Sermon for June 25, 2006 (Proper 7B)
Judith A. Davis©
1 Samuel 17:32-49                                                          Mark 4:35-41

+Come, Holy Spirit, inspire the hearts of your faithful. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen (from Ps 104:31)”

Today’s Gospel story of Jesus stilling the storm, is about God’s doing a new thing.  Indeed this has been a week of God’s doing new things in our Church, with the election of a woman Presiding Bishop, and I would like to reflect briefly on God’s miracles. In the story of Jesus calming the sea, the storm has pushed the disciples to their limit. In spite of their knowledge of boats and the Galilean weather, their boat is sinking. In desperation, they wake Jesus, not simply to warn him that his own life is in danger, but because they had nowhere else to turn. “Don’t you care that we’re drowning?” isn’t so much a question as a desperate cry for help. They wanted to be out of the situation, which seemed hopeless, and did the only thing left for them to do. They called out to Jesus.

     His response is not what they expected, or they would not have reacted the way they did. They saw Jesus perform miracles of healing and casting out demons, yet this act of control over the elements of sea and sky stunned them. In an instant they are removed from the life-threatening situation and brought to a new place—not just of safety, but also of understanding, even if they can not yet fully comprehend the circumstances or the place itself.

     How often throughout the Gospels does Jesus do the unexpected? When faced with a hungry crowd and almost no food on hand, he sits the people down and feeds them. When teaching his followers who their neighbor is, the hero of his story is a despised Samaritan. When the disciples are faced with another dangerous storm on the lake, Jesus walks to them on the water.

     To the modern Christian, these stories, passed down over the generations, have become part of the familiar fabric of our lives. We may question the mechanics of the miracles, or even the thinking of the observers, but more often than not, we are not startled by Jesus’ actions in the way his disciples and the others in these stories are. No matter how cynical one may be, or how little one believes that miracles like those in the Gospels can happen, deep down we expect Jesus to do something.

     How many times in life do we find ourselves in a “storm” beyond our ability to handle? When we reach our limits trying to handle the situation, we simply want out of it. And when it becomes desperate enough, we often find ourselves crying out to Jesus, “Don’t you care that we’re perishing?”

     So, I imagine some of you have been following the General Convention of The Episcopal Church closer than I have, and it’s almost a full-time job to keep up with the daily blogs coming from Convention.  Here’s how I think today’s stories fit in—the stories of reversal, a great theme of the Bible—the small boy bringing down the giant, the healer and teacher stilling the elements of nature, clearly both of these took on things seemingly beyond their ability.

     Jesus’ response can, and does, still take us by surprise.  So here the deputies are at the 75^th General Convention, bone-weary from the same old diatribe from the religious right and conservatives about how the Bible says ordaining women and gays is clearly against Scripture and tradition, and the liberal, social justice left saying how Jesus welcomes all equally at the table and how it’s a matter of justice to include all God’s people in the life of the Church. Gathering in Columbus seemed like yet another game of stalemate in an already difficult chess match over women, gays, and power from the left and from the right.  Some from the right had already planned a meeting following General Convention right here in our own diocese at All Saints, Chevy Chase, to discuss the possibility of schism. Meanwhile, the nominating committee had worked hard to come up with a reasonable slate of candidates for Presiding Bishop, choosing some who would be moderate enough to satisfy both camps and including a token woman.

     Then, to everyone’s dismay, results of the first ballot came in.  Many deputies who are so weary of all the politics of the Episcopal Church voted for Katharine Jefferts Schori on the first ballot as a good faith way of trying to support the woman.  They thought that would be satisfying, and then she would lose badly and one of the men would progress.  THEN, God did a new thing.  She, Katharine, led on the first ballot, and then those who had supported her felt called to continue to support her and she won easily on the fifth ballot.  Everyone was stunned!  No woman has ever been the primate or head of any branch of the Anglican Communion, which has been in business for more than 400 years.  The new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the US (2.4 million members) is a woman, just 30  years after women were officially ordained priest and 17 years after the first woman (our own assisting bishop Barbara Harris) was consecrated as the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion.

     So what does this mean for an already struggling and divided church whose primary agenda, wearisome though it be, seems always to be money, sex and power.

     Well, let’s do a brief history lesson of two stories about our beloved church and women’s ordination.  

1) I was out of college and in my late twenties when 11 women were ordained irregularly by three male, of course, bishops, who were tired of the church’s dragging its feet about women’s ordination.  It was 1974.  It was big news, but not in every place.  I was Methodist in those days and I don’t even remember it making the news I was aware of. Each of these women, some who are friends of mine, just wanted to be parish priests like the men were.  They just wanted to love and serve God’s people, but the Church was afraid and General Convention after General Convention resisted approving women for the priesthood. These 11 women were treated terribly by well-meaning proper Episcopalians.  Some people bit the women’s hands when they administered communion.  Many refused to take communion from women.  None of them became rectors of parishes because the church was afraid.  Finally in 1976, the General Convention narrowly passed a resolution to allow the regular ordination of women to the priesthood.  The first woman to serve as priest-in-charge of a congregation was in our very own parish, when, in 1976, The Rev. Carole Crumley, who had been called as the Assistant to the Rector, took over when Rector McCallum ran off with the secretary or treasurer.  Carole did and admirable job in the interim period and was welcomed in this place, while not embraced as warmly in the wider church.  The road was not easy for the Philadelphia 11, as we call them, or for the Washington 4, also ordained in 1975, nor for the women ordained in 1976, like Carole.

2)  In 1988, Barbara Clementine Harris was elected Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, and she was the first woman elected (and subsequently consecrated) bishop in the entire Anglican Communion.  It was more than a blip on my own radar screen then, for I was a postulant for Holy Orders myself and attending Duke Divinity School part-time.  The weekend she was elected, I was attending a women’s ministry caucus in the Diocese of North Carolina.  Some of our facilitators were women of the Philadelphia 11 and the Washington 4.  When the news broke out (because people were tuned into the election in Massachusetts), the room erupted like it did at General Convention this week.  A WOMAN had been elected bishop—only 12 years after women had been ordained officially.  That woman had served as crucifer at the ordination of the Philadelphia 11, 14 years before.  God had done a new thing once again, and the people were stunned.  I was thrilled and still have a coffee mug from her consecration on February 11, 1989.

     There are many other stories of God’s doing new things in our Church.  We remember well the consecration of Gene Robinson as the Communion’s first openly gay bishop in 2003, and now the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the first woman Presiding Bishop.  None of these has been easy decisions and the aftermaths of each of these decisions by our church have been difficult.  The women ordained in Philadelphia and Washington, Absalom Jones, Barbara Harris, Gene Robinson, Katharine Jefferts Schori and others unknown to us have had difficult lives in the spotlight.  They have worn bullet-proof vests at their ordinations and perhaps, +Katharine will have to, as well, for many in the church still can’t deal with God’s doing new things.

     Perhaps none of these stories is as dramatic as the calming of the storm on the lake of Galilee. They are not what we would consider “miracles.” Yet the church in each age cried out in its time of trouble, and it came to that unexpected place where Jesus can bring us, and has, perhaps, this week.  This week I celebrate 15 years of my own ordination and these great people I’ve mentioned paved the way for me to be here among you.  We have a long way to go, but people of faith have believed in a God who can do new things always.  May we support and pray for our new Presiding Bishop and believe she can be the reconciler our church desperately needs.

     “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” Jesus asks. Because we are human, we struggle with our fears and our limits just as the disciples did. Yet, if we remain open to the unexpected, Jesus will see us through, in spite of our doubts, fears, and lack of faith.  The disciples were stunned by Jesus’ controlling the natural elements.  Mark says it this way: “And [the disciples] were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him.’” (Mark 4:41)

     Let me close with a quote from Presiding Bishop-Elect Jefferts Schori’s sermon for the closing Eucharist of the 75^th General Convention. In that sermon she began what we hope will be a ministry of reconciliation and grace:  

“What do the godly messengers say when they turn up in the Bible? ‘Fear not.’ ‘Don't be afraid.’ ‘God is with you.’ ‘You are God's beloved, and God is well-pleased with you.’
 
When we know ourselves beloved of God, we can begin to respond in less fearful ways. . . When we know ourselves beloved, we can even begin to see and reach beyond the defense of others.
 
Our invitation, both in the last work of this Convention, and as we go out into the world, is to lay down our fear and love the world. Lay down our sword and shield, and seek out the image of God's beloved in the people we find it hardest to love. Lay down our narrow self-interest, and heal the hurting and fill the hungry and set the prisoners free. Lay down our need for power and control, and bow to the image of God's beloved in the weakest, the poorest, and the most excluded.
 
We children can continue to squabble over the inheritance. Or we can claim our name and heritage as God's beloveds and share that name, beloved, with the whole world.”   Amen.