Sermon for Eucharist Sunday 13 th July 2014 Sea Sunday. May I speak in the name of God: Father, son and Holy Spirit

Transcription

1 1 Sermon for Eucharist Sunday 13 th July 2014 Sea Sunday May I speak in the name of God: Father, son and Holy Spirit Today is sea Sunday Which gives me a reason To talk about sailing The experience of sailing, Of being at sea Is very different from the experience Of looking at the sea In both you can be aware of The heart breaking beauty And the vastness Of the ever moving ocean But at sea sometimes you are made aware Of something else My story begins in the southern part of the North Sea On a bright and breezy sunny day One autumn I was on board a large schooner

2 2 And was one of the adult volunteers With a crew of thirty nine teenagers. It was a fabulous sailing day And the sea was quite bouncy So for half an hour or so Some of the adults sat out on the bowsprit And experienced a natural roller coaster And occasionally one of us would get very wet and everyone else would point and laugh It was great Then it got colder and windier And we came inboard But the wind didn t stop rising And this stopped being fun For those who know wind force The wind was up to force 11 A violent storm The noise was indescribable And we were heeled well over forty degrees But I don t know how far over Because the indicator stopped at forty the ship was being blown sideways

3 3 To be honest It was terrifying It was the terror of experiencing The power of the natural world That particular aspect of God in creation I have never prayed so constantly And I understood Why the sea For the Jewish people Represented terrifying chaos Well After 8 hours the storm Which was the result of a low pressure system Which had screamed up the channel Un - forecast and unexpected ended the crew were all safe And not too much of the ship was broken But for me There was a new awareness Of the enormity of God s creation Of our total fragility And a sense of the power of God And the otherness of God

4 4 And I also remember In the noise and fear We had listened to the Captain Straining to hear the commands Which would keep us safe Jesus starts today s parable Sitting in a boat Talking to a crowd on a beach Jesus says Listen And then Jesus tells the parable He calls the parable of the sower But could equally be called the parable of the soil Jesus describes how people Hear and receive the word of God How people respond to the news Of the Kingdom of God How some go on to bear good fruit And some wither And again Jesus says Listen, Let anyone with ears hear And then Jesus compares people s response To hearing the word of the kingdom To different types of soil And how soil receives seed

5 5 The first, the unresponsive listener Is compared to hard ground The word fails to penetrate A hardened exterior The second is the shallow and impulsive listener. Who hears superficially And rejects the word When they become aware That becoming a disciple Will place demands on them The third is the preoccupied listener. Whose heart is choked by other concerns Choked by the culture and values of the world And finally there is the listener Who hears the Word. Is open to the word and accepts it. And in accepting the word Changes and bears fruit This parable has always troubled me Because it feels unfair It feels like listeners are being Written off Through no fault of their own But on reflection I think

6 6 I have failed to understand The transformational nature Of the news of the Kingdom Jesus is not saying This is who you are now And this is who you will always be But Jesus is requiring us To be open to God s word To be open to change To be open to God s transforming love How does this change work? Jesus says Listen We change by listening And being always open to the possibility Of hearing the word of the kingdom In unexpected places At un-forecast times And what are we listening for? Where do we hope to encounter God? On Tuesday I attended the lecture by Professor David Brown Where he spoke about experiencing God in secular music

7 7 He was giving one example of the way If we listen, or touch, or see In the ordinary And in the sublime God reaches out to us and we experience something of God s presence Some people are more open to this idea And better at listening Than others Children, naturally curious Always expecting the unexpected Are one group Later in Matthew s Gospel Jesus says to his disciples "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. People who work in dangerous And unpredictable places Are another Because I have sailed a lot

8 8 And have worked in naval towns Over the years I have met many men and women Who are seafarers The psalmist describes them in these words Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters; they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep Many of the seafarers I know are complex people with complex lives But most have shared a characteristic Of being open minded, generous And non judgemental When I was preparing this sermon I thought These are the sort of people Jesus Would have been friends with And then I realised that of course The first disciples Jesus called to follow him Peter and Andrew Were fisherman They were seafarers They had hearts which were open

9 9 To the news of the Kingdom and they bore fruit Today we reflect on the wonder of God s creation: of our need to listen in order to be part of God s purpose in the world I will finish with a prayer That for me expresses Both the wonder of God s creation And acknowledges the fearful otherness of God O God, whose beauty is beyond our imagining and whose power we cannot comprehend: show us your glory as far as we can grasp it, and shield us from knowing more than we can bear until we may look upon you without fear; through Jesus Christ our Saviour.