I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.
[Chorus:]
Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.
I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.
[Chorus]
All right!
Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen
It’s all we hear these days. There’s a bad moon rising. The hurricanes are blowing. The end is coming soon.
We see it everyday. Big bad numbers are everywhere – a $14 Trillion dollar national debt. Unemployment hovering around 10%. The Dow falls 500 points in one day.
And everyone is looking for the magic answer … and everyone is so sure that they and they alone have the silver bullet that can save the day. Cut spending. Raise taxes. Cut taxes. Raise spending. Keep pulling different levers and pushing different buttons until we find the magic formula that is going to make it all right, that will calm the sea again, that will make America the mythical land of overflowing prosperity once again.
It’s easy for us to get frustrated at the people in Washington, but we’re doing the same thing ourselves.
Here at Christ Church Cathedral, we’re looking at a $55,000 deficit. And as I sit with Kris Reppert and the finance committee and Grace and Anne and the Chapter I know I want to find that silver bullet, too. I want to find that magic formula that’s going to make it all right, that will take away our fear, that will return us to the mythical glory days of Christ Church Cathedral. Cut the budget, raise more pledge income. Increase spending to try to increase attendance. The temptation is for us to pull the exact same levers and push the exact same buttons here.
And it's the same thing for each one of us. Every year it feels like we’re trying not just to do more with less but even to just try to break even with less, right? And so we’re all looking for the magic formula. How do we get more money, and cut expenses. How do we make it balance out. Mostly, as we watch the news and as we watch our own bills pile up and as many of our jobs become more and more tenuous, we want someone to snap their fingers and make it all OK, help us believe we can be confident and unafraid, that our children and grandchildren will enjoy the mythical epic prosperity that the rest of the world looks to America and aspires to.
This bad moon has been rising for awhile. The storm has been brewing and it is now starting to whip up real good. Although some of us have been feeling those winds and waves a lot longer than others of us. But now there aren’t a lot of people left who aren’t looking at the dark sky and feeling nervous. Who aren’t feeling tossed by the waves and worrying if the ship is going to make it.
There’s a bad moon rising. And it’s been rising for awhile. Because here’s the truth. The truth is the math hasn’t worked for a long, long time. Here in America, we are 5% of the world’s population and we’re responsible for 30% of the world’s consumption of resources. You just can’t keep that up indefinitely. It’s only a matter of time before the bills start coming due.
The truth is, our American lifestyle is not sustainable economically, it’s not sustainable environmentally and it is not sustainable morally. And here’s the thing… There is no silver bullet. There is no magic combination of levers pulled and buttons pushed that is going to bring a new day of superabundant material prosperity. Not for our nation. Not for Christ Church Cathedral. Not for your household or mine.
And let me tell you, we don’t want to hear that. The last major American politician who tried to even start to tell us the truth about this was Jimmy Carter and every politician since saw what happened to him and has said, "I'm not trying that again!"
And so we elect leaders who tell us what we want to hear. That this superabundance of wealth is our birthright as Americans and that it will return again. That it is absolutely sustainable if we swallow whatever magic economic policy pill they happen to be offering. That it is “those other people” who are the problem – they’re the ones. They’re the flies in the ointment and if we could just get rid of them we could all live in the land of plenty once more.
Some use soaring rhetoric that lifts our hearts and many, many more demonize and divide and tempt us to cower in fear, but none of them are telling us the truth.
And the truth is that we are 5% of the world’s population and we’re responsible for 30% of the world’s consumption. You do the math. So, be my guest. Cut taxes. Raise taxes. Cut spending. Raise spending. Knock yourself out. Unless we address our own addiction to consuming, our own addiction to a lifestyle that is unsustainable on every level, in the long run, none of it is going to matter.
And, at first blush, that’s really scary. It’s scary because for most of us, this lifestyle is all we’ve ever known. It’s how we judge our own worth. Our success and failure. We can’t imagine living any way that’s significantly different. Not only do we not have any easy answers, we’re not even sure what questions we should be asking. We don’t even know where to begin.
And so the voices that tell us they have the magic answer are really tempting to listen to. The voices that urge us to care only for ourselves and to build high walls around our houses, our incomes and our savings accounts no matter how great the need is elsewhere ... those voices are so tempting to listen to. The voices that tell us to be afraid and run away and stick our heads in the sand are so tempting to listen to.
But there is another voice. A voice not only older than the storm but older than the very sea this storm is tossing. A voice that knows as fierce as this storm is, it cannot touch the power of God. A voice that sees the sky darken, the waves roll and the winds blow and says just three words.
Bring. It. On.
And that brings us to this morning’s Gospel.
This morning’s Gospel finds the disciples just like we are. In a boat in a storm.
Now for these disciples, it isn’t 2011. There’s no GPS to guide them or coast guard to bail them out. Jesus, the guy who put them on that boat and sent them on this journey, is off on a mountain somewhere praying. As far as they can tell, they are all on their own. Which means if that boat capsizes, they are done for. It’s all over.
And morning begins to break, and Jesus walks toward them on the water and all they can think is “People don’t walk on water” so they grasp for any explanation that makes even a little bit of sense and they settle on “it must be a ghost!” And that scares them all the more.
And what does Jesus say to them? Do you remember?
Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.
Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.
So let’s press pause there and recap.
Like us, the disciples are in a boat in a storm and they’re scared. That’s OK. That’s natural. Storms are scary. And even when they see Jesus coming, their first reaction is not to recognize him and to be even more afraid. That’s OK, too. That’s natural. That’s human. Our fear doesn’t make us bad people. It makes us human people. It’s what we DO in the face of fear that makes all the difference.
And here’s what Jesus doesn't do in the face of fear – in the face of theirs and in the face of ours. What Jesus doesn’t do is immediately calm the storm. He doesn’t say the magic word, pull the lever or push the button and make it all OK. Instead he just stops and stands there, stands there on the place they fear the most – in the middle of the storm itself and he calls out to us, as we clutch to the sides of the boat:
Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.
And then Peter has one of his moments of incredible inspiration. Peter devises the perfect test to see if this really is Jesus. Because Peter knows the Jesus that looked at the 5,000 and said “you give them something to eat” wouldn’t just stand there in the storm, he would say, nuh-uh-uh-uh-uh … you’re coming out here with me. Jesus doesn’t tell them don’t be afraid because he’s going to protect them or help them run away from the scary stuff. Jesus says "Bring. It. On." He tells them “don’t be afraid” and then charges right into the teeth of the scariest stuff there is.
So Peter says, “Jesus, if that’s really you, yeah ... OK ... Bring. It. On. Command me to come out onto the water with you.”
And you’ve gotta believe Jesus was smiling right then. Peter, my man, my rock, you get it. Bring it on. And so he commands him to get out of the boat and Peter delivers. Peter does what to anyone else watching seemed crazy. He got out of that boat and started walking on the water toward Jesus.
We tend to remember this more as a story of Peter’s failure. We remember him taking his eyes off Jesus and fearing and starting to sink. And that’s a real shame. Because this isn’t a story of failure. This is a story of the power of "bring it on." The story of someone who believed even for a second that we have the power to face any fear, to do what seems impossible. Sure he faltered and fell, but man, he got out of the boat. The man walked on water! He proved what we are capable of when we keep our eyes on Christ.
Jesus meets us where we are but if we turn our lives over to him, he will never leave us as we are. If we, like Peter, ask him to, he will always invite us to look into the storm and join him in that chorus of Bring. It. On. He will always invite us step out of the boat and join him right in the midst of the stormy sea. He will always invite us to charge together into the teeth of our fear – so that we can truly discover that we can walk on water. That we don’t need the safety of the boat. And that even though the storms are blowing all around us that we can take heart and not be afraid.
We all see the bad moon rising. And if all we do as a Cathedral and all we do as individual followers of Jesus in our own homes is play the game the way everyone else is, then we are missing a once in a generation opportunity to live the Gospel and proclaim it to a nation that needs to know there is a different and better way.
Right now our nation is running scared. You see it on Wall Street. You see it everywhere. But we see Jesus in the middle of the storm, so we can link arms and step out of the boat that everyone else is clinging to in fear. Step out and run toward him, right into the heart of the storm. Because we believe Jesus is both our destiny and the one who has our backs, we can feel the wind and waves swell around us and we can say with one voice:
Bring. It. On.
It means that while we’re looking at our own budget we get to set our eyes on Christ, to read scripture deeply, pray deeply and listen deeply for his voice on one another’s lips. We get to look for new ways to be not just the church but new ways to be Americans. Ways that look Jesus full in the face and invite him to command us out onto the water. Ways that invite him to challenge even our most deeply held assumptions of what we need not only to be Christ Church Cathedral but to be members of this American society. And as long as I am your dean, that is the path we will seek. It is not the path of the quick fix or the easy answer, but we don't want those paths. those paths are not worthy of us. Those paths aren't worthy of a people who can walk on water.
I tell my kids that courage isn’t being unafraid. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. Courage is looking at moments of fear not as moments of personal weakness but as moments of opportunity to reach down deep and find out who we are and whose we are.
Beloved, I have no magic words, silver bullets or miracle cures for us. All I have is our trust that this moment is here to teach us that we are images of God and we belong to Christ. And that walking on water ain’t no thing. I can’t tell you how to walk on water and maybe before we get iit down, we'll start to sink a hundred times and a hundred times have Jesus lift us up and put us back in the boat and shake his head and smile and say “when are you going to get this?” But we’re going to keep stepping out of that boat. We're going to keep heading into the storm. And we're going to find a new way of living for ourselves and for the world.
We see a bad moon rising?
Well, Alleluia.
Bring. It. On.
Amen.
Posts
Strong stuff.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful. Thanks for sharing!