(1 Kings 19:9-18, Matthew 14: 22-32) Sermon, by Kim Thoday

The “I” of the Storm (1 Kings 19:9-18, Matthew 14: 22-32) Sermon, by Kim Thoday

In Shakespeare’s play King Lear, there is a scene where the old King, after having bequeathed his kingdom to two of his daughters and then having been rejected by them and kicked out, shouts and rages against the stormy night that envelopes him. But the storm that is within him is more violent than the storm without. And so it is with most of our storms. In life we so often find ourselves like King Lear shouting back at the tempest with more violence and harm than the storm itself. Lear screams out:

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanes, sprout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought- executing fires, Vaunt – couriers to oak – clearing thunderbolts, singe my white beard!”

Surely most of us have felt such eruptions of wrath from deep within. We would defy even nature itself, somewhat comical though it may later appear. But at the time we cannot see the comedy of singed beards, as we are taunted by the injustices of the world.

Perhaps this was how the prophet Elijah felt when King Ahab and Queen Jezebel were out to get him. So many of Yahweh’s prophets had been put to death and Elijah fled for his life into the wilderness. Elijah shouts out: ” and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life to take it away.” As he looked for guidance from the Lord God, there was a great wind, and then an earthquake and then a fire. Perhaps God would come to his assistance in any of these great natural powers. But no. God’s power came to him in “a still small voice.” And from that divine encounter he received his strength and courage to return to his appointed task to be God’s messenger.

It is so often our experience also that we find ourselves at the centre of some impossible storm. We may feel that our predicament is unique. We often feel overwhelmed, angry and helpless. We too need to seek God’s strength and courage. The reality is that God is at the centre of every storm. The “I” of the storm is God. So we can always take courage – in every storm of life.

Remember the predicament of Jesus and his disciples. After the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes Jesus sent the disciples away in the boat in which they had previously arrived and he went up into the hills to pray. By evening the disciples were along way out to sea and the boat was being beaten by the wind and the waves. In the fourth watch of the night the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water. They became terrified at this strange sight; they thought it a ghost. But Jesus spoke to them, as God spoke to Elijah in a still small voice, “Take heart (courage), it is I; have no fear.” Then Peter, no doubt with mixed emotions and motivations, asks Jesus to command him to come to him. So Jesus does and Peter climbs out of the boat and walks on the water to meet Jesus. But suddenly Peter becomes afraid of the storm around him and begins to sink. Peter calls to Jesus for help and Jesus responds by reaching out his hand and rescuing him. And Jesus says to Peter: “You have so little faith, why did you doubt?” In context with Jesus’ previous declaration on the water, this could be understood as, “Peter, where is your courage? I told you I am here and there is nothing to fear!” And so when they had got back into the boat the storm ceased. At the heart of every storm is the “eye” – that mysterious small steady stillness. Take courage, it is I, says Jesus.

Like the feeding miracles of Jesus, this story of Jesus walking on the water was much loved by the early Jesus’ movements of the first century AD. And we know that great care was taken in handing on these oral traditions until they were eventually written down by the Gospel writers. The earliest Christian communities interpreted their own situations in light of these stories. And the Gospel accounts are the result of those interpretations. Jesus became present in the re-telling of these stories; it gave different Christian groups courage in the face of new storms of persecution, suffering and hardship, in the decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the communal re-telling of the story, Jesus was again walking on the stormy seas of life to seek and to save and to be present. In the retelling the cosmic power of God was unleashed through a still small voice: “Courage, it is I!” The ‘I’ of the still small voice of peace, salvation, reconciliation and transformation contained within every storm.

So we must continue to retell the great biblical narratives concerning the ways in which God gives us the courage to live life to the fullest and to be his followers especially in the hard times. We can have courage because God, through Jesus, is always in the eye of the storm. He is the ‘I’ of the storm. And the real storm is always an inner one – it is a storm between good and evil within every human heart, it is a storm over whether we chose courage or despair. And let us remember that God will often choose to come to us in the miracle of the still, small voice. One steady, still, small voice that entered this world in the form of Jesus Christ, transformed this world forever. And that steady, still, small voice has continued to speak of God’s new way of being, through Christians for two thousand years. May we continue to echo resoundingly for each other God’s Word: “Courage, it is I!”

Blessings in Jesus’ name,

KIM THODAY, HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST, South Australia

http://www.hewett.com.au