step in providing training for the ministry which God is calling us to do with each other & beyond our own community into a spiritually-needy world.

What is the expected outcome of such a building project? That’s the 2^nd thing often forgotten. The goal we’re being transformed for is our coming to unity in the faith in the midst of our diversity & growing in knowledge of the Son of God. Both the unity & the knowledge are called maturity, & only when we obtain some maturity do we grow into the full stature of Christ.

The Ephesians were very young in the faith when this epistle was written. In fact, this epistle was probably written originally as an instruction manual for preparing Christians for baptism. They’re told—& we’re told—that we can’t be content to behave like children. As baby Christians, we can be tossed about on the sea of various opinions & disagreements like those disciples in the boat during the storm that Jesus had to calm. Mature Christians speak the truth in love, & we’re called to grow up & be Christlike. The image the writer uses is of one body in which the parts work together because the body is in good shape. The ligaments are properly knit together so that the body can function as it is created to do. Such a well-developed body represents unity in the body of Christ. All the parts—that’s each of us—are needed for the spiritual exercise which tones the body of Christ. My goodness, this scripture brings us right back to our own series of spiritual workout sessions, doesn’t it? Perhaps this is one of those God-incidences I was mentioning earlier in my sermon: no one looked at the scriptures for today when we developed the theme for our training sessions; God worked that out!

Regardless of where you are on your journey toward Christian maturity, let us pray for Christ’s walking into your life to calm the turbulent seas within you & to lead you to become the mature Christian God created us all to be. Let us pray also that we may walk & work together as a community to the mission & ministry God yearns for Hope to be & do.