Proper 7B, 23 June 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 19-23, 32-40.  That all the assembly know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear.
• 2 Corinthians 6:1-13.    See, now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.
• Mark 4:35-41. Let us go across to the other side.

O God of our faith, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today all three of our scripture readings are about being overwhelmed and mismatched for the challenges being faced. I want to say something about all three of them because I think they speak to how many of us feel when we face the forces of militarism and empire, individual ailments and injustices, and even the ill-effects of white-supremacy and climate change. To be clear, I don’t think that the Bible was anticipating white-supremacy or climate change of course, but I hear it speaking wisdom to us nonetheless.

The story of David and Goliath is well known even by people who don’t know much about the Bible. It’s a long story, using many words to impress on the hearers that Goliath was huge in addition to being very well-armed and very well-defended. David was small and couldn’t walk with the armor that King Saul provided for him to wear, so he took it off because, he said, he was “not used to it.” The point of the whole story is articulated by David in verses 46-7, when he says that he is going to strike the giant down “so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that [this God] does not save by sword and spear.” After many details about the mismatch, the story wraps up rather quickly when one stone from a slingshot fells the gigantic Goliath. 

Would that it were true that because of David, the people of the Holy One knew that they are not saved by sword or spear (or bombs and automatic weapons). Would that it were true that people of the Holy One knew that they are saved by right relationship with one another, and not by military might. David approaches the Philistines with courage and hope, not because of superior training or weapons, but with trust in the surprising possibilities of God’s disarming deliverance. Would that Biblical literalists took this literally. Would that we, who are not Biblical literalists took this seriously. Would that David had maintained this trust in God once he became king.

In his reflection on this story, First Testament scholar Bruce Birch writes that “David is not just the courageous underdog. He is the one who knows that there are resources beyond the technology [of war. He seems to understand]… the subversive power of truth…and [one] truth of this story is that God is ultimately in opposition to arrogant and self-serving power and its violence. Trust in God nurtures hope that there is a way into the future whenever there seems [to be] no way.” [1] The way into the future with the Holy One requires right-relationship with others, and violence never leads to right-relationship. Never. And whenever we imagine as a Church that our mission requires larger numbers of people and money, hierarchies of authority and powerful tools, we should re-read the story of David facing the Philistines.

The apostle Paul writes in the Second Letter to the church in Corinth to implore them not to accept the grace of God in vain. Quoting Isaiah, Paul reminds them that now is an acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation. Today. In other words, don’t wait. Today we are called to respond to whatever our circumstances, faithfully, with open hearts, enduring all kinds of afflictions, hardships, calamities, mistreatment, riots, labors, sleep deprivation and hunger. How can we help one another to be faithful with whatever hand we are dealt? How can we help people respond to adversity with untainted motives (that is purity), with knowledge, patience, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of the Divine? How can we help one another seek right-relationship with both hands and an open, expansive heart? The best answer I know is in a community like Emmanuel Church where we root for one another, welcome and care for friends and strangers, encourage (that is, give courage) to one another through all sorts of tribulations. This is a community with a large, expansive and open heart. I will tell you, people in this community regularly stretch my own heart beyond all recognition!

In our third reading, according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus had been teaching about the realm of God being like seed scattered on all kinds of ground, and about the realm of God being like kudzu (well, he said mustard, but an uncontrollable weed with medicinal qualities is what he was talking about). We heard that last week. At the end of the same day that Jesus had been teaching the crowds, and then explaining things in private to his disciples, when evening had come, he said, let’s go over to the opposite shore, to the far shore. Let’s go to the eastern side of the lake to the region of the Geresenes, to the territory of the Greco-Roman Decapolis. Just to be clear, Jesus was not suggesting a vacation. 

Mark says that, leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. How was he? Exhausted? Crabby? Not dressed for the voyage? Some translators render it, “they took him with them, as he was in the boat; other boats were with him (but he didn’t go in those boats, he stayed in the disciples’ boat). They were headed to the other side, not that far away, but it was dark, and a great storm, a tempest arose, whipping up waves that were coming into the boat which was quickly being swamped. Perhaps the only visibility they had was from flashes of lightning. They were in grave danger, and Jesus was sound asleep on the cushion in the back of the boat. I love that detail of the cushion in Mark’s version of this story.

The frantic disciples roused Jesus and said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are dying?” Jesus woke up, the story goes, and reprimanded the wind, and told the sea to “shut up,” to literally, “be muzzled.” Shut all the way up. The wind and the sea did as they were told, and then there was a great calm. And do you know what? Jesus could see that the disciples were still afraid. The storm was over, but they were still terrified. (A following wind would have been nice.) He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” I find that this question generally gets preached about in pulpits and heard by people in the pews in one of two ways: either a rebuke of the disciples who weren’t as wise as we are now about the power of Jesus to save, or as a challenge to the size of our own faith in times of terror we can’t see a way out and we’re perishing. We tend to identify with big fear and little faith in ourselves or others. But Jesus taught that with faith the size of a mustard seed we can accomplish monumental tasks, so I don’t think the size of anyone’s faith is our main problem.

I like to suggest another way of hearing this story. It occurs to me that the main difference between those in the boat with Jesus and us, is post-resurrection, we are the Body of Christ in the world. As a collective, we are called to stand for Jesus. That is a part of our covenant commitment as people of God. The Church is supposed to represent Jesus Christ, especially in the midst of chaos and destruction. And we are the Church. We are to proclaim and enact, indeed, be the Good News. If we identify as the Body of Christ, then it is we who are asleep on our cushions in the back of the boat while others are perishing. It is we who need to be awakened to use our God-given power to still the buffeting winds and calm the rough sea that threatens to capsize boats and drown the people in them. It is we who need to be roused to hear the challenge, “do you not care that we are perishing?”

I’m particularly thinking about the many ways that the largely white and affluent Episcopal Church (The Episcopal Church) has stayed comfortable in back of the boat the midst of the devastating effects of white supremacy, or the devastating effects of global warming, especially on those who live in poverty. But now we are being roused, awakened by the voices of those who rightly wonder whether the Church cares about those who are perishing. 

It seems to me that fear is normal and even the right response when people are perishing. I notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “do not be afraid.” He asks why are they still afraid. I wonder if we can hear Jesus’ question as sincerely curious. Why are they still afraid even after the wind and the waves have ceased? As the Body of Christ in the world, how do we quiet the wind and the waves and restore calm, and furthermore, how do we demonstrate that we are trustworthy when it comes to dismantling the white supremacy from which white people benefit every minute of every day and night? How do we demonstrate that we are trustworthy when it comes to caring for the earth?

It’s not as much about increasing our faith or trust as a congregation, but about increasing the reasons for people who are perishing to have faith in us as the Body of Christ in the world. It’s about increasing our trustworthiness, our reliability, our dependability to provide tangible forms of justice and mercy, in right-relationship by sharing more and more of our resources until we are all one as God is one. 

The answer to Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him is YES, because “Who” is an ancient and Biblical name for God. Who “hovers over the waters, over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:1) “by Whose power the sea is stilled” (Job 26:12) and Who will slay the monster of the deep (Isaiah 27:1), and who rules the raging of the sea and stills the surging of its waves (Psalm 89:10). Yes, Mark is asserting that Jesus’ power is the power of the Holy One. Mark is asserting that Jesus’ power is our power when we are in right-relationship with each other and the Holy One.

The through-line for me across this morning’s lessons is this: let’s “not accept the grace of God in vain …because now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” Let’s open wide our hearts and let’s support one another in embracing right-relationship with both hands.

1.  Bruce Birch, “1 and 2 Samuel”, The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998), pp. 1114-5.