June 23, 2024

Pentecost 5, Year B

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Mark 4:35-41

This past Thursday was World Refugee Day, and it got me thinking about people I’ve known. When we lived in Toronto I worked at Sojourn House, which was a hostel for refugee claimants; people who have had to leave their home countries because they have a real fear of persecution if they were to stay. The people at this hostel were among the ones who show up on their own at a border or airport and make their claim to refugee status here, with no local support from family or a welcoming sponsoring group – like a church – to receive them. Sojourn House was one place where people could come for a few weeks for shelter and for assistance to get their legal claims underway, and the mountains of paperwork begun, and to get set up with some kind of housing.

One evening I was walking to the subway with a young man in his thirties who had left his home country of Egypt about three years earlier. He had been on the road for most of that time, and now we were going to the subway station where he would get on the train, ride nine stops, and find his way to his small apartment that would become his home for the months and months and more for his claim to be heard and settled or maybe rejected. I was getting really nervous along the way because this was a new city for him and he didn’t know the subway system like I did and I thought he might get lost or not be able to find his place. I was worried and anxious for him, but he just seemed happy and relieved to be able to settle somewhere for awhile.

I stood on the subway platform while the doors closed. He waved and smiled from the train as it pulled away. I worried. He was just fine. And then the obvious thought occurred to me: Paul, he fled from an unsafe home country, he’s been on the road for three years, and he’s had to find his way around in all kinds of strange circumstances in all kinds of strange places. He’s been a refugee, he knows all about being afraid or unsure. He’ll be fine riding the subway for nine stops. And I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief, knowing that he would be OK. And I bet he could tell I was anxious. And he was pretty sure I’d be OK.

We just heard that story of Jesus in a boat with his disciples in a storm. The punch line seems to come at the end, when Jesus wakes up, and shakes the sleep out of his eyes and looks around at the storm, says, “Stop! Be quiet!”, and the wind stops and the waves go still, and everybody’s safe and amazed. So everything will be OK, right? But the quirky thing about the story is that Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat. The boat is rocking, the waves are splashing in, everyone’s getting soaked, and they have to wake Jesus up. What kind of person sleeps through all that?

This kind of person: Do you remember what happened way back at the start of his story, maybe thirty some years before this story of the storm at sea? King Herod has heard rumours that a child has been born who some people are calling a king. We know that child as Jesus. Herod the king is threatened by this pretender to the throne, so he gets some wise men from the east to find out where the child is. But those travellers from the east are wise, so they visit the child and then sneak away without telling Herod. So Herod’s fear grows and his anger wells up and he finally issues an order to kill all the male children under two years old. If he gets them all, he’ll get that one who they say will be a king.

So Jesus’ mom and dad know it’s not safe to stay, and they pack up in a hurry one night – there’s no time to lose – and they head west for Egypt, days and days and weeks of travel away. Just two parents, and a baby who would soon become a toddler, sleeping through his parents’ fear while they sneak through city streets and open fields trying to keep their child from crying out as children do.

Do you wonder who helped them along the way? And when they went to Egypt did someone see them and say, “Who are these strangers from a strange place? I can’t even understand what they’re saying. What are they doing here?” In the earliest days of this story we tell, a mom and a dad and their child pack up and flee in the night, to get away from a king who wants them dead.

It’s a refugee story, our faith story. Right from the start.

The one who sleeps in the back of the boat with those disciples was, right at the very beginning of his life, a refugee. Maybe Jesus sleeps so soundly because all his life he’s heard his mom and dad tell him about how they all had to pack up and flee. He heard the fear in their voices when they talked about it all. He’s heard it so much that he’s just become comfortable with fear. He’s felt it, he feels it, but he’s not afraid of it.

Or maybe he sleeps so soundly because all of his life he’s heard his mom and dad tell him about how they all had to pack up and flee. He heard the fear in their voices, but he also heard the trust in their voices when they talked about how God had been with them when they were afraid, and when their lives were in danger. He heard the trust in their voices when they told him about how people helped them along the way when they were running from Herod: People who gave them shelter, or food for the road, or who hid them while Herod’s soldiers prowled around, and who helped them find their way to the next safe place. And maybe as the wind and the waves picked up and Jesus nodded off in the back of the boat, he heard his mom’s voice saying something like, “It was scary and we didn’t know what would happen and we wondered whether we’d survive but we trusted that God was with us. And we knew we weren’t alone. There were other people too.”

So there’s a storm out on the lake. The disciples are terrified, and Jesus, who is at home with fear and at home with trust, has his head on a pillow in the back of the boat.

When the boat being swamped is my own life or yours, or when it’s the church that we worry about or a world on fire with war or climate change or…what are the fears that are loudest for any of us?...it might seem sometimes like Jesus is asleep in the boat somewhere. And this might be small comfort, but the one who snoozes in our boat knows what fear is and knows what the storms are, but also knows what trust is. And the one who snoozes in our boat knows that life is stronger than any fear or any storm.

There’s one more detail we might have missed as we heard that story this morning. I know I missed it for about fifty-five years, and I didn’t even see it until a few years ago. Hear it again: “On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to the disciples, “Let’s go across to the other side of the lake.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with them.” I’d never noticed that there were other boats with them out on the water. The picture in my mind had always been that it’s just me and mine in this boat here. My life, my family, my church, my friends. I didn’t really notice the other boats in the story.

But there are always other boats in our story, and they’re not a minor detail; they are part of the story, and we’re out on the lake with them. The other boat next door, the one under a bridge downtown that’s filled with a whole small community of people; the person in the other boat in the office next to you or at the desk in the other classroom. The other boat, the other boat, there’s always another boat. So pay attention. And look for other boats. It’s all about all the boats.

This past Thursday was World Refugee Day, and Friday was National Indigenous Peoples Day. June is National Indigenous History Month, and Pride Month as well. All these days and months and reminders and themes, you know what they do? The remind us all that there are other boats. Not that the LGBTQ community lives in that boat over there, and the indigenous people in that one and the refugees and that boat that’s bobbing along behind…but there are other boats, we all live in each other’s boats with each other, and I and my stories am not all alone out on the water. We live in all these boats in the water together, all these boats filled with wonders and worries and stories and gifts and struggles and fears and joys of their own. And Jesus is in the boat, at home with fears and celebrations and gifts and struggles and wonders. At home in all the boats, at home with us.

And when Jesus sits up in the back of the boat and has a look around, and muzzles the wind and tells the waves to be still, he’s doing it for all the boats, and there’s new life and a better day for all the boats on the water. Because every boat matters, every child matters, every struggle matters, every good gift that we bring matters, and when Jesus stills the storm it’s for everyone…in all the boats…

And even if the storm keeps on for a time…for a day or a few weeks or decades or who knows how long…. There’s always this one in the boat with us. Maybe snoozing on the pillow in the back of the boat, or sitting up and surveying the wind and the waves, or bailing with us or just riding it out with us. And that’s the story for all the boats, whatever the weather. There’s always this one with us. Living and dying and living again, in all the boats…for all the boats. And the storm will finally be calmed.