Job 38:1-11 and Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32 • 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 • Mark 4:35-41

As a sea-faring nation, we have a history that is full of great stories about expeditions and military victories out at sea. It’s in the very life blood of the British to instinctively celebrate Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar in 1805 and, a little more close to home, Jellicoe’s triumph over the German Fleet in 1916 (though both sides claimed victory in that particular campaign). Equally Cook’s voyages in the Endeavour and Darwin’s expeditions aboard HMS Beagle instil in us a sense of pride in our nation’s great sea-faring achievements.

But we also know that with the opportunities that travel by sea offers us come great risks – not only in times of war, but sometimes as a result of human error. Most of you will be familiar with the infamous Meikle Ferry tragedy of 1809, when the Ferry crossing the Dornoch Firth was overloaded and capsized with a loss of 111 lives.

But even when we get everything right, we know that ultimately those at sea are at the mercy of the weather (even in our day of modern navigational technology).

Take the HMS Prince for example, which, in 1854, was torn from her anchorage by a hurricane force storm and dashed against the rocks – only six of 150 souls aboard were saved.

In 1980 the largest British Ship ever to be lost at sea (MV Derbyshire – 91,655 tons) sank in a Typhoon in the South China Sea – all 44 crew were lost.

And as late as 2009 the Bulgaria went down in a storm in Russia with the loss of 112 souls although not British – this disaster still serves as a warning to us.

In our annual commemorations and remembrances we are reminded of the dangers seafarers face and you yourself may have endured stormy conditions or sadly endured the loss of someone at the mercy of the sea.

We know something of the fear, the terror that being caught in a storm at sea can bring.

In our gospel reading today Jesus and his disciples are crossing the Sea of Galilee and the disciples are experiencing that same terror that harsh weather out at sea brings. But of course, as always, there is a deeper meaning to what we have been hearing about. They are moving from the Jewish side to the Gentile side. From the side where they are at home to the side where they are strangers- the side where life is familiar to the side where it is new, different and unfamiliar. Now we may have never crossed the Sea of Galilee, but I’m pretty sure that most of us have at some point been in that boat.

Of course, this is not just a story about the weather and a boat trip. It is a story about life, a story about faith and it’s a story about fear. Wherever you find one of those – life, faith, fear – you will usually find the other two. They cannot be separated.

Sometimes the sea of life is rough. The wind is strong. The waves are high. The boat is taking on water and sinking. We all know what that is like. I’m sure each one of us could tell a story about a stormy time in our lives.

Some of our stories will begin with a telephone call, a doctor’s visit or news we did not want to hear. Some of them will start with the choices we have made, our mistakes and our sins. Other stories will tell about the difficulty of relationships, hopes and plans that fell apart. Some storms seem to arise out of nowhere and take us by surprise. Other storms build and gather as we sit by and watch.

Storms happen. Storms of loss and sorrow. Storms of suffering and confusion, of failure or disappointment. Storms of loneliness and uncertainty.

Regardless of when or how they arise, storms are about changing conditions. Life can feel overwhelming and out of control when things don’t go our way. Order can give way to chaos and we can feel like we are sinking. The water is deep and the new shore is a distant horizon.

In our gospel story, the disciples are quick to make the storm about Jesus. “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

We’ve probably all echoed their words in the storms of our lives. Praying, calling out to Him “Do something. Fix it. Make it better.” In the midst of the storm Jesus seems absent – passive and uncaring. How can he sleep at a time like this? Sleeping Jesus is not what the disciples or what we want.

But Sleeping Jesus is in the same boat and the same storm as the disciples. He is surrounded by the same water as the disciples, blown by the same wind, beaten by the same waves.  What is different is how he responds. While the disciples fret and worry, he sleeps. The disciples want action. Jesus sleeps in peace and stillness.

His sleep reveals that the greater storm and the real threat is not the wind, waves and water around us – the circumstances in which we find ourselves – no, the greater threat lies within us. The real storm, the more threatening storm is always the one that churns and rages within our minds and souls.

That inward storm is the one that blows us off course, rages against our faith and threatens to drown us. Fear, vulnerability, and powerlessness blow within us. A sense of abandonment, the unknown, judgment and criticism of ourselves and others are the waves that pound us. And too often anger, isolation, cynicism or denial become our shelter from the storm.

“Peace! Be still!” Jesus speaks to the wind and the sea. Jesus isn’t changing the weather as much as inviting the disciples to change. He’s speaking to the wind and the waves within them. The disciples have been pointing to what is going on outside of them. Jesus now points to what is going on inside them. “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

Jesus’ words are more about us than the circumstances of our lives – the storms we meet. Storms happen. Faith does not eliminate the storms in our lives. Faith does not change the storm. But it can change us. Faith does not take us around the storm, but it can steer us through. Faith allows us to see and know that Jesus is there with us. Faith is what allows us to be still, to be peaceful, even in the midst of the storm.

In faith, the Spirit of God blows through and within us more mightily than the winds of any storm. The power of God is stronger than any wave that lashes us. The love of God is deeper than any water that threatens to drown us and each one of us has a duty to share that love with each other at all times, in every storm, through the practical and prayerful support we must offer to each other.

 In every storm that comes your way, remember, Jesus is present and his response is always the same.

“Peace! Be still!”

May God Bless you and those you hold dear during this coming week.

Fr Simon

Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; Mark 4:26-34

Willie and his wife moved into a new house and to put it mildly, the garden was a terrible mess of weeds and brambles and such like, ‘cos the house hadn’t been lived in for maybe eight years, you know; there was thistles five foot high! So Willie got a book on gardening and quickly found that he had a talent for it and he created a garden that everyone for miles around wandered past, just to look over the neat hedges at the beautifully tended flower beds, lawn and shrubbery. Anyway one day the new rector came wandering past and sticks ‘his head over the hedge “Arr Willie,” he says, “Its wonderful what God can do in a garden, with a little help, isn’t it?” And Willie replies “Arr, but you should’ve seen it when ‘e did it all by hisself.“

Our Gospel today contains two parables, both of which say something about gardening. In the first, the gardener sprinkles seed on the ground and then without any further need for effort leaves the rest up to God until it’s time to harvest the crop. God takes care of the germination, does the watering and supplies the necessary heat so that the leaves develop, the stems grow and the seed heads form, swell and ripen.

Anna’s response to this would be similar to that of Willie in the story with which I started – “you just try scattering the seed and doing nothing and see what happens!”

In the second one, the smallest of seeds – mustard but not the plant that you used to grow along with cress on wet blotting paper in school, but black mustard which is a large annual plant which grows up to 9 feet tall. So the tiny dust-like seed grows up into very large plants that birds can nest in the shade of. Jesus frequently uses parables that concern the ordinary things of the daily lives of those to whom he’s speaking and these two are no exception. But parables aren’t simply illustrations, they contain important messages, hidden – if you like – within them.

Several times in the gospels, we hear that Jesus spoke in parables so that many of his hearers (such as the Scribes and the Pharisees) wouldn’t understand exactly what he was talking about . Which is possibly just as well since it was quite often about them and usually not too complimentary.

At the end of today’s passage we hear:

“With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.”

So Jesus explained what his real message was to just his followers and so I suppose that’s what I should be doing now.

Last week we were away visiting our seven-month-old grand daughter Alanna and of course her parents, but then it was Alanna that was the star attraction because we’ve seen Andrew and Tracey before. She is growing fast and is starting to out-grow some of her clothes.

So last Sunday, I found myself at the nine-o’clock service in a very traditional-looking parish church. Inside it was anything but. There was no altar, no font and the sanctuary was filled with keyboards, microphone stands and a drum kit. As I sat there wondering what might happen, and praying that it wouldn’t be too noisy, I was reminded of a passage from one of Annie Dillard’s books:

“I have overcome a fiercely anti-Catholic upbringing in order to attend Mass simply and solely to escape Protestant guitars. Why am I here? Who gave these nice Catholics guitars? Why are they not mumbling in Latin and performing superstitious rituals? What is the Pope thinking of?”

Anyway, to some extent my prayers were answered, all this stuff was for the 10:30am family friendly service.

In Churches, one often finds that there’s a considerable industry trying to makes things happen and in particular to find suitable magic to make the congregation grow in number. The Church is often obsessed by numbers in the pews, but that’s not what we are about. As Martyn Percy wrote when he was Principle of the Oxford theological college – Ripon College, Cuddesdon:

“The beguiling attraction of the very first Christian heresies and heterodoxies lay in their simplicity. They presented the most attractive solution to any immediate and apparently unsolvable problems. For us as a Church today, the presenting problem appears to be declining numbers in our congregations. Ergo, an urgent emphasis on numerical church growth must be the answer. Right, surely? But wrong, actually. The first priority of the Church is to follow Jesus Christ. This may be a costly calling, involving self-denial, depletion, and death. Following Jesus may not lead us to any numerical growth. We are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and our neighbours as ourselves. There is no greater commandment. So the numerical growth of the Church cannot be a greater priority than the foundational mandate set before us by Jesus.”

The spiritual growth that happens in people’s lives is (like the growth of the seeds in the first parable) entirely the work of God through the Holy Spirit. Our responsibility is to plant some seeds by the things that we do and when the work of the Holy Spirit brings forth a harvest, to notice and to gather it in.

And just in case you were thinking that perhaps you were ‘mature enough’ to leave all the harvesting to ‘younger folk’ take another look at psalm 92:

“The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap.”

Parables of sowers and seeds may seem a little quaint, but many artists have been captivated by the growth of seeds and plants. Van Gogh had a special interest in sowers throughout his artistic career. All in all, he made more than 30 drawings and paintings on this theme.

He painted “The Sower” in the autumn of 1888. This picture is mysterious, but somehow also luminous. In it, Van Gogh uses colours that are usually meant to express emotion and passion. His sky is greenish-yellow and the field a shade of purple. The bright yellow sun above the sower’s head looks like a halo, turning the sower into a saint. It’s a painting of a quite ordinary scene, but at the same time there’s something really mysterious about it.

There is something mysterious about growth isn’t there. Do you remember at school putting a broad bean seed in a jam jar wedged in by a roll of blotting paper and after watering it and putting it in a dark cupboard, taking it out from time to time to see it produce a long feathery root and a shoot – magic?

The mysterious nature of seed growth is part of what these parables of the Kingdom of God are about. Like the Kingdom, a seed once planted is a mystery slowly being revealed. It unfolds by its own operation in the soil. Its planter may sleep and rise, but the seed’s work goes on whatever Willie or Anna do, much as our grass did whilst we were away.

Amen

Acts 10:44-48  • Psalm 98  • 1 John 5:1-6  • John 15:9-17

For a variety of different reasons, this week has been one of those weeks when my family has constantly been on my mind.

Worries about things that are happening right now to family members on the other side of the world, exciting future hopes for my family as it continues to grow and comforting memories about family members from years gone by.

Last Thursday I was thinking about one of my grandmother’s – my mum’s mum – Nanny Ball we called her. She was the great matriarch of the family and I had lived with her for the first few years of my life so I was particularly close to her.

Nanny Ball always had a treat for her favourite grandson, and every time I visited she would bring out a glass jar that the treat had been put into. It wasn’t a special jar – very plain – I think it was an old sweet shop jar that she had found from somewhere – it had lost it’s label and was a very ordinary, everyday kind of thing. But on every visit, out it would come and some special sweetie or small gift would be wrapped up inside.

Some weeks after my Nan had died (I think when I was about 9 years old) my mum was sorting through Nan’s belongings – some treasured possessions were kept and other things were put in boxes for the charity shop. The glass jar was put in one of these boxes. I asked my mum if I could have it and she said I could. Of all the things from my Nan’s house, this very plain, unimpressive glass jar was all that I wanted. This object was the one that I associated with my dear Nan – I had to keep it. I believed that somehow it carried her presence. It reminded me of all the treats that she gave to me, one of the last things I remember her holding, and felt like my connection to her.

At a deeper level, holding on to that glass jar revealed my desire to be connected, to be remembered, to have and to know my place in life.

And don’t we all want that? Regardless of how old we are or the circumstances of our lives we want to know: Who am I? What are the connections that will sustain my life? Where is my place in this world?

Those are the questions Jesus is addressing as he speaks to his disciples in today’s gospel. It is the evening of the last supper. Jesus is speaking his final words, one last sermon, to his disciples. He is preparing them for life without his physical presence, foreshadowing what resurrected life, Easter life, is to be like. He offers some direct answers to those questions:

You are my friends.

Abiding love –  laying down life kind of love – is the connection that will sustain you.

I am your place in this world.

Most of us spend a lifetime searching for those answers and trying to make them our own. They must, however, become more than intellectual answers. They must become lived answers. We learn to trust and live those answers in our relationships with one another. Life is a school for learning to love.

Our search for those answers is ultimately our search for Christ. That searching is always there, but it becomes more acute in times of change: the death of a loved one, children growing up and moving out, a new job, retirement, a debilitating illness, a move to a new town, a marriage or a breakdown in a relationship. In those moments we want something to hold on to, something to comfort, encourage, and reassure us; a glass jar that will guide us through life.

When I was about 18 and packing up my possessions to take to  university, I was talking to my mum, telling her about how important the now cracked jar with no lid was to me and wondering if I should take it with me. As I was talking to her I realised in a new way that the glass jar was not the important gift, the thing that carried my nan’s presence. I was. I was the last thing I remember her touching when she hugged and kissed me. I was the one who received her cuddles and gentle whispers “I love you.” My life, my actions, my very being somehow carried her presence and our shared love. The connection was and always had been within me – not in a glass jar.

Sadness, fear, and desperation often causes us to grasp for glass jars in one form or another. We put them away in the back of the cupboards,  hoping and trying to create a connection that actually already exists, maintain a presence that is already eternal, and hang on to a love that is already immortal.

We do this not only with one another but also with Christ. With each glass jar we collect we can forget that our lives embody the shared and mutual love of Christ and one another. In that love is the fullness of presence; a presence, the disciples will learn, that transcends time, distance and even death.

Treasured possessions can be important and remind us of those who have gone before us, but at some point we must throw away the glass jars we hold on to so that we can hear, experience, and live the deeper truth. Our lives, our actions, our love carry and reveal the presence of divine love. Jesus does not give us something, he says we are something. We are the gift. We are the connection. Think about what he tells the disciples:

• I love you with the same love that the Father loves me – You have what I have.
• I give to you the joy that my Father and I share – You are a part of us.
• You are my joy, my life, and my purpose.
• I want your joy to be full, complete, whole, and perfect.
• You are my friends, my peers, my equals.
• I have told you everything. Nothing is held back or kept secret.
• I chose you. I picked you. I wanted you.
• I appointed, ordained, commissioned, and sent you to bear fruit, to love another. I trust and believe you can do this.

It’s all about us – in the best sense of those words. We are the love of Christ. Our belief in Jesus’ words changes how we see ourselves, one another, the world, and the circumstances of our lives. That belief is what allows us to keep his commandment to love one another. When we know these things about ourselves our only response is love. We can do nothing else. We are free to live and more fully become the love of Christ.

The challenge of our search is not to find the answers, but to believe and live them.

Who are we? The love of Christ.

What are the connections that will sustain our lives? The love of Christ.

Where is my place in this world? The love of Christ.

As St Julian of Norwich puts it – In, by, with, and through the love of Christ “all shall be well, all shall be well, every manner of thing shall be well.”

Amen

May God bless you and those you hold dear in this coming week.

Fr Simon