When The Boat Keeps Rocking
Sermon
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For a congregation experiencing several deaths in a brief period
When The Boat Keeps Rocking
Psalm 46
On a Fourth of July weekend when I was a fairly young man, a friend of my father's invited a friend of mine and me to go on a boat ride with him on Conesus Lake, one of the so-called Finger Lakes in central New York State. Even as a young man, I recognized this person to be one who trafficked with what is dicey, but for some reason, we capitulated to pressure and got into the boat. To make short a long story, it was a frightening experience. The man drove at excessive speeds and the boat never did stop rocking. And because it never did, neither did I until I was once more on terra firma. And I'm sure I shook for a while after that.
As a congregation, we are feeling these days that our congregational boat keeps rocking. And it has been! Since January, we have lost eight church members through death and many of them were extremely active in the life of our congregation. We will be reminded of their absence for a long time.
This rockiness has been expressed in a question that many have been rhetorically asking: When is it going to stop? Believe me, if I were in my pastoral purview, I would be glad to issue an edict that declared -- no more deaths until a later time! But it isn't and so we talk today about what we do when the boat keeps rocking.
We can remind ourselves that more than we realize, the boat is always rocking, but in recent days, it has been rocking more than usual. When we think about congregational life, change is far more norm than aberration. Every little while someone is changing jobs, a child is born, an illness occurs, a family crisis develops and is processed, a family or individual moves out of the area, or a new person or family becomes involved in the life of the congregation. This process of change is even more accentuated in a university town, what with the constant movement in and out of students, faculty, and staff. Even on a lake that seems as smooth as glass the boat moves ever so slightly.
When the boat rocks, we can also be there for each other. We have been doing just that in recent days. Many have commented on the number of changes that have been occurring and in the process of hearing those kinds of questions and responding to them, we are there for each other.
Years back, I enjoyed an amusement park ride that operated on the basis of centrifugal force. The ride was a huge cylinder and people filled up spaces along the edge of a huge circle. When all were in place, this cylinder began to rotate faster and faster until the floor on which people were standing gave way and all were pinned against the rotating wall. It was fun -- for a while -- but then it felt good to have the floor returned under one's feet.
When the boat won't stop rocking, we help each other regain our footing by the age-old process of mutuality in friendship. It is a simple mutuality, but indeed so simple that we often fail to honor it. We might call this a mutuality of availability. First, I will be available to you. I will clear my mind, create a space for you within myself, and invite you to confidently share your thoughts, feelings, and impressions with me. And I will do my best to listen to you in a nonjudgmental, loving, and caring way. Secondly, this mutuality of availability means that there will come moments when you will do for me what I have done for you. You will clear your mind and heart, create for me an inner space, and allow me to share my thoughts, feelings, and impressions with you and have them similarly received. A very simple mutuality, but one that is violated with great regularity.
Think about it. On the one hand, can you not call to mind someone who in their bearing toward you wants you to do all the listening while they do all the talking? Then when you go to talk, their ears are not available. Or on the other hand, do we not know people who will never disclose themselves and want only to be someone with whom others share the contents of their hearts?
The simplest illustration of what we are talking about is something we have in our hand hundreds and hundreds of times a year. Telephones have receiving components and sending components. Who ever heard of a telephone where you could only listen and not speak, or speak and not listen? In Christian friendships we do both and that mutuality is wonderfully beneficial when the boat won't stop rocking.
Thirdly, when the boat keeps rocking, we can pray. We can use a prayer that has been in the household of faith for years or we can speak with God as we feel led. We can pray in our homes or autos, or we can come to the sanctuary, if that facilitates our hunger to be connected to God. Our prayers can be audible or our thoughts sent toward God can be the expression of our praying. Maybe we tend to be too mechanical about praying. In fact, I think it is a much more natural act than we have made it out to be. My guess is that our praying tends to be far more circular than it should be; better to pray spontaneously and freshly, hungering to be connected to the will of God. George MacDonald got right to the point when he wrote, " 'O God!' I cried and that was all. But what are the prayers of the whole universe more than expansion of that one cry? It is not what God can give us, but God we want." Matthew Fox, in our day, has said much the same thing: "It is almost as if to pray is, after Jewish and Jesus' teaching, to stand daily before mystery and before the Giver of Life even in one's most insignificant actions."
If prayer has become rote for us, we need to let its mystery claim us afresh. We don't need to analyze it; we need to embrace it, to sit comfortably with its perplexities and allow its hopes to nourish us.
A scientific study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that hospitalized heart patients had fewer complications when other people prayed for their recovery. Two groups, each numbering about 200 patients, were studied. Several Christians prayed for people in the experimental group. Patients in the control group did not receive prayers. Neither group was told whether or not they were prayed for.
There is a mystery about it all. And I am asking that we trust the mystery.
When the boat won't stop rocking, prayer can help us.
The boat always rocks, sometimes harder than others. When we feel that rocking, we can seek out our sisters and brothers in Christ and we can pray.
All this leads us to a rediscovery of the fact that when the earth changes and the mountains shake and the waters roar, the bedrock of our security is God. When we say good-bye to our children as they make their way into adulthood, God ultimately is the bedrock of our security, as God is when we stand at the edge of a grave and say our farewells, as we consider our own mortality and as we rock and reel under the force of anything in life that shakes us to the foundations.
Hence the psalmist's simple and yet utterly truthful declaration: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear...."
And the psalmist continues: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High." Ever wonder about that river and what it means? I did for years. The poetry is beautiful, but it is even more beautiful when we realize the psalmist is talking about the life-giving fountain of God's presence.
The psalm ends: "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." And the good news for this sabbath or for any day when the rocking of the boat bothers us is declared when we add one word to the psalm -- "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge" -- still. Amen.
(Reprinted from "The Word Is Life," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1994.)
When The Boat Keeps Rocking
Psalm 46
On a Fourth of July weekend when I was a fairly young man, a friend of my father's invited a friend of mine and me to go on a boat ride with him on Conesus Lake, one of the so-called Finger Lakes in central New York State. Even as a young man, I recognized this person to be one who trafficked with what is dicey, but for some reason, we capitulated to pressure and got into the boat. To make short a long story, it was a frightening experience. The man drove at excessive speeds and the boat never did stop rocking. And because it never did, neither did I until I was once more on terra firma. And I'm sure I shook for a while after that.
As a congregation, we are feeling these days that our congregational boat keeps rocking. And it has been! Since January, we have lost eight church members through death and many of them were extremely active in the life of our congregation. We will be reminded of their absence for a long time.
This rockiness has been expressed in a question that many have been rhetorically asking: When is it going to stop? Believe me, if I were in my pastoral purview, I would be glad to issue an edict that declared -- no more deaths until a later time! But it isn't and so we talk today about what we do when the boat keeps rocking.
We can remind ourselves that more than we realize, the boat is always rocking, but in recent days, it has been rocking more than usual. When we think about congregational life, change is far more norm than aberration. Every little while someone is changing jobs, a child is born, an illness occurs, a family crisis develops and is processed, a family or individual moves out of the area, or a new person or family becomes involved in the life of the congregation. This process of change is even more accentuated in a university town, what with the constant movement in and out of students, faculty, and staff. Even on a lake that seems as smooth as glass the boat moves ever so slightly.
When the boat rocks, we can also be there for each other. We have been doing just that in recent days. Many have commented on the number of changes that have been occurring and in the process of hearing those kinds of questions and responding to them, we are there for each other.
Years back, I enjoyed an amusement park ride that operated on the basis of centrifugal force. The ride was a huge cylinder and people filled up spaces along the edge of a huge circle. When all were in place, this cylinder began to rotate faster and faster until the floor on which people were standing gave way and all were pinned against the rotating wall. It was fun -- for a while -- but then it felt good to have the floor returned under one's feet.
When the boat won't stop rocking, we help each other regain our footing by the age-old process of mutuality in friendship. It is a simple mutuality, but indeed so simple that we often fail to honor it. We might call this a mutuality of availability. First, I will be available to you. I will clear my mind, create a space for you within myself, and invite you to confidently share your thoughts, feelings, and impressions with me. And I will do my best to listen to you in a nonjudgmental, loving, and caring way. Secondly, this mutuality of availability means that there will come moments when you will do for me what I have done for you. You will clear your mind and heart, create for me an inner space, and allow me to share my thoughts, feelings, and impressions with you and have them similarly received. A very simple mutuality, but one that is violated with great regularity.
Think about it. On the one hand, can you not call to mind someone who in their bearing toward you wants you to do all the listening while they do all the talking? Then when you go to talk, their ears are not available. Or on the other hand, do we not know people who will never disclose themselves and want only to be someone with whom others share the contents of their hearts?
The simplest illustration of what we are talking about is something we have in our hand hundreds and hundreds of times a year. Telephones have receiving components and sending components. Who ever heard of a telephone where you could only listen and not speak, or speak and not listen? In Christian friendships we do both and that mutuality is wonderfully beneficial when the boat won't stop rocking.
Thirdly, when the boat keeps rocking, we can pray. We can use a prayer that has been in the household of faith for years or we can speak with God as we feel led. We can pray in our homes or autos, or we can come to the sanctuary, if that facilitates our hunger to be connected to God. Our prayers can be audible or our thoughts sent toward God can be the expression of our praying. Maybe we tend to be too mechanical about praying. In fact, I think it is a much more natural act than we have made it out to be. My guess is that our praying tends to be far more circular than it should be; better to pray spontaneously and freshly, hungering to be connected to the will of God. George MacDonald got right to the point when he wrote, " 'O God!' I cried and that was all. But what are the prayers of the whole universe more than expansion of that one cry? It is not what God can give us, but God we want." Matthew Fox, in our day, has said much the same thing: "It is almost as if to pray is, after Jewish and Jesus' teaching, to stand daily before mystery and before the Giver of Life even in one's most insignificant actions."
If prayer has become rote for us, we need to let its mystery claim us afresh. We don't need to analyze it; we need to embrace it, to sit comfortably with its perplexities and allow its hopes to nourish us.
A scientific study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that hospitalized heart patients had fewer complications when other people prayed for their recovery. Two groups, each numbering about 200 patients, were studied. Several Christians prayed for people in the experimental group. Patients in the control group did not receive prayers. Neither group was told whether or not they were prayed for.
There is a mystery about it all. And I am asking that we trust the mystery.
When the boat won't stop rocking, prayer can help us.
The boat always rocks, sometimes harder than others. When we feel that rocking, we can seek out our sisters and brothers in Christ and we can pray.
All this leads us to a rediscovery of the fact that when the earth changes and the mountains shake and the waters roar, the bedrock of our security is God. When we say good-bye to our children as they make their way into adulthood, God ultimately is the bedrock of our security, as God is when we stand at the edge of a grave and say our farewells, as we consider our own mortality and as we rock and reel under the force of anything in life that shakes us to the foundations.
Hence the psalmist's simple and yet utterly truthful declaration: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear...."
And the psalmist continues: "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High." Ever wonder about that river and what it means? I did for years. The poetry is beautiful, but it is even more beautiful when we realize the psalmist is talking about the life-giving fountain of God's presence.
The psalm ends: "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." And the good news for this sabbath or for any day when the rocking of the boat bothers us is declared when we add one word to the psalm -- "The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge" -- still. Amen.
(Reprinted from "The Word Is Life," CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio 45804, © 1994.)
