Sermon: "See How They Love Each Other!"

Texts: Matthew 22:34-46, 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

 

People often ask me, when I tell them about my work, about my ministry—“Aren’t you afraid?”

And I always have the same answer—“No, I am not afraid. I feel tremendously privileged to get to know the brave men and women who are struggling to survive here in the county. I’m honored to know the people I call friends.”

And every word of that is true.

But the truth is, I am also afraid.

Every day, I am afraid.

I am afraid that the three little babies who came to the church door the other day with their parents—I am afraid that they do not have a safe place to stay tonight or enough to eat.

I am afraid that the old man who looks like my grandpa and who is sleeping out in the cold—that he will not get the care he deserves and that he will die alone—and no one should die alone.

I am afraid that the young woman who is carrying a child—that, as hard as she is trying to do the right thing, that she will not be able to find a stable, safe place to raise her baby, a place that even has running water and electricity.

I am afraid that the talented kids I meet—the artists and the musicians and the writers—that they won’t be able to grace this community with their talents because they are struggling too hard to survive or they end up spending too much of their time in jail.

I am afraid that the kid who is hanging on by a thread to hope—that he will give up and overdose just to escape the pain.

I am afraid that people living in the apartments buildings of downtown Aberdeen will go without heat this winter as they pay most of their paycheck toward rent for buildings that are never maintained.

I am afraid that the gal with chronic health issues will die before she gets the help she needs.

The worst thing in the world is to watch those you love die.

I am afraid, my brothers and sisters, I am afraid. Every day.

I’m afraid that this violence of poverty, this violence of houselessness, this violence of want—will continue. I’m afraid of the realities that divide us.

Those of us with homes and those of us without homes—those of us who have jobs and those of us who can’t find work—those of us who are English speakers and those of us who are Spanish speakers—those of us from “good” families and those of us from “bad” families.

I am afraid most of all that we won’t learn how to love each other in time. That we won’t remember Jesus’s commandments—

“Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself”

I am afraid, my brothers and sisters, I am afraid.

 

In our second reading, Paul is also afraid. Paul is known to us as perhaps the founder of Christianity. The man who traveled throughout what is now Turkey and Italy, building the Jesus Movement. He’s a complicated guy, Paul is, but he also a person of great passion.

The letter we read this morning was one of the first letters he wrote, to the community of Thessalonica, a Greek trade city. Paul had spent time in the city, building a congregation of people there. He had come to Thessalonica from Philippi, where he’d been beat up pretty bad and spent time in jail. In Thessalonica, he didn’t fare too much better and eventually was run out of town by the city council and some of his followers there were beat up by a mob.

So, now Paul is worried. He is afraid for the community he had grown to love in Thessalonica, so he writes to them, pouring out his heart.

He writes that he didn’t only want to share the gospel with them—the good news that God is with us in Jesus—but he says he wanted to share his very self. He was willing to suffer—to get beat up—eventually even to die as he does years later—for those he loved, for the people he loved.

He knows that the Thessalonian community is facing great struggle. Living under the Roman empire, facing opposition from the religious leaders, and from the city council, he know they were a suffering community. They were grieving people who had died, they were struggling to survive.

And so Paul writes them out of his fear for them, out of his love for them. He writes to tell them of his love. And he writes to encourage them. He tells them in the rest of the letter—the only way you are going to get through this, the only way you are going to win in the end—is to love each other.

To take care of each other. The only way to live and survive under empire was to love each other. This was Jesus’ message—this was Paul’s message.

And the Thessalonian community did suffer.

And they learned to love.

They become one of the significant communities following Jesus in that first century. They became known for their love. Love in the face of violence. Love in the face of suffering.

You want to know my dream for this community, my dream for the harbor?

Its that we will become known for our love. That we will follow Jesus so faithfully in this town, that we will hear the words of Jesus so closely in this town—that we will learn to love each other. That we will be known for our love.

Love in the face of suffering, of violence.

And lets be clear. Love is not some warm, mushy feeling. Love is one of the most courageous things we do. It means that we put our lives on the line for each other. That we look after our children and our young people. That we treat each other as full human beings, with respect, knowing that-in every person is the image of God, no matter who they are or where they came from or what they are dealing with. It means that people get the support they need to become the full children of God that they are. It means that no one goes hungry and no one shivers in unheated apartments. It means we make the commitment to each other and our communities that, to the best of our ability, no one dies alone.

More than anything, my brothers and sisters, it means sharing in joy! Sharing in life together. With love, with true love in action, comes joy. No one in this town is a problem to be fixed. No one in this town is anyone less than a child of God.

When we live like this is true, we find joy, we find prosperity, we find hope.

Is it possible that Aberdeen, WA, that the harbor could be that place? That the world could look at us in these changing and difficult times and say—see how they love each other! Like the ancient Jesus Movement of Paul? Like the Thessalonians?

I see a lot of love in this town, my brothers and sisters. I see it when Mary V talks to high schoolers about their dreams. Or when someone gives their last dollar or turns the other cheek, which is awfully hard to do. I see people encourage each other and love each other every day.

But I see the violence of poverty, the violence of need, the violence of abandonment every day too.

And I dream, my brothers and sisters, I dream. I dream that we can live out our faith in love and joy in this town, this harbor I love so much.

I have to tell you something. Paul talks about his deep love for the community of Thessalonica. As I have continued work here on the harbor, the place I grew up, I have grown to love this place. So. Much.

It is because I love this place I am afraid.

And it is because I love this place that I dream. Let us so transform this town, this harbor—so that all the world might see and might say—“See how they love each other!”

A Confession

It has been said that confession is good for the soul. And, as a pastor in community, I find that I sometimes need to make a public confession. Its not to beat myself up. Or the wallow in some kind of self-pity or guilt. Just a simple statement of fact, an admission of failure, and a resolve to turn around.

I have been deeply moved by the events that have unfolded in Ferguson, MO over the past few months. I am particularly moved by the voices of young black men and women, voicing their despair, their experiences of violence and fear, their wild hope for a better future. Some of their experiences of poverty and violence are similar to the experiences of young women and men all over this country, across racial difference. And, yet, we do not talk to each other.

As a white gal in a majority white town, I can choose to ignore the racial divides among us.

A wake up call for me was a conversation I recently had with a young Latina woman in this community. As I struggled and fumbled with my very rusty Spanish, she told me about her experiences of racism. And she challenged me: she asked me if my work was just for whites or if it was for Latinos too.

I haven’t been able to get that conversation out of my head. I haven’t been able to get away from the realization that it is so easy for me to ignore the experiences of my Latino and Native and Black brothers and sisters in this community. To come up with excuses about how busy I am or how bad my Spanish sounds or how divisive these things are.

The young woman I spoke with was a prophet in this community. She was challenging power and challenging the systems of racism in our society. And I needed to hear her words.

So, this is my confession. And my commitment. To listen. To continue to build relationships with the Native peoples of this community. To intentionally talk about racism in our community and to intentionally listen to my black and Latino brothers and sisters. To prioritize this work.

Because confession is all about repentance, is it not?

Grace in Real Life

Texts: Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 20:1-16

When I was reading through our passages this morning, one word kept coming to me. Over and over. The word Grace. Grace.

Imagine this. Your whole life has been spent in slavery to the Egyptian Pharaoh, building his great cities, the land on which you live taken from you, your children taken and killed. Now, you have been freed by the God of Israel and you flee to the desert. You are a group of people without resources and without friends. You have run out of food, out of water—you are desperate. And you are angry too—how are we going to eat, God? How are we going to make it?

And what does God say? Does God say; “Well, you need to earn your bread.” “You silly people, why didn’t you go a different way—the southern desert, really?” “You are living the consequences of your choices.”

Nope. God just sends food. Lots of food. God sends quail. And bread falls from heaven to feed your children.

Grace.

Imagine again. In Jesus’ story, in our gospel reading, you are standing at the corner of the marketplace, that streetcorner where workers gather, hoping to get picked up by someone who needs a job done. You all know where that street corner is, right? You don’t have a steady job, you are squatting in a house near the village with your family. And you are waiting all day—hoping, hoping to get something so you can go home with food for your kids tonight. You are probably are not the strongest of the bunch—you are not as young as you used to be and your health is not what it used to be. Wages are not good anyway—a denarius was the average daily wage for a soldier or a worker and it put you right at subsistence level—just enough to feed a family for a day. As the day goes on, you know you won’t make enough even for that today. So you wait and you wait and you get picked up, finally, toward the end of the day, by the guy who owns the huge vineyard and needs his grapes picked. You figure—hey, an hour or two of work is better than nothing.

And what does Jesus say about this guy? That he is lazy and should go find a better job? “Why didn’t you try harder to get picked up earlier?” “Something is better than nothing?”

Nope. The landlord in Jesus’ story shows a tiny bit of mercy. He pays you for a whole day’s work, even though you’ve only worked a few hours. Your fellow workers are a little tiffed, and you can’t really blame them, but you, you get to feed your family tonight.

And that word comes to mind again: grace.

Its interesting, isn’t it? Sometimes we think of the Bible as a book about heaven, about spiritual things. About our souls. Sometimes grace is explained as some kind of forgiveness of personal sin so we can get to heaven.

But think again about our stories. Our two stories. They are about real life. About bodies. About hunger. About survival. About feeding your family. About trying to find work. About worrying about money. The Bible, and Jesus, is obsessed with talking about real things. Real life.

And so grace too is about real life.

We sometimes say grace is getting what you don’t deserve. What you haven’t earned.

Actually, grace never asks what you deserve. What you’ve earned. If you are good enough. If you are deserving enough.

Grace simply gives. Grace is God’s belief that, simply because you are created in God’s image, simply because you are human, you deserve love, and care, and life, and joy.

That simply because we live, because God loves us, because we are created in God’s image—we deserve to live a full and abundant life.

Simply because God loved them, the children of Israel deserved abundant food.

Simply because the worker standing on that corner desperately trying to get work, simply because he was a child of God, he deserved to go home with enough money to feed his family.

That, my brothers and sisters, is grace too. Grace in real life. Grace in the here and now.

We live in a world where everything we need to live has strings attached, right? Food, clothing, shelter—we live a world that asks questions like this:

Do you deserve it?

Have you worked hard enough?

Are you really, I mean really, a good enough person?

Have you ever asked yourself that? Have you ever had this strange feeling that you don’t deserve to be happy or to have enough? Have you ever felt not good enough?

This is how the world around us teaches us to think. Its how the Egyptians thought—the Pharaoh didn’t believe his slaves deserved good lives, deserved to have their children safe, deserved to be free.

Many landowners in Jesus’ time didn’t believe that the people of Galilee deserved enough to eat or deserved their own land or deserved to live as well as they did.

They were just slaves.

They were just expendable workers.

And then God comes in. With grace.

Grace that always took the side of the people that society said did not deserve it. Grace that saved escaped slaves from hunger and grace that fed a temp worker’s children.

Grace given freely and without strings attached.

 So, I want you to listen very, very carefully.

If you feel like you don’t deserve goodness in your life. If you can’t find a job in this job forsaken place, if you are struggling to pay the bills, if you can’t make a living wage, if you are lonely and alone, if you are told or believe you are unworthy—grace is for you. God is for you. Can I get an Amen?

What does grace look like for this parish, for Aberdeen in 2014? Where do you see grace? Where do you long to see grace? Where do you long for grace in your own life?

I have to share something with you, brothers and sisters. As I do outreach, as I walk the streets of Aberdeen, there is an awful lot of suffering in this town. I want you to know, people are literally dying out there, all the time. Living in shacks, camping out, people are struggling to just survive, longing simply for a place to belong. Every day. Its enough to break one’s heart—to walk through this town. It sometimes is enough to rip my heart out. We need grace in this town. Grace in real life.

After this service, some of you will join me with others of our brothers and sisters here in Aberdeen for Bible study. We will light candles and pray together for our struggling town. We will talk about what Jesus’ life has to do with us, here, today. And then we will share a meal together—we will cook together, we will talk together as neighbors. When I witness this, when I witness how the community feeds each other, how the community prays together, I catch a glimpse of grace. Real bodies. Real food. We talk about struggle and hopelessness here in Aberdeen a lot, right? Well, Sunday afternoons, I do catch a glimpse of hope and of grace. We catch a vision of what a world might look like where all were fed, where all were honored, where grace is a way of life.

Where do you see grace, my brothers and sisters? Where do you see grace in real life?

Let us pray.

 

"I Have Heard My People's Cry"

Texts: Exodus 3:1-15, Matthew 16:21-28

 

So, I had lunch with the Aberdeen police chief this past week, along with Pastor Marc from next door. On my way there, Pastor Marc joked; “I hope they don’t arrest you!” They didn’t, of course. Actually, we had a really good conversation about poverty in Aberdeen.

But Marc’s comment reminded me that, sometimes, it can be dangerous to follow Jesus. Now, I have no particular intention of being arrested and I doubt the Aberdeen police department has any intention of arresting me.

But, these past few weeks, others have been in harm’s way. An African American Baptist pastor, who I knew of when I was in Boston, Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, has been in harm’s way this past month. I was particularly drawn to his story because he also grew up in a rural area and also ended up in Boston. He spent his teen years in St Louis County and this past month, he decided, like me, to go home. He went home, of course, at the worst possible time—since we all have seen the news in Ferguson. The place Michael Brown was shot by police.

He’s been posting on facebook regularly, as he has stood with the young black men and women of Ferguson and listened to them, listened to their pain, listened to the pain of a community. Now I know that Ferguson seems very far away from us. A whole world and a whole culture away. We see little news snippets here and there, but it still seems pretty far away. I was struck as Rev Sekou talked about the situation in Ferguson, particularly because the economic situation in Ferguson is almost exactly the same as it is here on the harbor, in Aberdeen. Both towns have the same poverty rate—25%. Both have similar rates of unemployment, the same median income (36,000), and the same atmosphere of hopelessness and violence, especially for young people. We might have more in common than we think with our brothers and sisters in Ferguson.

I’ve been struck especially because Rev. Sekou has put himself in a lot of danger; he talks about facing violence and the fear of having guns pointed at him and his community. He had a radio conversation this past week where he said; “We want to celebrate these young people who will not bow down. I and the clergy here will defend them, even with our lives.” In other words, Rev. Sekou loves his people, loves his town enough to risk his life on the streets to stand with and work for the healing of his people.

That is the message Jesus confronts his disciples with in our text this morning. It comes at a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. He has ministered in Galilee—the place he grew up—the home of his people. He has preached good news to the poor and he has healed the sick and he has proclaimed the coming kingdom of God.  Now, he makes the decision to go up to Jerusalem, along with his Galilean followers for Passover.

He knows what that means. He knows what he is up against. And he begins gently preparing his disciples for it. Peter is clearly terrified.

Jesus knows that, when he enters Jerusalem, the center of power, the center of Roman authority in the region, he will be arrested. And everyone knows what happens next to revolutionary Galileans. As Jesus contemplates Jerusalem, he sees in his mind’s eye what every single Galilean would have known at that time. There were times when the roads leading from Galilee to Jerusalem were lined with crosses. Jesus knows he is going to die.

When Peter begs him to reconsider, begs him to be safe, begs him to take care for his own life—Jesus turns to him and tells him; “Actually, if you are going to follow me, if you want to see this all the way to the end, you’re going to have to be ready to “take up your cross” too.”

Now, when you hear “take up your cross”, what do you think? It has become popular in Christian circles to say “take up your cross” and bear your suffering. That to take up your cross is to be patient and deal with hard stuff in life.

That is not what Jesus is saying at all. Every single person who heard him would have immediately thought—darn, Jesus is asking us to be ready to die. Jesus is saying—be ready to die.

We live in a world, Jesus says, where people who are powerless are dying all the time. Rome kills our people, my people all the time. If I am going to join them, if I am going to stand on their side, I will have to be willing to die as well.

We live in a world where kids like Michael Brown die all the time on the streets of our towns and cities. On the streets of Grays Harbor, I listen to stories of death all the time—high suicide rates, people dying far too young because they don’t have access to medical care, so much death.

Why is Jesus willing to die? Jesus is willing to die because Jesus loves his people. Loves us.

Were you listening to our first reading? Moses is visited by God who tells him; “I have heard my people’s cry.” I have seen their suffering. I have seen their slavery. I have heard their cry. And I am sending you to risk your life, to set my people free.

Jesus, God in human flesh, God with us, comes to us and he hears our cry. Jesus is God’s response to the cry of God’s people.

He hears the cry of the Galileans who suffer under Rome. He hears the cry of desperate and heartbroken people in Ferguson. He hears the cry of a world suffering so much.

I want to tell you a little about the cries that I hear on the streets of Aberdeen and the harbor, in my ministry. I sat down with a group of folks, telling them that I was meeting with the police chief and was there something they wanted me to say. To a person, they said; “We just want a home. Where are we supposed to go?” I spoke to a young man who spoke of his longing for a job so that he could keep his housing and build a stable life. I spoke to an elderly man who cried over all of the people in his family who have died young—of desperation or despair or untreated health issues.

Over and over, people say; “We once helped build this community; we once had jobs here. But now all of these buildings and homes stand empty and we camp along the river.” Over and over, people say; “How can I help? How can I find work so that I can pay for electricity and running water in my apartment?”

And God has heard their cry. Because I believe the gospel, because I believe in the God of liberation and freedom, I believe that God has heard their cry.    

And so our calling is to stand with them. To stand together as a community. To listen to each other’s cries. Our cries for healing and for belonging and for love. Our cries for community and homes and stability. Our cries for hope and for a future.

We all cry to God at one point or another. As we face health problems or the loss of those we love. As we face job loss or can’t find a job. As we face all of the things that this world throws at us.

And God hears our cries, my brothers and sisters. And Jesus loves us. Loves us enough to die for us. Loves us enough to put his body, his life on the line for us.

And this is how we show love for one another.

Because, when we come together, when we stand together, when we cry out together—liberation is a coming, my brothers and sisters.

When we cry out together, God hears, and we find hope and a future. Hope for our lives, hope for our kids and grandkids, hope for our land, hope for our towns, hope for the harbor.

Jesus—willing to die on behalf of his people—calling us to be willing to die for each other, this is how freedom comes. And we dream, my brothers and sisters, we dream—of people having enough to eat, of streams in the desert and our land coming alive again—we dream of beautiful homes and enough work, we dream of healed people. We dream because Jesus says that, if we are willing to lose our lives for the ones we love, we will truly find LIFE together. We will LIVE.

What Does the Cross Say to Law Enforcement?

I grew up warily respecting cops in a family that respected and feared the police. I was a white kid in a mostly white, working class suburb before I was a white kid in a white rural town. Both my grandfathers were police officers and I remember the occasional story, though neither of them glorified their jobs any more than they did their military experience.

My sister’s now in law enforcement too. And I hate that she is ever in danger.

And then there is Ferguson. And the stories of black kids and teens and adults all over the country telling the same story: black kids are dying in our streets and many of them are dying at the hands of cops.

And then there are the stories I hear all the time on the streets of almost every city I have been in—being roughed up by the police, targeted by the police, for being homeless, for being poor, for looking the wrong way or living on the wrong side of town.

When we talked about Ferguson in Aberdeen, people told their own stories.

When Ferguson happens, we want to frame it into a manageable narrative. We want to make it about a black teen and his good or bad character and a white cop and his good or bad decisions. Two people. Let’s wait and see what the “real story” is.

But that is not what this is about. Not really.

Its about a system where poor people, and especially poor people of color, are not considered human beings. Not given respect or dignity. Where they are roughed up and beat up and arrested and caged and, yes, killed by people trained to believe that they “serve and protect.” All the time. Whether they have guns or knives or not, whether they are polite or rude, whether they have stolen a candy bar or sat in the wrong place.

Being a priest, my mind runs immediately to the gospels, set in a time when Rome oppressed Galilee and Palestine, in a time when John the Baptist and Jesus and their people were robbed, oppressed, and murdered by those who served and protected the empire. And I think particularly of a group of soldiers, the Roman equivalent of a domestic military force, who came to John in Luke 3, asking what they should do. And John tells them to stop extorting people.

John gets that they are trying to make a living. John gets that they are human beings. John gets that they are scared in their line of work. But he gives them a choice. If you want to be part of the kingdom of God, then you cannot join in the oppression of the community. You cannot rob people of dignity and life.

It’s simple, really.

It’s the same message Oscar Romero preached to the members of the Salvadoran police and military:

“I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, “Thou shalt not kill.” No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God... It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order… In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.”

Today, as well, the members of our police and law enforcement have the same choice. To choose between the people of this nation or upholding a status quo that systematically and deliberately controls and persecutes an increasing number of struggling people. To serve and join with the people of this country, black and brown and white, but especially black and brown because these communities were never meant to be protected by our law enforcement, or to serve and protect our systems of power and control.

There is that poignant final scene at the site of the crucifixion. As Jesus lets out his final, dying scream, a man cries out; “Truly, this man was the son of God.” The man who said those words was the man who put Jesus there, who drove nails into his flesh, who killed him, who was just doing his job, who was just following protocol, who was just following orders. A man who, in the eyes of the law, did nothing wrong and everything right. And, in a blinding flash, he recognizes the enormity of what he has done and falls at the feet of the dead man.

Will the police of Ferguson fall at the feet of the dead man, of Michael Brown, the kid left dead in the street for hours, and say; “Truly, this man was a child of God”?

Will the officers of Aberdeen or of Seattle or of the myriad of other cities who are charged with enforcing anti-vagrancy laws and criminalizing homelessness—will they fall at the feet of their brothers and sisters and say; “Truly, they are children of God”?

That is the call of the gospel.

In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.

What does Gaza City and Fergeson Have to Do with Aberdeen?

In the face of so much bad news, I have struggled to say what is on my heart. Struggled to form words around horrific acts of violence and war. Two events, particularly, have captured my attention in the past few weeks. A whole people utterly cut off from economic possibility and bombed, as the world watched nearly 2,000 people die in Gaza, watched children bury children. And a young black man shot by police, triggering night after night of protest in the American town of Fergeson.



Something caught my attention last night. People in Palestine were sending tweets to protesters in Fergeson, MO advising them how to deal with tear gas. Two peoples, for a moment in cyberspace, united in a struggle for life.

Everywhere, all over the world, poor and oppressed and angry people are demanding life. They are refusing to lay down and die.

And, yet, I struggle for words.

I struggle because I grew up white and working class and what that means is that my people, so often, have believed so many lies. I grew up taught that black communities were violent and I grew up with racist slurs and deep prejudice. I grew up with Christian Zionism, a distorted belief that both unconditionally supported Israel and still believed Jews were going to hell, a macabre anti-Semitism married to political support for the state they believed would bring in Armageddon. I grew up, especially post 9-11, taught that Muslims and “Arabs” (because, all people in the Middle East were Arab) were dangerous terrorists who deserved bombing and death.

And there is nothing unique in that. Lots of white, rural, working class people have been taught the same.

I struggle because this breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that my people—that rural white people don’t realize that they have so very much in common with the protestors in Fergeson and the people of Gaza. More and more, the communities I come from are struggling to survive—struggling for life—struggling because they can’t get jobs or health care or decent housing, struggling because they too fill our jails and prisons, they too are at the end of their rope. They are not bombed, but the conditions of life are not so very different.

Yet, as always, we are isolated in our struggle, isolated because we believe what we have been told. About Gaza. About black people. About immigrants.

And about us.

We are told that our poverty is a result of our lack of initiative and hard work, our lack of good planning and good choices. We believe our poverty is our fault. And that belief holds us captive. The best way to enslave people is to convince them they deserve it.

At least in Gaza, at least in Fergeson, people know what they are up against. At least they know their suffering is not their fault. 

I dream of a day when towns like Aberdeen recognize common cause with struggling people all over the world—when Aberdeen joins Fergeson and joins Gaza City and joins the millions of people around the world struggling for life. When people in Aberdeen tweet people in Fergeson and Gaza City, demanding freedom and life and peace and wholeness together.

The Fisherman's Pentecost

Texts: I Kings 19:9-18 and Matthew 14:22-33

So, I have a confession to make. I don’t know much about fishing or being on a boat. Which is a little sad, since my family has a history of maritime adventures—my grandfather served in the merchant marines during WWII, my dad built ships after he got out of the Coast Guard and my aunt spent 15 years living on a boat and running a seafood business. Me? I’ve never been on anything bigger than a canoe or a little motor boat on a very small, very quiet lake.

I’ve never been in a storm on a boat.

 Did you notice that all of our texts this morning are in the middle of storms/ Elijah stands on a lonely mountain, hiding for his life, in the middle of a storm and an earthquake. And Jesus, Jesus, is walking on water in the middle of a storm.

We haven’t had much stormy weather lately. Except that our world is full of it. I cannot but notice that the news these past few weeks is full of dire news. I feel bombarded with stories of death and tragedy and war. In Aberdeen, in my ministry, I hear stories of tragedy constantly. I hear about missing children and suicide, desperation and loss—the storm of being caught between lack of adequate jobs and deep, grinding poverty. I toured Olympia yesterday and heard the same stories of people struggling to survive in our communities.

And, this past few weeks, we hear of hundreds, thousands dead in Gaza—caught between a powerful army and overcrowded desperation. Because I have worked in many immigrant congregations, I can’t help but hear the stories of the thousands of children fleeing across our southern borders —caught between economic devastation, the intense violence of their homelands, and US border policy.  Everywhere, there are storms. Everywhere, the clouds seem ready to block out the sun, and we see pain and despair and struggle of people forced to flee, forced to live in economic struggle, forced to watch loved ones die. Forced to do so by those more powerful than they are. Unable to stand up against a world where jobs are hard to find, or armies are powerful, or gangs have taken over.

Did you notice something else about our texts? Into each of the storms in our text, God walks in. Elijah stands in the desert on his lonely mountain, sent into hiding for speaking the truth. He is grieving the deaths of those killed by the king of Israel. Ahab was an abusive king, a man who robbed the people of Israel of land and life. Elijah is at the end of his rope. He is vaguely suicidal—only a few verses before, he begs God to let him die. The storms are too much.

And God comes to him in a still small voice. And gives him hope and courage and a promise for the future.

And Jesus. Our text begins as Jesus sits alone on a hillside, praying. Grieving too; he has just received word that Herod has executed John the Baptizer. In a drunken party, the king had ordered John’s death. John had spoken truth to power too and now he was dead. Perhaps Jesus was thinking about himself too—he must have known that his ministry will not end well or peacefully either. He must have known that he too might die quite soon. I imagine Jesus too was grieving. And it was in his own grief, he walks out on the storm of the Sea of Galilee.

The disciples see Jesus walking on water and they imagine he is a ghost, some thing of legend or folklore.

God walks in as the storm threatens to overwhelm his people. It is the disciple’s baptism. Or, as Irene Martin says, this is the Fisherman’s Pentecost—the time when the Spirit is revealed to them in power and they see God in power.

It is a demonstration of power.

Power over the sea, power greater than Rome, than Herod, power greater than the worst enemy his disciples can imagine.

It is that power that gives God’s people hope.

It is that same power that rescues Noah and his family in the ark and rescues the ancient people of Israel from Egypt and from slavery when they cross the Red Sea. That same power that gives freedom and liberation.

It is that power that gives us hope. Today, in the middle of the Pentecost season, it is our Pentecost.

How many storms have you endured in your life? Or are you in the middle of a storm right now? Of loss of those you love? of ill health, of trying to find a job or pay the rent, of dealing with a loved one you just can’t quite reach, or of confronting injustice? Are you looking for Pentecost, for the coming of the Spirit of God in your life and your community?

Today, when I think of the children on the border, or in Gaza, or in Aberdeen, I shudder at how powerless they are. How powerless we find ourselves so often. How powerless our communities can be, as I look at so many storms in our world, storms that threaten to break us apart, storms that kill so many—from Aberdeen to Gaza, from Honduras to Lacey and Olympia.

And I think too of Peter, amazed to find Jesus on the water, who jumps out of the boat. Now, I might not have too much experience in these matters, but jumping out of the boat in the middle of a storm really, really does not seem like the smartest move. I mean, Peter has fished his whole life, right? And now he jumps OUT of the boat?

The moment that strikes me the most, however, is when Peter, realizing his monumental mistake, reaches out for Jesus’ hand.

The hand of his grieving, tired, wounded healer. And they get into the boat together.

In the middle of our storms, we still take Jesus’ hand and we face down, together as a community, a world that seems to grow more dangerous and more uncertain and more difficult.

As I toured Olympia yesterday, I was privileged to visit Quixote Village. Back when I was a student here in Olympia Quixote was a tent city, moving from church parking lot to church parking lot. Now, this community has designed about 30 homes in community. The folks I met yesterday were eager to give me a tour of the homes they designed and the flowers and the gardens they have planted. As I looked around and heard these stories, I could not help but think—this is Pentecost. That they, together, as a community, have faced down the powerful forces against them—job loss, homelessness, an economic crisis, and a world that does not value them. They have claimed the power of the Spirit of God. This is Pentecost.

We may not always be saved from the difficulties and storms of life. But we can claim the power of Jesus, the power of Pentecost and live in light of that. In the face of Ahab, in the face of Herod, in the face of Caesar, in the face of Hamas and Israel, in the face of the Honduran federal police and their gangs, in the face of all that threatens to overwhelm and destroy God’s people.

We can claim the power that Jesus gives us—the power that lets Peter, if only for a moment, walk on water, holding Jesus’ hand.

When we feel powerless, we can hold on to Jesus’ hand, we can remember a promised kingdom, where justice is found.

I remember that old hymn that I sung all the time as a kid;

Precious Lord, take my hand

Lead me on, let me stand

I am tired, I am weary, I am worn.

Through the storm, through the night

Lead me on, to the light.

Take my hand, Precious Lord, lead me home.

Home to God, home to the kingdom of God, home to a safe shore, home where all are loved and protected, home where Gazans and Hondurans, Mexicans and Aberdonians, Olympians and Laceyites, were all the oppressed and the tired and the powerless find freedom together in the kingdom Jesus promises…

That, my friends, is the call of the Fisherman’s Pentecost.