ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

TRINITY 2, 2009 HIGH MASS AND BAPTISM
Fr Alan Moses, Vicar

"Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Jesus has spent the day preaching and teaching. Like me this morning, he had no pulpit. I can't use ours because it is full of scaffolding. He had none because he was preaching in the open air, on the lake shore. So he had used his disciples' fishing boat as a pulpit.

Now the day is over and Jesus is tired. Those who have never done it, think perhaps that preaching is an easy business, not like real work at all. In fact it is very hard work, both in preparing for it and carrying it out. In that sense, it's a bit like being the mother of a young child. Sometimes it even involves getting up in the middle of the night and losing sleep. That's why Sunday afternoon and evening are often the low points in a preacher's week. My family joke about the number of times I have fallen asleep half way through a TV programme on a Sunday evening; I nod off after the third body has turned up in Midsomer Murders or half way through the ladies of the No. 1 Detective Agency sorting out some wrong-doing in Lesotho. I wake up at the end to find that all has been resolved, but have no idea how they did it!

Jesus needs rest. As on a number of occasions in the gospels, we see him leaving the crowds behind in search of rest and retreat and prayer - although on this, as on other occasions, some of them follow him in that little fleet of fishing boats.

Even before they have reached the other side of the lake, he has fallen asleep. He continues to sleep even when one of those sudden and violent storms which are a feature of the Sea of Galilee sweeps down on them and threatens to swamp the boat and drown them all.

The disciples are in a panic and turn to their sleeping master in desperation and exasperation: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Jesus "woke up and rebuked the wind , and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' Then the wind ceased and there was a dead calm."

Having dealt with the elements, Jesus then turns to the disciples: "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?"

They then say to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?"

This gospel story, this miracle, has been given a number of applications over two thousand years of Christianity; in different times and places. For an island nation which "went down to the sea in ships, and plied their trade in deep waters" , dependent on the sea for food and trade and defence, there has often been need to pray for those in peril on the sea. People have heard this story in seaman's missions and fishing village churches and battered fleets and convoys in wartime.

Let's, as we do with children, begin at the beginning: with creation. That is why we had that passage from Job in which God answer's Job's compliant, speaks to him "out of the whirlwind". He asks him if he was there when the earth was made. Does he know "who shut the sea with doors...and prescribed bounds for it,....and said 'Thus far shall you come, and no further, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'?"

This section of Mark's Gospel asks the question: "Who is Jesus?"; "Who is this person who has made such an impact on his followers?" Part of Mark's answer to the question:"Who then is this?" is to say that the Jesus who exercised power over the forces of creation from that storm tossed fishing boat, was also there at the beginning of creation. He is the one who said to the waters: "Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped." In the ancient world, the sea was a dangerous element, but more than that, it symbolised the forces of chaos and destruction which could only be tamed by divine power.

The church would later use this story as a message of faith and courage amidst the storms it had to navigate through in a hostile world: of which the "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger" endured by St. Paul are a sample.

The short voyage across the lake would take Jesus and his disciples into Gentile territory; for Mark it represents the beginning of the Church's mission to the world; a world far larger than Mark and his contemporaries could imagine; as God gathers his people "out of the lands; from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south." That mission would bring the gospel to these islands at the far edge of the Roman world. Centuries, later it would take German Lutherans to East Africa so that Gloria's family would learn of Jesus and Anglicans from this country so that Paul's would become Christians. Now, they are here together in this church, in this world city, to share in Christ's continuing mission.

Those who set out on the mission of Jesus would take him with them in the boat, just as he was, they would turn to him in prayer, even sometimes the prayer of despairing complaint like that of Job in his suffering or of the disciples , "Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?" They would hear him say, "Peace! Be still!"

But Jesus does not just say "Peace! Be still!", he also says, "Why are you afraid? Have you still not faith?" His peaceful sleep in the storm-tossed boat is in marked and deliberate contrast with the panic of the disciples. It is the calm peace which comes from faith and trust in his Father.

There are times when the mother or father of a frightened child, woken in the night by some nameless fear, says to them: "Peace! Be still!!" There are too, times when an exasperated patent of noisy teenage children says: "Peace! Be still!", in a desperate attempt to reduce the noise of their play or argument or music.

Jesus is challenging us to take our faith in him seriously, to turn constantly to him, that we might find in him the source of our peace. Paul found in Jesus those qualities of "purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God, with the weapons of righteousness" which were vital for his life as an apostle, a missionary, one sent by God; especially perhaps when dealing with the fractious Corinthians. They are qualities needed by the church amidst the storms which beset it both without and within.

They are qualities which Matthew, assisting at the altar here this morning for the last time before his ordination as a deacon in St. Paul's on Saturday for his new part in God's mission in Camden Town and in that Godless institution on Gower Street, University College where he has his day job. They are the virtues which will be needed in even greater measure by our friend Fr. Chad Gandiya who used to live with us here and is to be consecrated as the new bishop of Harare in Zimbabwe next month; the least enviable promotion in the Anglican Communion.

They are gifts needed too by the parents and godparents of Wenceslaus Nicolas as they share in God's work of creation, not just in bringing a child to birth and baptism, but in bringing up that child in the love God and neighbour; teaching him the knowledge and love of God by word and example.

They are the gifts of the Spirit which we pray for this child in his baptism, at the beginning of his life in Christ.

They are the gifts needed at the end of life too:

By dear Bishop Ambrose, that old man of the sea, once the chaplain of the fleet, coping now with the physical limitations of being 90 - coping with typical quiet determination as he works away with the physiotherapists on the exercise bicycle. For years we prayed side by side in our stalls here in the choir, and when I was with him the other day we prayed together again, asking God for strength to persevere;

Needed too by Philip Bennett: a former choirboy and parishioner, who died early this morning in Colchester after a long struggle with cancer. Philip was determined to be with us on Easter Day. He made it, but it was to be his last visit to All Saints.

They are gifts needed by all of us; whatever our vocation or a situation in life.