As summer heats up it is important to always bring a sweater with you.
Huh?! (Yes, I know a sweater is something your mother puts on you when she is cold!)
Likewise if you head to Minnesota in mid-winter you would be wise to bring something lightweight and with short sleeves.
Crazy?!
These seemingly illogical suggestion are actually good ideas. Why? Because our culture is addicted to “climate control.” Air conditioning and central heating make it possible for us to create any kind of climate, any sort of indoor “weather,” we want. Since we still cannot control what kind of weather we encounter outside, in the real world, we over-compensate in our encapsulated climates — our homes, shopping malls, restaurants, office buildings, airplanes.
The hotter it gets outside the colder we crank the AC. If the air temperature is in three digits outside you can be sure that indoor spaces will be chilled down enough to frost the windows. If the winds of winter bring a howling blizzard, the steaminess of our interiors will keep orchids happy.
But all our illusions of “climate control” disappear the moment we step outside. Entering the real world means encountering the power of real weather — hot or cold, wet or dry, on fire or under water, wind whipped or bleakly be-calmed. The world of weather does not exist to please or pleasure us at our whim.
We want to go weatherless through life. But in spite of all our attempts at climate-controlled living, into everyone’s life some weather must fall. There is no such thing as cloudless communion. Whether you live in “tornado alley” or “hurricane central” or the “snow belt” or in the “dust bowl” or the “rain terrain” we all know the powerful effect bad weather can have on our lives and our livelihoods. Ask the still recovering victims of hurricane Katrina. Ask the people of Joplin, Missouri. Ask the inhabitants of the scorched earth scenes in Colorado and New Mexico. Ask the [whatever storms are in the news the week you are preaching this sermon.]
Forty years ago this month Rapid City, South Dakota was swept off the map by torrential rainstorms that destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and worst of all, took hundreds of lives. The city was decimated and had to start over, virtually from “scratch.” Rapid City held big celebrations this last week, the third week of June, commemorating the rebirth, regrowth, re-configuring of their community. Everyone seemed to agree that the Rapid City that emerged after the flood was a far better place than the antediluvian Rapid City. The people “weathered the weather” with guts and grace and built a new beginning for their lives.
When Jesus’ disciples hoisted anchor and sailed off across the Sea of Galilee in the cool of the evening, they were not expecting bad weather. “Fair winds and following seas” were typical of the evening hours on that body of water. Mark’s presentation of what occurred next is so moving. It is so memorable, in part, because it has all the earmarks of an eyewitness re-telling.
All the distinct details are there —
picking Jesus up “just as he was” on the boat he had been teaching from all day;
the flotilla of hangers-on boats accompanying them;
the description of the waves breaking over and into the boat;
Jesus peacefully, deeply sleeping on the cushioned seat;
the panicked and prickly wake-up call of the disciples (“Don’t you care that we are perishing?!”);
Jesus’ simple, decisive words;
the sudden silence of the storm,
the anxious awe of the witnesses —
all of these point to a personal perspective, a first-hand narrative. Mark got his story from someone who had been thoroughly wet and worried. And then wowed.
Jesus quieted the wind and calmed the waves with a single rebuke, the divine directive: “Peace, be still.” Aside from raising the dead, this is the biggest and earliest direct revealing of his claim to divinity. No one controls the winds; no one calms the waves; no one calms the weather, except the one who created them all, the Lord God, the Creator of the universe.
Because Jesus could keep climates in the palm of his hand, he had no fear of the forces of nature. Among the twelve disciples there were four professional fishermen. Everyone else had grown up and lived alongside the Sea of Galilee. Yet here they were, all fearful of the deep, unknown, the uncontainable force of the periodically wild wind and water that defined their world.
Fishers, those who made their living from the bounty of the sea, those who lived their lives according to the flow of the tide, knew better than anyone that the waters of this world bring life, but they may also bring death. The reigning wisdom of Jesus’ day was that those whose livelihoods depended upon harvesting the wealth from the water should not know how to swim. That’s right: most fishermen did not know how to swim. That was because in the event of a shipwreck, those who could swim would try to survive by dint of their own aquatic efforts. Those who could not swim would do all they could to cling to the wreckage—keeping themselves above the water and making themselves available for rescue. Jesus’ thirteenth disciple, Paul, no fisherman and no swimmer, twice survived precisely because of that tactic. He clung to the boat rather than strike out on his own.
But Jesus didn’t just rule the winds and waves. Jesus took the most chaotic and uncontrollable forces of the world and made them part of a new faith community. Jesus did not just want his disciples to have faith in the midst of storms and heavy seas. He wanted them to welcome the wind, the wind of the Spirit, and to welcome the water, the water of baptism, as the out-of-their-control avenues to their new lives as disciples.
Rather than living in fear of these natural powers, Jesus urged his followers to embrace these elements, while trusting in God’s redeeming power to whip both waves and wind into a new direction for their lives.
Every one of you here has been scattered and battered by the weather of life. There is no whether the weather. There is only when the weather. There is only when and where the wind and the waves and rains. Flee the shadows, and the shadows never flee. Rage against the storms of life, and the storms of life come raging stronger than ever. I don’t think nature speaks English, or any other human language.
We live in a world where things easily go wrong. We worship in a church where things easily go wrong. But we have a Lord who weathers the weather with us. We have a Savior who shows us how to savor every minute, even when the storms of life are waging their worst and wrecking havoc with our securities and safety nets. We can trust our weather to the one who weathered all of life’s dangers well.
A traveler passing through tornado alley stopped at a tourist information center. He told one of the information specialists that he would like to know more about the area. “Is this a healthy place?” he asked.
The clerk replied with a burst of pride. “It sure is! When I arrived here I couldn’t even talk. I hadn’t the strength to walk. I had to be carried from place to place. Someone had to feed me. And I had scarcely a hair on my head. Look at me now. I have a full head of hair. I jog five miles a day. I can take care of myself as well as anyone and, as you may have noticed, I have no trouble talking.”
The tourist was impressed. “That’s an incredible story,” he said. “So tell me: How long have you lived here?”
The clerk replied, with a smile and a giggle, “All my life. I was born here.”
Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933) was born to a slave father and a free mother. He grew up among slaves, but after the Civil War he moved to freedom in Philadelphia, where he became janitor of a Methodist church, a job with no salary. He felt a call to preach, but had no education and couldn’t afford one. So he cajoled a local rabbi to mentor him, enrolled in correspondence courses, and did so well that he got a license to preach that qualified him to be appointed by the Methodist bishop to serve churches. Eventually he was appointed to the church where he was the janitor, and grew it to 10,000 members, one of the largest churches in the US, a mega church before megachurches and a multi-racial megachurch church at that. After he died it was renamed “Tindley Temple.”
While he was building “Tindley Temple” he wrote music, and was one of the founders of the gospel music genre as we know it. His song “I’ll Overcome Someday” was the basis for the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” But my favorite Tindley song is the one he wrote about his struggles in the storm. It goes by the name of “Stand By Me.” It’s a testament to a faith that can trust God in the midst of whatever weather life brings.
1. When the storms of life are raging,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When the storms of life are raging,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When the world is tossing me
Like a ship upon the sea
Thou Who rulest wind and water,
Stand by me (stand by me).
2. In the midst of tribulation,
Stand by me (stand by me);
In the midst of tribulation,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When the hosts of hell assail,
And my strength begins to fail,
Thou Who never lost a battle,
Stand by me (stand by me).
3. In the midst of faults and failures,
Stand by me (stand by me);
In the midst of faults and failures,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When I do the best I can,
And my friends misunderstand,
Thou Who knowest all about me,
Stand by me (stand by me).
4. In the midst of persecution,
Stand by me (stand by me);
In the midst of persecution,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When my foes in battle array
Undertake to stop my way,
Thou Who savèd Paul and Silas,
Stand by me (stand by me).
5. When I’m growing old and feeble,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When I’m growing old and feeble,
Stand by me (stand by me);
When my life becomes a burden,
And I’m nearing chilly Jordan,
O Thou “Lily of the Valley,”
Stand by me (stand by me).
Whatever the weather of life, we can stand, even when we don’t understand, because we have a Savior who “Stands by me.”