The Stockbridge Bowl

 

The Stockbridge Bowl

Sometimes the digital world reminds you of just what you need to remember. I was in a webinar on How To Be a Top Notch Hybrid Church. Never mind what exactly that means at the moment, except to say it means meeting people where they are, not expecting them to come to you. The Reverend Dr. Trish Lyons used the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia as a metaphor for the church’s mission in the world, on line, in a building, on the streets, wherever people are doing whatever people do: said Trish Lyons, they want to have an experience of the Risen, Living Christ. Or, as our Diocesan Mission Statement reads, Encounter Christ everywhere, and Engage in his ministry of reconciliation in the world. Encounter – Engage for short.

 

After a day of teaching with funny stories called parables, Jesus turns to the disciples and others who were there and says, “Let’s cross the lake to the other side!” [Mark 4:35-41] The disciples say, “Yes, let’s! Let’s get in the boats and go over to the other side!” Knowing all too well that the other side is scary Gentile territory. But, because we want to have an encounter with the living Christ, let’s get into the boat with Jesus, the disciples and the rest. While he sleeps in the back of one of the boats, a great whirlwind, like the one from which God spoke to Job [Job 38:1-11], arises and threatens to sink the boats. Panic sets in. All of a sudden, things fall apart, the center cannot hold. We wake him up! “Don’t you care that we may perish?!?” we cry along with the disciples. He calmly gets up, and like the voice from the whirlwind, he rebukes the troubled waters. “Peace. Shalom. Peace. Be still.” Suddenly all is calm, all is bright. Then he chastises us all for having such little faith. We are left wondering, like Sundance and The Kid, “Who is this guy, anyway?” What are we doing here, anyway?

 

It gets better. When we get to the “other side,” there is a resident mad-man with an ‘unclean spirit.” Actually, lots of unclean spirits. He lives among the tombs, in chains. In chains and fetters which he had ripped apart! “He was always crying out and bruising himself with stones!” Jesus turns to us and says, “Let’s go see this fellow!” Why did we get in the boat in the first place, we ask ourselves? The man shouts for Jesus to leave him alone; do not torment me! Come out of him, says Jesus. What’s your name? says Jesus. We are legion because we are many, say the spirits! We know that a Roman legion, of which there were many throughout Israel and the Gentile territories, consists of four to six thousand men! That is a lot of unclean spirits.

 

Jesus asks them, “Where do you want to go?” They beg him to send them into some nearby swine, which of course is how we know it is Gentile territory. Jesus is OK with that. They go to the pigs, the pigs dive head-first into the sea, pork belly futures tank, the herdsmen and town people are upset and beg Jesus to leave the place. Now, they say! It’s back to the boats. The man, now in his right mind, does not want to be left with the people who had chained him in the tombs because they could not understand him. Because he was not just like them. We can understand that. Let me go with you, he says. No, says the Lord. Go and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you. Which the man does throughout ten towns. People everywhere marvel at how this man they once feared was now a man of God. Our encounter with Jesus is frightening and exhilarating all at once.

 

Stilling the storm and dealing with this man, of course, are two versions of the same story; our story. We are no strangers to things falling apart. Most days it appears as if the center will not hold. The waters rise. The wind is fierce and ruthless and uncontrolled. We want calm and control. That’s what we want with God, with Jesus. We want him to rebuke and silence all that we fear. We want an encounter with the living Christ. But when we do see him, when we do hear him, we are afraid. It turns out that no matter how many questions we might have to address to him, we need to be those people who gird our loins while he says, “I will question you, and you shall declare to me!” as he does to Job.

 

We want it to always be the way it is at the end of these two stories: calm, peaceful, those who scare us most suddenly in their ‘right mind.’ For those who want to experience the Risen Lord, however, it seems as if you need to participate in the whole story. Beginning to end. To encounter the God who forgives us and loves us no matter what, we need to experience it all.

 

Perhaps what we are meant to hear in these stories is what God says last to Job: Stop. Right there, right now. Or, what Jesus says to the disciples and all the others, including us, who are asking themselves like we are, ‘Why did we get in the boat in the first place?” Jesus says two words: “Be still.” We assume he is speaking to the wind and the waves. But rather than panic, these are his words to us: Be still.

 

Now what happens when we stop and be still? It was another time, another place in western Massachusetts, by another lake – the Stockbridge Bowl. I was sitting on a hill, near a mansion called Wheatleigh, overlooking the Bowl. It was approaching sunset. Mango-magenta skies were reflecting on the face of the waters. Like Job, I was trying to get away from all that was falling apart, the storms of life that threaten; rising water, ruthless wind. When suddenly all was calm, all was bright. All was right. Restfulness in the very eye of the storm. I could feel the center begin to hold. A deep sense of being in the presence of something much bigger than me, bigger than my troubles, the troubles of the world. This must be what it is like to be Job, I thougtht. Or, like the disciples. Or, the man who tore his chains apart. Or, the herdsmen and the towns-people. I felt I was the sunset reflecting on peaceful waters. I was surrounded, wrapped up, in the mercy and divine love of God in ways I had never experienced before. I was changed, transformed, surrounded with Divine Love.  I can now see that it was an encounter with the Risen Lord.

 

I was reminded by a friend the other day of what it is like, these moments of grace, mercy and love when she posted these words from the poet, Mary Oliver: “If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it…It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. Don’t hesitate!” [Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems]

 

This is what it is like to encounter of the God who stills the troubled waters. This is the God who is at the center of our very soul. The God who forgives us and loves us, no matter what. The God who reaches out to save us, to rescue us, from ourselves and from all that feels as if it is falling apart. “Be still, and know, that I am, God.” I am. I am What I am, he says to Moses at the bush. I am the Bread of Life. I am the Good Shepherd. I am with you always to the end of the age. I am. Do not be afraid of Love’s plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. Do not hesitate. Open to it and let it in. That we may follow this peace, this inward stillness and silence, that the eternal Word may be spoken in us and understood, and that we may be One with Him, may the Father help us, and the Word, and the Spirit of both. Amen.