Amherst Community Church

At Bible study last night (we’re plowing through a survey of the New Testament in eight weeks, a breakneck pace but fun), we meditated on Mark 4:35-41, the Gospel account of Jesus’ stilling a storm that had blown up and threatened to swamp the boat on which he and the disciples were traveling on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is sleeping like a baby on the cushion in the boat’s stern; not for him to worry about a little weather. The disciples jolt him awake, essentially asking him, don’t you care that we’re all about to be breathing lake water? Jesus says, what, you still don’t have any faith? You’re still fearful? And he looks out at the wind and waves and says, “Peace. Be still.” Just like that, the storm is over and they are safe. (Although, somebody pointed out, they are becalmed in the middle of the Sea of Galilee – better hope they packed their oars.

I chose that passage because of Jesus’ words; “Peace. Be still” would be a good verse to memorize, so that the next time you’re in a literal or figurative storm – and we all are, given the economic turmoil around us – you might say those words and access a measure of the peace of Christ that we wish each other every Sunday. Whenever my brain gets overfull of news/talk radio, recentering myself on Jesus’ promise of peace makes me feel better.

But as we meditated, I was struck also by what happens after Jesus calms the storm. He fixes a steady gaze on the disciples – men who have seen him heal people with leprosy and blind people and disabled people – and says, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

What struck me was the contrast Jesus was drawing there. Faith, he seems to be saying, even a little faith, drives out fear. And so the opposite of faith is not doubt or disbelief, but rather fear; when we allow fear to overtake us, we close off the space inside us where faithful trust in God and God’s care for us should live. If the disciples had had faith, there would be no room for their fears to take root.

There’s an old episode of The Twilight Zone in which an overburdened mom discovers that she can freeze the world, stop time, simply by yelling, “Stop!” Which she does a couple of times to comic effect, buying herself a little respite from her hectic family life. Then comes the Rod Serling twist: A nuclear war is launched, with massive missile launches everywhere. The woman retreats to her bedroom but can’t shut out the hysterical radio announcers narrating doom. “Stop!” she cries, and everything stops – but when she ventures outside, the missiles are a stone’s throw above the ground. She’ll never be able to unstop time, because then the world would end.

So much of what we’ve been hearing around the Wall Street situation sounds like that kind of hysteria. And maybe there’s something fundamentally disastrous happening here; maybe indeed another Great Depression is upon us. Or maybe it’s just an extreme of the market cycle, and a year from now the Dow will be at 13,000 and the government bailout will have paid for itself. As financial planners like to say, past performance does not guarantee future results.

But this we do know: God is in control, and the peace of Christ is there for the asking. Not a Pollyannish optimism, but a real and solid hope based on thousands of years of evidence that God has our back. Even hysteria can’t argue with that.

Peace. Be still.

If there were a pill you could take that would replace dinner – would fill you up and give you all the nourishment you need – would you take it? Ever?

I’ve been thinking about that (extremely hypothetical) question as I work on this Sunday’s sermon, which deals with issues around food and diet, and our response to them as Christians.

There are days I would swallow that pill. Indeed, there are days, as we stumble into September and the “church year” gets into full swing, that I find myself resenting even the necessity to sleep at night. There’s a lot to do.

And yet I recognize those feelings as symptomatic of an imbalance in my life – a negation of the natural order as it applies to each of us. Another question I’ve been pondering is, why did God make our bodies so high-maintenance in regard to food? Why are we built to need three meals a day? Couldn’t God have designed us more like the camel, which legendarily can go for weeks without food and water?

It seems to me that in making us as we are, God is pushing us toward a series of daily Sabbaths. Multitaskers have gotten good at eating in the car or in front of a computer; in that context, the pleasure of the food is irrelevant; they might as well be swallowing the pill. But if we can remind ourselves that there’s something holy and also something joyful about eating – and that food tastes best when it’s shared – then those three meals can be moments when we hit the Pause button on life and reconnect with those we love and with the Source of all that nourishes us and gives us joy. A brief Sabbath, every time.

We’ll talk more about this on Sunday. Until then, eat well!

Only in America!

Here’s what the New York Daily News – one newspaper that knows how to write for the people – has to say about the latest development in the presidential election campaign:

He’s a superhunky bad-boy ice hockey player from cold country; she’s a chestnut-haired beauty and popular high school senior.

The all-American teen twosome will make GOP vice presidential pick and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin a grandma at age 44 – just in time for Christmas.

Doe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, an 18-year-old self-described “[expletive] redneck,” have been dating a year, locals in Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News.

... Johnston, broad-chested and wearing a No. 15 jersey, can be seen in photographs hitting the [hockey] boards as a Warrior in action.

A closeup shot shows the handsome teen with a light dusting of whiskers on his chin – his dark brown hair curly and wet.

So if you were parsing out John McCain’s vice presidential choice, there’s some vital policy information for you!

But seriously, folks ...

Young Bristol is not the first teenager to find herself in this predicament, and I’m glad that her parents have done the right thing: They have said to her, We love you without conditions and without reservations, and we will celebrate the birth of your baby as the miracle that every birth represents, and we will support you as you figure out what your life looks like from here on out.

For the rest of us, it seems to me that any more than a momentary pause to digest this news is a moment too many. An unplanned pregnancy changes lives, and for a 17-year-old girl (and for her baby daddy), there’s enough to worry about without the fear that you’ve destroyed Mom’s political career. I’m reminded of younger children who sometimes wind up thinking they caused their parents’ divorce – never true, but the idea can make sense to a child’s mind, and it can be emotionally devastating.

Whatever you think of Gov. Palin’s politics (and I’d be surprised if they were attractive to the legions of Hillary supporters whom McCain presumably wants to win over), she and her husband are trying to protect their daughter’s well-being. Maybe, in accepting the nomination, the governor wasn’t prepared for the national media’s appetite for scandal, broadly defined. But let’s not make ourselves party to the feeding frenzy.

Watching the interminable presidential campaigns lurch toward their terminus in November, I’ve been struck by the drivenness of those who aspire to the nation’s highest office. How do these people manage to do what they do?

Well, I suppose it helps to have a staff to make the hotel arrangements and write the speeches. I read that each candidate has a “body man” – a personal assistant whose job is to see to the candidate’s every need. Cell phone? Six bucks to buy the native food wherever he is? Raincoat? Sweater? A shoulder to cry on, a jogging partner, whatever – if the candidate needs it, the body man is there.

Wouldn’t that be a nice assistant to have!

But still, these guys are up with the roosters, speechifying all day and all of the night, missing their families and fueling themselves with chicken-fried mystery meat. This has been going on for more than a year, and now that the nominations are sewn up, they must be saying to themselves, Two months and change, and then I can finally sit down.

Maybe that’s a good test run for the presidency, which by all accounts is tremendously taxing on body, mind and spirit. If you can survive the campaign, maybe you can survive the job.

But whoever the winner is, I hope he’ll wake up Nov. 5 thinking to himself, Hmmm, this would be a good day to stay in bed, read the paper, drink a second cup of coffee.

Then I hope he’ll take a two-month vacation. They’ll both have earned it.

I’m just so saddened at the lives lost and the parishioners suffering at the Knoxville, Tenn., church whose worship was attacked by an angry man with a shotgun on Sunday.

Now comes word that the gunman was motivated by hatred for the church’s liberal social policies. The Unitarian Universalist denomination has assertively advocated for women’s rights and gay rights, and the Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site. My brother and his family are members of a UU church in Albany, and I have great respect for the two UU congregations in Western New York. They draw smart, hard-working people who give more than lip service to addressing human affliction.

In Tennessee, at this writing two people are dead and five people were in serious or critical condition in the hospital. What a tragic and sad tale; it will give me nightmares.

Goes to show that the first-century Christian martyrs aren’t the only ones who risked everything when they committed themselves to ushering in the kingdom of God. “Take up your cross and follow me,” Jesus says. In the seemingly safe confines of our churches, those words usually ring metaphorical. But when we stick our necks out for justice, the risk is all too real.