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June 21
Mark 4:35--41

Imagine encountering someone with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of Christianity

. . .no religious outlook at all, no presuppositions, no assumptions, no biases or
preferences. All he is is curious. He sees your faith is important to you. He sees that you
offer thanks to God before every meal, that the meetings you go to begin with a
prayer . . . that your Sunday mornings are sacrosanct (except, perhaps when home
games are scheduled during football season).
So imagine he asks you to enlighten him . . . to teach him what its all about.
Well thats a pretty tall order. How do you start?
When introduce our faith to most people, especially our children, we dont really start
from zero. We respond to their questions about what theyve already taken in by
osmosis and to whatever projections or assumptions theyve formed from their
experience. Children raised in a Christian household will carry a sense of their
relationship with God thats heavily influenced by and looks a lot like their relationship
with their parents . . . God as a super-parent . . . an idealized parent.
Religious practice will simply be for them one more thing that the family does . . . a
natural part of the weekly ritual, not all that different from trips to the supermarket or
bedtime stories or whatever else they gradually come to recognize as chords in the
rhythmical songs of their lives.
Its only with time and growth and learning and the gradual development of their minds
that the sophistication and complexity, not to mention the mysteries and paradoxes and
questions of their faith begin to sink in.
But what if the questioning person you encounter, while highly developed about other
things, hasnt had any of that gradual build up? What if hes a genuine religious blank
slate - no preconceptions at all, without even the seeds of any ideas - ready to absorb
whatever you have to teach him about God and faith? Where would you start?
I think where to start is the right question here, since starting might be the best that you
or anyone else could do. None of us, not even the most learned or spiritually advanced,

is going to approach someone without the first clue of what our faith is about and teach
that person all there is to know. Every journey begins with a single step, and Id suggest
that picking that first step will pretty much determine where the subsequent steps will go.
So what should that first step be?
Should we start with the cross - begin by talking about about love and atonement and
sacrifice? I dont think so. The cross only begins to have meaning when we learn about
the road that leads to it . . . when we come to know at least a few things about the life
and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Its that life, that road, that provide a context in which
the Christ story makes any sense at all. and the more context for the story we have, the
more genuine meaning there is for us to reap.
So maybe we should start where Matthew and Luke do - with Christmas, the Nativity
stories. I think thatd probably be a good place to begin, except at some point wed likely
find that even the entire gospel - the story of God becoming one of us in Christ - is going
to be almost impossible to resonate with anyone without still more context. We whove
had time to grow in our faith understand implicitly that Jesus didnt just show up in a
vacuum. His story only begins to make sense in the context of what surrounds it in both
time and space.
No, if were going to base our teaching on a gospel, in this instance I think John is the
evangelist who best sets the table, beginning as he does by invoking the very first words
of the bible, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth - i.e. God created
the universe and everything in it - and the earth was a formless void and darkness
covered the face of the deep, while a wind (or spirit) of God swept over the face of the
waters. (Genesis 1:1-2).
The bible doesnt begin with us; it doesnt begin with any mention of law or love or
people or creatures of any kind. All of that and more follows what it does begin with. It
begins the same place science does - with the universe . . . with something showing up
out of nothing.
The place where we begin to apprehend our relationship with God and its meaning is
the place where we find ourselves in Gods creation.

And so, if that hypothetical person who knows absolutely nothing about Christianity were
to ask me to teach him about it, while eventually Id like to invite him to church and
baptize him and share the eucharist with him and maybe bring him along the next time
Bachs magnificent St. Matthew Passion or Handels Messiah or Rachmaninoffs
Vespers or the Brahms Requiem plays at Spoleto . . . first I think Id need to take him for
a walk on the beach on a moonless night when the light of the Milky Way is bright
enough to cast shadows and point to that hint of the mystery and majesty of God.
Churchy people tend to bridle when they hear reluctant congregants say they can find
and nurture their relationship with God in nature more than in all the trappings of an
institutional church. Maybe you get frustrated hearing that too; I know I sometimes do.
But maybe wed do well to listen . . . to not be too quick to find fault with anyone who
catalogues a deep appreciation of the beauties and beneficence of nature as a genuine
spiritual experience. Theres a strong historical and logical case to be made that its
exactly out of that kind of spirituality that religion first began to take hold in human
intercourse.
Our forebears - the first creatures you could call human - looked up at the stars and out
at the land and sea, and wondered . . . where did all this come from? And as they
dwelled in that question and shared it with each other, they came to have a spiritual
experience - a sense not just of transcendent nature but a transcendent being as its
cause.

But, as the Episcopal priest and theologian Diogenes Allen once mentioned on a retreat
I attended, anyone can have a spiritual experience, whether its walking on the beach or
fasting or staying up all night (or, we might add, coming to church every Sunday); its
what you do with it that matters.
Its important, essential in fact, for us to appreciate our oneness with the universe and
its originator. I believe thats an axiom - an indisputable given, worth underscoring
because its so obvious we can tend to ignore it. We are one with God and with the
universe God created. Where we come from has everything to do with where were
going to go. And where we need to go, that is, the place that were called to, is the

equally essential part of our faith that Im pretty sure gets short shrift on nature walks.
(For that matter, it can get short shrift in some churches too - especially those devoid of
humility, caught up in projecting their biases as some kind of divine moralizing).
The bible takes very little time in going beyond locating us in the scheme of creation to
underscoring our role within that location - the role of stewards. Fortunately that
stewardship role is limited to the earth - heaven is managed by a much higher authority but sad to say, that still leaves us with more than we seem willing to manage. Just like
the disciples tossed about on the shores of the Galilean Lake, we too find ourselves
adrift and endangered, calling out to our Creator God O hear us when we cry to thee for
those in peril on the sea.
Whothenisthis,thateventhewindandtheseaobeyhim? Jesus, so Mark tells us, is so
much a part of all creation that isnt just people he commands but nature itself. Id love
to see this miracle get more play than it does. It isnt the command over nature that
matters (that might be little more than a fantasy). Its the connection with creation. . .
the oneness . . . the interdependence.
Just as they have in prior climate changes millions of years before human beings walked
the planet, the earths ice caps are melting . . . only this time its because of us, because
of the hydrocarbons were greedily burning, the noxious gases we create that spew into
the atmosphere where they trap the suns heat. This causes the oceans not only to rise,
increasingly encroaching on shore lines all around the world - get ready to say goodbye
to the low country - but also to become more acidified, decimating the fertile grounds of
now rapidly dying coral reefs. It causes a powerful uptick in violent weather events and
devastating changes in the worlds breadbaskets.
But instead of restraining our carbon use, we continue to go in the other direction fueled not by our sense of responsibility and faith in the God who created this fragile
earth, our island home but by our greed and apathy.
Perhaps some of you dont believe this. Perhaps youve chosen to buy into the lie
claiming that human caused climate change is a hoax. Well, shame on you if you
believe that. If you do, I think your eyes are willfully shut. I think youre not paying
attention to the material payoff the liars are attempting to reap. Youre ignoring their
contempt for all of Gods creation . . . and that includes not just nature itself but disdain
for people who might well suffer materially in the short run in a worldwide shift to

renewable, clean sources of energy. When challenged, people tend to rise to the
occasion. I refuse to believe that the majority of people wouldnt sacrifice a great deal of
their own material wellbeing for the sake of the preservation of the planet and the
salvation of their descendants.
I look out at the world weve been given stewardship over and wonder whats happened
in my lifetime. Is it that people have suddenly refused to be led responsibly, or is it that
those who should do the leading have wimped out? While it appears to be both, I think
its more the latter. Somehow weve become a poll-driven world, where leaders who
might shape responses and even invite well-considered sacrifices rather than cowering
against fears of lower profits and lost elections are so rare as to be just another among
the rapidly expanding list of endangered species.
Do you hunger for real leadership as I do? If so, I know where such a real leader can be
found, but if we want that leadership, we may need to drop some of our presuppositions,
locate him in his place within the scheme of all creation, and then commit ourselves to
following where he leads us, no matter what sacrifice that entails.
Where is he now? Hes asleep in the stern of a storm tossed boat, just waiting for us to
arouse him so he can calm the storm and bring us safely back to shore.
Do we dare awaken him? Do we dare not?
Amen.