{"id":1266,"date":"2011-08-09T15:13:35","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T15:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=728"},"modified":"2017-08-26T15:26:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T19:26:28","slug":"have-you-seen-the-wind-comfort-in-the-unpredictable-jeff-taylor-august-7-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1266","title":{"rendered":"Have You Seen the Wind?: Comfort in the unpredictable – Jeff Taylor – August 7 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Listen to this Service\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have You Seen the Wind?: Comfort in the unpredictable<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew 14: 22-33<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

As Emily and the children have reminded us, we last heard the sound of wind chimes here on Pentecost Sunday when we used them to symbolize the wind<\/strong> that entered the room where Jesus\u2019 followers were praying and waiting for the Spirit of Jesus to comfort<\/strong> them.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t just<\/strong> comfort them, it gave them power<\/strong>: strange<\/strong> power.\u00a0 We had a very \u201cfull\u201d service on Pentecost Sunday, with a baptism and communion.\u00a0 It was also unusual because we have not always, at TUMC or at other Mennonite Churches I\u2019ve observed, made a really big deal<\/strong> out of Pentecost.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t recall any other year in which we continued to celebrate Pentecost past<\/strong> Pentecost Sunday, let alone into the summer with a theme like \u201cHave you seen the wind?\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t surprising: our movement was born<\/strong> in the 16th<\/sup> century reformation in which the burning debates centered on the interpretation and even the right contents of the bible<\/strong>.\u00a0 Our movement was born<\/strong> with the birth of the German bible<\/strong> and the printing press.\u00a0 So we have always considered ourselves people of the book<\/strong>.\u00a0 There it is, after all, in black and white: how to live a Godly life by trusting in Jesus and following His example.\u00a0 What more guidance would a Christian need than that<\/strong>?<\/font><\/p>\n

Sure, the first<\/strong> followers would need all the help they could get<\/strong>: so enormous, so crazy, was their mission \u2013 to tell the whole known world that restoration to God had come by an executed and resurrected man.\u00a0 Besides, they had no<\/strong> bible for at least<\/strong> 70 years<\/strong> after Jesus left them.\u00a0 They would need<\/strong> special power from God, a Spirit to walk beside them \u2013 a \u201ccomforter<\/strong>\u201d as Jesus put it.<\/font><\/p>\n

But we modern<\/strong>, literate<\/strong>, orderly<\/strong> Christians: what interest would we<\/strong> have in some disruptive force that blows in unannounced to do wonders or<\/strong> wreak havoc with new<\/strong> inspirations (revelations?) that often seem anything but<\/strong> comforting?\u00a0 I must confess some personal<\/strong> hesitation about giving such a force, such a Spirit, too much rein.\u00a0 As a teenage convert to Christ and to Mennonitism, I was acculturated to the book as well: so much so that I thought myself a pretty thorough-going Biblicist, seeking to do all<\/strong> that the scriptures command \u2013 sort of my \u201cyears of living biblically.\u201d\u00a0 Of course I didn\u2019t really follow all the commands of the bible; just as A.J. Jacobs found it impossible to keep the Torah completely as he recounts in the book I just referenced.\u00a0 Though so committed was I to doing Christianity by the book<\/strong>, that for about a year I read only the KJV, having been persuaded by radio preachers of the apostasy of the translators and editors of the RSV.<\/font><\/p>\n

The leaders of my Mennonite Brethren congregation did not<\/strong> encourage these<\/strong> biblicist excesses<\/strong>.\u00a0 In fact \u2013 in keeping with the pietism of that movement \u2013 there were charismatic<\/strong> elements in our church.\u00a0 Some of my friends in that youth group, some now Mennonite leaders, were very much nourished by a strong Holy Spirit movement afoot in the mid 1970s.\u00a0 There were prayer meetings where people were \u201cin the Spirit,\u201d where there were \u201cslayings in the spirit,\u201d and where there was speaking in tongues of angels (no, no one translated).\u00a0 These phenomena were taken by some as manifestations of the presence of God\u2019s spirit.\u00a0 Just a few years later, as a modernist<\/strong> theology student, I<\/strong> developed quite a lot of resentment about some of those charismatic and<\/strong> biblicist excesses to which I had been exposed, leaving me unsure how to trust either the bible or<\/strong> the Spirit.\u00a0 That was some years ago and I have, in good measure, made peace with both bible and Spirit.\u00a0 But I have had reasons to be wary of Spirit talk<\/strong>; perhaps some of you<\/strong> have as well.<\/font><\/p>\n

None-the-less, we can\u2019t escape the Spirit talk — the Spirit\/breath\/wind language permeating the bible from the first<\/strong> chapter of Genesis where God breathed life into the nostrils of our first mothers and fathers, right up to the last<\/strong> gospel, perhaps the last book<\/strong> of the bible, John, in which Jesus uses the pneumatic analogy, telling Nicodemus, \u201cThe wind*<\/sup><\/span> blows<\/strong> where it<\/strong> chooses, and you hear<\/strong> the sound of it, but you do not<\/strong> know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit<\/strong>.\u201d (3:8)<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Is this the comforter<\/strong> Jesus speaks of?<\/font><\/p>\n

How is the unpredictable comforting<\/strong>?<\/font><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what I find most un<\/strong>nerving about wind: there is<\/strong> no telling what it will do next.\u00a0 What IS<\/strong> wind anyway?\u00a0 Yes, I know that temperature variation make molecules move faster and slower and somehow wind patterns (sort of) emerge.\u00a0 But do you really, deep in your gut, get<\/strong> that?\u00a0 We humans are pretty dependent on our vision<\/strong>, the majority of us who have it.\u00a0 We tend to trust what we see.\u00a0 Compared to the other creatures of the earth, all<\/strong> of our senses are actually quite feeble<\/strong>; but of all our poor senses, we do see<\/strong> fairly well \u2013 we notice movement and judge distance very decently; and we see colour spectacularly well. Our visual dependence<\/strong> is, at least in English, even revealed in our idioms of speech: \u201cI see<\/strong> your point;\u201d \u201cLet\u2019s look<\/strong> at that idea further;\u201d \u201cThat music is spect<\/strong>acular!\u201d\u00a0 So when it comes to wind, I\u2019m with film maker Woody Allen who famously said, \u201cI never trust any air I can\u2019t see<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 He of course was joking about how much more at home he is in the city than in the outdoors.\u00a0 But I have felt suspicious of air.\u00a0 After one roller coaster ride at 35,000 feet coming into Chicago a number of years ago, I became a bit of a nervous flyer.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t teach<\/strong> myself out of my anxiety.\u00a0 I understood how the airfoil shape of the wing keeps a plane aloft and that they don\u2019t<\/strong> just fall out of the sky e
\nven if the air they fly in becomes unpredictable.\u00a0 But knowing<\/strong> this didn\u2019t completely put me at ease in turbulence.\u00a0 What eventually made me more relaxed was when I discovered that some airlines had a channel on the audio system that let you listen in to the cockpit-to-tower communication.\u00a0 The utter calm in the voices of the pilots<\/strong> in the face of \u201cmoderate chop\u201d helped me recognize I had nothing to fear.\u00a0 The comfort<\/strong> displayed by trusted pilots comforted me<\/strong>.\u00a0 After all, they are in the same boat I\u2019m in, right?<\/font><\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s story from Matthew, Jesus\u2019 disciples found themselves in a boat in turbulence without<\/strong> their pilot.\u00a0 Yes, it was water<\/strong> that would either keep them aloft or pull them under; but it was the wind<\/strong> that would either propel them forward on calm waters or stir up the waves against them and blow against sail and oar-stroke.\u00a0 And they were crossing without Jesus, at his<\/strong> insistence.<\/font><\/p>\n

You will remember from Richard\u2019s sermon last week that Jesus has just fed 5000 people \u2013\u00a0 miraculously, starting with just five buns and two fish.\u00a0 You may recall that Jesus was actually<\/strong> trying to get away<\/strong> from the crowds, having just learned of the execution of his relative and forerunner, John, the one who takes people under the water.\u00a0 Jesus had tried to escape up<\/strong> into the hills, but was pulled down towards<\/strong> the water by the needs of the crowd.\u00a0 Now, at the end of a long day of teaching and hosting a huge meal, Jesus stays behind to dismiss his thousands of guests.\u00a0 There is no mention of any discussion about how Jesus was to catch up to his disciples.\u00a0 Crossing a lake is obviously<\/strong> a shorter distance than going around half its circumference, and boat travel is faster than walking or even riding an animal.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know how<\/strong> they were supposed to be reunited.\u00a0 But Jesus was determined to have some time alone:<\/strong> to pray; surely to mourn John; and perhaps to rest.\u00a0 The disciples set off across the Sea of Galilee \u2013 really a freshwater lake only 13 by 8 miles across, but the lowest<\/strong> freshwater lake in the world at 700 feet below<\/strong> sea level.\u00a0 They departed from Bethsaida on the northeast<\/strong> shore of the lake.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t clear where the disciples were supposed<\/strong> to go, but they ended up on the plains of Gennesaret, on the northwest<\/strong> side of the lake.\u00a0 Google Earth calculates this as a 12 minute<\/strong> car ride covering 14 km by land<\/strong>.\u00a0 It took the disciples<\/strong> most of the night<\/strong> by boat.\u00a0 In Mark\u2019s account of this story, the one from which Matthew borrows, Jesus is said to have dismissed the crowds, gone up to the mountains to pray, and then, sometime very late at night or early the next morning, SAW<\/strong> that they were having trouble crossing \u2013 he could still see<\/strong> them after hours<\/strong> of trying to cross.\u00a0 They had gotten almost nowhere!<\/strong>\u00a0 I guess we can offer the disciples the excuse that their boat, if it was like the first century fishing boat discovered at the Sea of Galilee in the late 1980s, was not a racing boat.\u00a0 It would have had a very flat bottom with a shallow draft so they could get close to shore.\u00a0 It would have had a single square<\/strong> sail that worked fine for going in the direction the wind was blowing, but would have been useless against<\/strong> the wind.\u00a0 So now they must have been rowing and apparently were up against a very powerful wind.\u00a0 Jesus probably could have walked<\/strong> the land route that night and beat them to where they eventually landed.\u00a0 But he chose a different path \u2013 across the water, on<\/strong> the water.\u00a0 In Mark\u2019s version of the story Jesus didn\u2019t even intend to join<\/strong> them in the boat: he was just going to walk on past<\/strong> \u2013 you know, just, \u201cSee you guys over at Gennesaret when you get there.\u201d\u00a0 It was only their fear that caused him to join them and calm the storm.\u00a0 Mathew adds to Mark\u2019s story the part about Peter<\/strong> wanting to walk on the water too.<\/font><\/p>\n

Look, many have tried to explain how Jesus or Peter could have appeared to have walked on water.\u00a0 The text says Jesus and Peter walked on<\/strong> water.\u00a0 Sure, the gospel writers (3 out of 4 in this case) tell this story for their own specific theological purposes to their specific believing communities, and so some of the details are recalled differently.\u00a0 Matthew borrowed Mark\u2019s version almost word for word until he adds the Peter scene and then also changes Mark\u2019s ending dramatically.\u00a0 And if you would say that the gospel writers included this story to teach a certain truth, but that you don\u2019t<\/strong> actually believe Jesus could literally<\/strong> have walked on the surface of the water \u2013 I understand your scepticism.\u00a0 My personal response would be that I don\u2019t see much point in believing in any deity<\/strong> if she or he can\u2019t do anything deific<\/strong>.\u00a0 If one is going to posit a superior<\/strong> being, then one might expect an occasional show of superiority<\/strong> \u2013 that probably shouldn\u2019t surprise us.\u00a0 Still, your scepticism is understandable.\u00a0 But when \u201cscholars\u201d make these silly attempts to show how it might have appeared to the disciples that Jesus was walking on water if he was standing in a very low boat and the waves obscured their vision just so \u2013 that is just pointless<\/strong>.\u00a0 The story, whether you accept it as literal or not, is pointless<\/strong> if Jesus isn\u2019t walking on<\/strong> the water, just as he did as the creator spirit who \u201cbrooded over<\/strong> the deep\u201d in Genesis 1.\u00a0 Jesus had<\/strong> previously been pulled under<\/strong> the water in the baptism of John whose life he now remembers; but now<\/strong> Jesus is again Lord over<\/strong> the deep.\u00a0 The story has no power if he is not on<\/strong> the water.<\/font><\/p>\n

The disciples<\/strong> should not have been surprised to see Jesus walking on water; they had just<\/strong> witnessed him multiply someone\u2019s lunch<\/strong> into enough food to feed thousands.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t that<\/strong> blow their minds already?\u00a0 Should anything<\/strong> really surprise them now?\u00a0 None-the-less, in Mark\u2019s telling, the disciples appear to be unable to understand any<\/strong> of this.\u00a0 Even after Jesus gets in the boat and the wind ceases, they are said to have been \u201cutterly astounded, for they did not<\/strong> understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 In Matthew\u2019s<\/strong> version the disciples do<\/strong> understand and they worship<\/strong> Jesus.<\/font><\/p>\n

But when they first see Jesus catching up to them on the water, they are afraid that they are seeing a ghost.\u00a0 Just a word about words<\/strong> here: the disciples think they have seen a scary<\/strong> ghost, not the Holy Ghost: the word is Phanatos in Greek, from which we get Phantom, so cue the scary organ music and you\u2019ve got the idea.\u00a0 And while we\u2019re coming clean on language: I should explain that we are dealing here with two Greek words which may not be directly related to each other \u2013 at least not in Greek, though maybe in some proto-Indo-European tongue they are.\u00a0 Both words mean both<\/strong> wind
\nand spirit.\u00a0 One is pnuema<\/strong> (from which we get pneumatic and pneumonia).\u00a0 This is the word used by Jesus when he tells Nicodemus, \u201cYou can not see the wind<\/strong> (pnuema)\u00a0 . . . and so it is with everyone born of the Spirit<\/strong> (pneuma).\u00a0 The other word, anemos<\/strong> (from which we get animated \u2013 to move or be alive) is the one used to describe the wind the disciples<\/strong> encounter on the lake here in Matthew.\u00a0 So if I say that the wind that thwarted the disciples (the anemos) is like<\/strong> the Spirit of God, it is because these two Greek words are<\/strong> synonyms \u2013 they each mean the same two things: wind and Spirit.<\/font><\/p>\n

The disciples thought they saw a ghost, but Jesus tried to comfort<\/strong> them.\u00a0 Now Matthew has Peter jump into the story<\/strong> and into the water<\/strong>.\u00a0 Peter wants to test this apparition\u2019s power, believing, it seems, that the real<\/strong> Jesus would<\/strong> have the power to give him<\/strong> the power to walk on water.\u00a0 He remembers<\/strong> what he just saw that evening, the miracle of the fish and loaves.\u00a0 But when he sees the wind<\/strong>, he looses faith and has to be rescued.\u00a0 It turns out, it isn\u2019t just all on Jesus to give our faith-intentions success; there is some sort of symbiosis<\/strong> at work.\u00a0 This was Peter\u2019s<\/strong> idea and it worked as long as Peter<\/strong> believed it would.\u00a0 Btw, it was not the water<\/strong> that scared him, it was the wind<\/strong>.\u00a0 The water he can see, but the water is controlled by a wind he can not see coming.\u00a0 Are we not, like Peter, most<\/strong> frightened by what we can not<\/strong> see, cannot predict, cannot grab onto and control?\u00a0 Is this what the Spirit<\/strong> of Christ feels like to you<\/strong> at times?\u00a0 Do you have trouble trusting<\/strong> it?\u00a0 I<\/strong> do!<\/font><\/p>\n

One thing more about this little road test being Peter\u2019s<\/strong> idea: we see this a lot in the bible, don\u2019t we \u2013 God taking us up on our<\/strong> ideas?\u00a0 Cain persuading God to give him some sort of protection against all who would kill him, and God agreeing even though Cain might well have deserved death; Abraham bartering with God over the lives of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and God relenting; Moses negotiating to have someone else do the public speaking in the liberation of the Hebrew slaves, and God conceding that Aaron could do the talking; the prosecutor before God\u2019s bench asking that Job be tested, and God confidently putting Job to the test?\u00a0 I\u2019m sure you can think of other instances when God reasoned together with righteous people.\u00a0 Here God hears and honours Peter\u2019s need to put Jesus to the test and offers comfort where he needs it.<\/font><\/p>\n

I was sailing with a good and generous friend last week and tried to learn a bit more about how to work with<\/strong> the wind; what that symbiosis is<\/strong>.\u00a0 It turns out it helps to have triangular<\/strong> rather than square sails.\u00a0 With triangular sails, there is much greater opportunity to capture wind from a wider range of angles<\/strong>.\u00a0 No, you still can\u2019t sail directly<\/strong> into the wind.\u00a0 But you can sail at an angle to the wind, tacking back and forth across it with a resulting<\/strong> vector that is against the wind\u2019s flow.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to carry this so far so as to say it is fine to trick<\/strong> the Holy Spirit and go opposite<\/strong> to the Spirit\u2019s direction.\u00a0 But does not God still deal<\/strong> with us?\u00a0 Does he not know our frame and remember that we are but dust?\u00a0 If the Spirit of God is so agile \u2013 so swift to turn one direction or the other, will not that Spirit, sometimes<\/strong>, flex and shift with us<\/strong> as individuals and as the church?\u00a0 Like the church meeting in Jerusalem to figure out how to be followers of Jesus without first being Jewish, can we not sometimes say, \u201cit seems good to us<\/strong> and<\/strong> to the Holy Spirit<\/strong>\u201d to do such and so?<\/font><\/p>\n

If the Spirit of God can be unpredictable, powerful, and destructively rejuvenating; is not the Spirit also<\/strong> flexible and sympathetic, speaking comfort<\/strong> to us in<\/strong> the howl of the wind or beneath<\/strong> the howl of other winds?\u00a0 Christ has sent an advocate in a freshening breeze, a breath that animates us, coming from the very breast of God.\u00a0 The Lord of all depths comes to us \u2013 as<\/strong> the gale, in<\/strong> the gale, or in stillness \u2013 saying, “Courage<\/strong>!\u00a0 It is I<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View Archived Sermons Listen to this Service\u00a0 \u00a0 Have You Seen the Wind?: Comfort in the unpredictable Matthew 14: 22-33 \u00a0 As Emily and the children have reminded us, we last heard the sound of wind chimes here on Pentecost Sunday when we used them to symbolize the wind that entered the room where Jesus\u2019 followers were praying and waiting for the Spirit of Jesus to comfort them.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t just comfort them, it gave them power: strange power.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}