Pentecost 5

In the early 1980s, the Czech playwright Vaclav Havel was detained in prison by the Soviet backed regime for protesting against the authoritarian state. He was a prominent dissident and would go on, after the fall of the Soviet Union, to become the first President of Czechoslovakia, and then the First President of the Czech Republic after the split with Slovakia. In the early 1980s however all of that was ahead of him, and must have seemed an impossible dream. From prison, he wrote a series of letters to his wife Olga, letters which were subsequently published. Number 142 concludes with this paragraph.

It is I who must begin, Havel wrote. Once I begin, once I try – here and now, right where I am, not excusing myself by saying things would be easier elsewhere, without grand speeches and ostentatious gestures, but all the more persistently – to live in harmony with the “voice of Being,” as I understand it within myself – as soon as I begin that, I suddenly discover, to my surprise, that I am neither the only one, nor the first, nor the most important one to have set out upon that road. Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.

Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.

Do you feel like we’re living in stormy seas?
We’re in the midst of a general election, of course; with all the change that portends. But I suspect our stormy seas are more to do with the extent to which the deeper questions of our times are often obscured or lost in our clashing debates: the rising costs of living leaving many precarious; the challenge for a younger generation to find a financially secure way in the world. And then the even larger issue of war and violent conflict suddenly reappearing in ways that we hoped were in the past. And looming over it all, the challenge of our changing climate and the extremes that is throwing up.
And even here, in church, where we might think that we have things to say to our anxious age, we worry about the future of Christian faith and witness, the question of how communities and buildings such as this one might be sustained into the future and be more than simple museum pieces.
Do you feel like we’re living in stormy seas?

I am, of course, inviting you to imagine that we are in the boat with Jesus’ disciples. In our Gospel reading, what, for them, is a familiar environment, is suddenly made fearful. These followers of Jesus, many of them fishermen, residents of the villages around the Sea of Galilee, have taken Jesus off in a boat, to cross the sea – to the other, less well-known side. And suddenly they are in stormy waters, and fear they are being swamped by the waves. The disciples fear being overwhelmed, and as their anxieties reach fever pitch, they see the one they thought was someone to follow, the one they thought would rescue them, calmly asleep, on a cushion in the stern. And understandably, the disciples round on him: ‘Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?’

Jesus, despite being woken up from, we presume, a comforting deep sleep, Jesus rebukes all that is assailing them, stills the wind and the sea, so that the calm in which he seems to be enveloped, embraces them all. And then he, in turn, questions the disciples: ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’

In our Old Testament reading we heard the climax to the searching, questioning book of Job. It is God’s much delayed response, out of the whirlwind, to Job’s insistent question, of why bad things happen to good people; why the world should be so unjust, stormy. God’s response is really no answer at all to the question: ‘Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?’ says God. ‘Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?’ It’s a response, out of the storm, that doesn’t address the specific question of why life for Job is so unfair and fearful; instead it draws him deep in to the wonder and mystery and awe of God: ‘Who laid the earth’s cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?’

Our Gospel reading is a deliberate echo of this moment, as Jesus speaks out of the whirlwind, provides the words that calm both the storm and the disciples’ fears and anxieties and questions; and invites them into faith. The disciples are drawn into that faith and awe that does not directly answer their fear and questions, but puts them in a different perspective. As the storm of anxiety and fear passes, the disciples remember that many of them are fishermen, they have been in storms before, they do have the resources to respond, when they are not trapped and paralysed by their fears. As Jesus reminds the disciples by his line of questioning, faith is more foundational than fear. Awe is the beginning of wisdom. Faith can counter fear.

And that is why we are gathered here; to be drawn into that awe that is the beginning of wisdom; the wisdom that knows that there are not always easy answers, but there are resources to draw on. And to be drawn into communion where we recognise that we are not alone. Where faith can begin to counter our fears.

The question Jesus poses to the disciples and to us, is not whether we can somehow avoid the challenges and storms of our time; the question is whether we tackle them with the resources of faith, or in fear. Do we respond in fear and anxiety, so that we turn on one another, accuse one another and seek to blame others for our common predicament – ‘do you not care that we are perishing?’ Or, in being found by Jesus, can we draw on the resources of faith – that deep trust that we can take the next step, together. That we are not alone. That all is not lost.

As Vaclev Havel wrote, ‘to live in harmony with the “voice of Being,” as I understand it within myself – as soon as I begin that, I suddenly discover, to my surprise, that I am neither the only one, nor the first, nor the most important one to have set out upon that road. Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.’
Amen.