My background photo on Zoom is a contemporary painting by the German artist Beate Heinen. Painted in 2020, it’s called, “God With Us—In the Storm of the Times.” I would like to reflect on this painting with you a bit today as we look toward the future at St. Ambrose.
Time and again, the Gospels place the followers of Jesus in a boat, caught in stormy waves. The Hebrew Scriptures represent chaos as raging waters. The “nave” of the church, where we usually gather in our pews, comes from the Latin word for boat. So here we are in our St. Ambrose boat, navigating the chaos all around us. Can you find yourself in the painting? Look at the faces. We’re all here. All ages are huddled together, old and young alike. Some are frightened, some serene. Some are hiding. Some are watching the faces of others on the boat. Which one are you today? Whoever you are, you count; each of you is essential to the whole.
I don’t need to spend a lot of time talking about the chaos of these waves. We’re in the midst of them: in the chaos of Pandemic and all that it entails; in the chaos of racism and the ongoing destruction that it brings; in the chaos of the consumerism that tears at the fabric of our humanity. We are much too familiar with the all waves that buffet our boat today. These waves are the powers of sin and death: all of the powers that bind and shackle the creatures of God. They are forces beyond our control, forces worthy of the name of Satan, which really just means, “the Adversary:” the Adversary of the goodness and wholeness that God intends for us all.
Turn from the waves with me today to focus on Jesus. Do you see him, sitting in the middle of the boat with the people, a mischievous twinkle in his eye? He’s smiling with quiet joy, and his face helps me to relax. Yet he’s also clearly in charge, steering everyone with an enormous paddle. The paddle even seems to become the boat, itself. It must be a powerful paddle. As we read in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has been filled with the power of God’s Holy Spirit at his baptism. He has come among us in that power to send the evil powers of chaos into a tailspin. As Jesus faces the man with the unclean spirit in today’s Gospel, the powers of evil recognize right away that Jesus has come to destroy them. Mark begins and ends our passage by commenting on Jesus’s “authority.” Authority here means the power that creates out of nothing, the power of God in nature and in the spiritual world. Jesus’s authority is a life-giving, liberating power. It’s a power that stakes a claim upon our lives. From the very beginning, liberating power pours from Jesus’ words and deeds.
What does it mean for us that we are sitting in a boat that is steered by a God of such liberating power? It might seem like we would be free to do whatever we’d like, to get our way, to turn everything to our favor. But Jesus’s liberating power is a paradoxical one. Jesus’s authority doesn’t just scandalize the demons. It also scandalizes the human secular and religious powers around Jesus. These powers are so threatened and disoriented by Jesus’s strange authority that they condemn him to die on the Cross. In the end, God’s power conquers the power of sin and death … by giving itself over to them. Being in Jesus’ boat doesn’t promise smooth sailing, then. It promises transformation! Change! The liberating power that we see in the Jesus of the Gospels is one that pushes us to change, to repent, to turn around: it causes controversy; it forces us to abandon the guarantees that we seek in this world. It confuses what is seen as proper and improper; it turns established structures upside down; it makes impossible demands. Jesus’ power steers us into the heart of the storm, where we are most needed.
We need to remember what kind of strange power God exerts in this world—because as Christians, we are expected to exercise the same kind of power ourselves in our daily lives. Paul makes this clear to the Corinthian Christians in today’s Epistle. Paul warns the feuding Corinthians about their use of power in their dealings with one another. He cautions them about how they wield the liberating authority that they have each received in Christ. Liberating power in Christ is bondage to Christ, says Paul. In the Christian life we all become responsible for one another. Christian responsibility is not a question of proving who is right and who is wrong, but of building up the community in love. Those who are seated in the front of the boat have a special responsibility to those in the back. Those in the light have a special responsibility to think first of those crouched in the shadows. Everyone in the boat has a special responsibility to seek out those who are treading water out there in the waves, too afraid or too weary to climb inside.
Why does this rector’s address sound like a sermon, you might ask? It’s because of where I sit in the boat. Some people might think that the rector should be the woman with blue hair in our painting, cozied up to Jesus, clearly the focal point of the crowd. But I disagree. I see myself as that person in the back with her hand in the air, pointing. Switching metaphors a bit, I believe that a good Rector is like the coxswain of the rowing team. The Rector sits in the back, perched where she can look forward to see what is coming. She calls out strategy, motivating the team, speaking the truth in love. She keeps everyone advancing together in a coordinated way.
What I see right now is that our boat is caught up in waves of transformation—Challenging change lies ahead, not just for St. Ambrose but for the Church as a whole. It is a time for the Church to be agile, as one scholar says. To be adaptable, responsive, and alert. To ride the movement of the Spirit as it cuts through the chaos. At the same time, it is also a time to hold one another in love. No individual, no parish, even, can face the challenge alone. It’s a time for us to join with others, to be vulnerable. To risk mistakes.
So, how do we proceed? How do we grow in agility? I firmly believe in the old business maxim called, “Roxburgh’s Rule.” It goes, “’To the extent to which the work of change is undertaken primarily by leaders, there will be no change.’” Fulfilling our mission in Jesus’ fleet of boats will require depths of learning and discovery on the part of each one of us. In the year ahead, it is my goal to help us join together in that discovery. I am going to invite everyone—over and over—into practices and small experiments that will help us to grow. I need for you to share your inspired ideas—from collecting books for children in India to book studies to promote growth to a doggie poo station for our neighbors! We’ll try them out. Some will bear fruit, and others will at least teach us something. I am going to invite everyone—over and over—into shared conversation, as well. Conversation that will allow us to grow closer to God and to the others in our little boat. We need all the voices in that conversation, and I encourage everyone to join in, starting today after the service. Learning to engage in meaningful conversation takes practice. It’s not about wordsmithing our mission statement or creating a vision that will end up on chart paper in the closet. It’s about listening in love. It’s about following Jesus on that wild ride through the waves.
[1]
“Gott mit uns—im Sturm der Zeit.” See this and others of Heinen’s paintings at Beate und Ulrich Heinen | Atelier in
Wassenach - Aktuelles (beateheinen.de).
[2] Dwight J. Zscheile, The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age (New York: Morehouse Publishing, 2014).
[3]
Ibid., 124.
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