FIRST (SCOTS) SERMONS “IN THE SAME BOAT” Scripture Lessons: Mark 4:35-42; Ephesians 2:13-22 This sermon was preached by Dr. Joseph S. Harvard III on Sunday, August 16, 2015 at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Maybe you heard about the preacher who stood up to preach, and he said, “Before I begin my sermon I have something important to say." Before I begin I want to express my deep gratitude to the Search Committee that called me here and the Session who called me to serve as Transitional Pastor for this congregation. Carlisle and I are honored to be joining you on this journey of faith. I have long admired this congregation for your witness to the Gospel in this historic city. Phil Noble is a mentor and long-time friend. I join you in admiration and gratitude for the ministry of Danny Massie and Tita Massie. I am aware this is a significant time of transition and I am looking forward to making the journey with you and working with excellent colleagues. Carlisle and I are so glad to be joining you and we solicit your prayers and your support. As I was considering my call to serve with you, I have been pondering this story about Jesus stilling the storm. In the story, Jesus invites the disciples into the boat. Jesus says, “Let us go to the other side.” Jesus takes the initiative. Have you noticed how it works that way for us? I was not looking for a church to serve. When the phone rang and Jules Anderson said he wanted me to consider coming to serve as an interim as their beloved pastor of 18 years was retiring, I said, “You must have dialed the wrong area code. I am retired.” Carlisle and I enjoy our life in Durham. “Will you talk with us?” he asked. Jesus said, "Let us go to the other side," and so we got on board. My friends, this is the way discipleship works. Jesus calls us over the tumult of our life's wild restless sea. Come follow me. They had not gone very far before a storm arose and the boat is being tossed and turned. One day I was walking on Litchfield Beach. I met a man walking his dog and picking up shark’s teeth. You may notice that I am not shy. We struck up a conversation. He told me he was a retired commercial fisherman. I had never had a conversation before with a commercial fisherman. On this particular day the sea was very choppy, there was a Northeaster – a storm from the north east. There were huge waves and strong winds. I said to my new friend, “Did you go out fishing on days like this?” “Oh, yes and the waves would throw me around. The washes would be 30 feet.” After a moment I said, “I am glad you are still here.” “So am I,” he responded. We changed the subject and he gave me some good advice about shopping for fresh grouper. Many of those men that were in the boat with Jesus were fishermen. They knew what it was like to go out to sea. A storm arises and these seasoned fishermen are afraid. It must have been quite a storm. But Jesus is fast asleep! So they ask Jesus a question, a powerful question: “Do you not care if we perish?” You are enjoying clear sailing then a storm arises. You get a frightening medical diagnosis, or you discover your job is in jeopardy, or your financial security is at risk, or someone near and dear to you dies. Maybe you are starting school tomorrow and that can be scary as you enter a strange classroom. 1 “Do you not care what is happening to us?” You know the feeling, don’t you? What about the storms in the world in which we live. No one knows what is happening with the economy. What does climate change mean for our future? We all see the pictures and hear about ISIS. What is happening in the West Bank, Iraq and Afghanistan? Churches are being burned, and there are shootings in schools, movie theatres and yes, during a Bible study in a church down the street. “Do you not care that we are perishing?” The early church loved this story. In fact, one of the earliest symbols of the Christian church is a ship heading into a storm. They could identify with the disciples in the boat. The early church knew what it meant to be in a little boat in a stormy sea. Small, insignificant, a tiny minority in every city, and then tormented, persecuted, hunted down, arrested, tortured, crucified by the most powerful entity in the world, the Roman Empire. The early church loved and understood this story of the disciples in the boat and Jesus calming the storm. What they heard in that story is what I hope you and I can hear. They heard that they were not alone in that boat. They had each other and they had Jesus, who was very much in the boat with them and whose commitment to them produced calm and comfort and peace even in the midst of the most violent of storms. Much of the time we seem to have things under control. We say, “I’m the captain of my ship.” We like being in control. We consider ourselves self-made men or women. Self-made is a contradiction. None of us made ourselves. There are times in our life when we are not in charge. We seem subject to forces that seem more powerful than we are: accident, disease, death. We can without warning lose a loved one, work or home. I heard a story once about two men who enjoyed fishing together. They were very competitive. Who can catch the most fish, the biggest fish? One day they are out in the boat competing away--when one of them starts laughing and pointing at the other. "YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE!" he said. “What do you mean?” was the response. "There is a hole in your end of the boat and it's letting water in---You are going to sink!" was the response. Folks, we are in this boat together. We sink or swim together. “We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools,” Martin Luther King Jr. warned us. Sometimes the storms are violent and life threatening. We are all in the boat. Fred Craddock says, "Some of us are rowing, some are bailing, some are pulling at the sail, some are praying." We can whistle and sing. We can give pep talks to each other. "We can make it, we can make it," which helps a lot, because we are in the boat together. This is a moment when God is calling us to come together to show the world that the walls that separate us can come down and so we work together to build bridges not barriers. What if congregations came together in Charleston to worship and to fellowship, to sing and pray, to build Habitat homes that give hope to families? Leonard Pitts wrote in the Herald Sun that Jesus said, “A new Commandment I give you that you love one another." Love is compassion in action. It is intolerance of hate and bigotry. Pope Frances suggested that when we love one another we meet the living Christ. What would the world be like if we would love one another? 2 These folks in the storm had more than each other. There was another one present. In the boat, there is the one who came as God’s revelation; Jesus, who walked by the Sea of Galilee, who took the fishermen out into the boat. Sometimes we think that if you get into the boat with Jesus it is going to be smooth sailing, but this story makes it clear that sometimes with Jesus we find ourselves right into the middle of the storm, right into the middle of facing the questions of life and death. What are we going to do to help the poor in these difficult times? What are we going to do about a world that continues to be fixated with war and struggle and strife? The one in the boat is the One who promises us a peace that passes all understanding and promises more than anything else not to desert us. There's somebody else in the boat with us, back there in the stern, not far from the tiller actually, quiet, but present with all the strength and courage and peace of God in him. The day after the murders at Mother Emanuel, I was watching the reports from Charleston on the national news. There was a prayer service going on in a packed sanctuary at Morris Brown AME Church in Charleston. There were folks of all colors and sizes and ages praying, crying, and singing. At one point they began singing a hymn which I love: How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent Word… When through the deep waters I call you to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; For I will be near thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake.