Deep Water

What do these things have in common:  Church camp, Muir Woods, and Jesus helping the disciples fish?  Find out here <grin>!

Deep Water

Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11

About two weeks before my friend Katherine Mulhern and I left for seminary – she to Eden Seminary in St. Louis and I to Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley – we drove across the state of Washington to our beloved church camp on the shores of Lake Coeur d’Alene just over the state line in Idaho. Our friend and pastor Todd Wyrick was just finishing a week with the Senior High Camp, and he had promised to give us a blessing for our journeys.

He walked around the camp with us, offering a few words about each of the places we loved – the porch on the lodge, our favorite cabin, the campfire circle, the path to the beach. When we got to the boating pier, he walked out to the end and said something like this: “This pier goes into the deep water. That’s where you want to be if you are going to dive deeply. The water of faith is deep enough for you to dive as deeply as you can.”

I thought of those words often when I was in seminary. They nudged me into taking a dance class (yes! a dance class) my first semester, and into classes on spirituality and prayer, on science and religion; they nudged me to the Allen Temple Baptist Church one Good Friday to hear seven sermons preached by seven women, because (as the pastor put it in his introduction), women were last at the cross and first at the tomb.

Jesus believed in deep water, too, as we learned in today’s reading from the gospel of Luke. Simon and James and John all became disciples after Jesus directed them to fish in the deep water.

I believe the church is about deep water. I believe that the church is a place where we can dive deeply. The deep water of the church comes from the long tradition of spiritual nurture. Our ancestors, all the way back to the church of the first century, have discerned and passed along to us the texts and practices that give depth to our community. For our part, we do the work of building community – making acquaintance, building trust, and sharing burdens – that contribute to that depth.

Some of our diving is chosen – we join a Bible study group or a Men’s or Women’s group because we want to delve more deeply into the study of scripture or the exploration of spirituality. We may begin expecting to be comforted or reassured, and instead find that deepening our faith is challenging and sometimes disorienting. Or we may begin thinking that our study will help us find the answers to life’s big questions, and instead we find that it leads us to new and even bigger questions.

Some of our diving is not chosen. It happens when we encounter life events that confront us about meaning and purpose and suffering – the death of a loved one, the loss of a job or a dream, the betrayal of trust, the struggle with cancer, or the theft of property or of dignity. These experiences send us into waters we do want to enter. In spite of our sadness, despair, fear, and anger, the truth is that most of us find important lessons in those deep and dark waters. We learn something about patience, something about persistence, and usually a great deal about compassion. Our lives are enriched by those uninvited dives. Not a few people count their most trying times as the times of their greatest spiritual growth.

Some diving into the waters of faith comes because we are invited, or in the language of the church, because we are called. Most of us do not experience our callings as dramatically and clearly as Isaiah did. We do not see God wearing a robe big enough to fill a room; we do not see seraphs; and we do not have visions of being touched on the lips with burning coals. For most of us, our callings come to us as persistent leanings in a particular direction. Some courses of action seem right in some way, some companions seem especially congenial, and some decisions seem clear in ways that are not entirely justified by the facts.

In Christian tradition, we have often used the word “calling” to apply only to the call to ministry, and usually ordained ministry at that. On the contrary, I believe that each person is called – that is, guided into choices, relationships, and work to which he or she is especially well suited. For some the call is to particular kinds of work; I think of teachers, health professionals, athletes. For others the call is to bring particular virtues to whatever kind of work they do. I think of retail clerks who show kindness and patience even when they are being treated rudely; I think of housekeeping staff who quietly keep our offices and public buildings safe and comfortable; I think of parents with children and caregivers with elders, who offer their best even when overtired, underpaid, and under appreciated; I think of artists, writers, and musicians who invest in the creative process even when their work is not recognized.

Whatever the shape of our callings, our response to them can draw us down to deeper faith and faithfulness. The experience of doing what we are meant provides a kind of satisfaction and meaningfulness that do not come when we are following other people’s plans and dreams for us.

We have much to learn from this story of venturing into the deeps. If Jesus had lived, as we do, on the edge of the Big Woods instead of on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, we might have stories in the gospel about great trees and how they sink their roots deep into the ground. We might imagine the majestic oaks of the oak savannahs as our teachers, reminding us to sink our roots deep when we are seeking, and when we are struggling, and when we hear our calling.

But oaks are not the only trees in the world, and deep roots are not the only to anchor oneself in the soil. Last week I had the joy of spending half a day in Muir Woods, the forest of California redwoods that is tucked into a gully just north of San Francisco. It is for me a holy place, and as we walked among these trees – almost all of them older than our nation, and many of them unimaginably old – as we walked among them, I was reminded that not all great trees have deep roots.

The California redwood has roots that are about 3 times as long as the tree is tall (and some of them are very tall). But the roots do not go down; they go out. The coast of California does not have deep soil as we do in the Midwest, and the trees there have adapted by having root systems that are very wide and much intertwined. To stand in a redwood forest is not only to stand among the trees; it is also to stand atop of a great network of roots that holds them together and holds them up.

Sometimes the life of faith is sustained not so much by depth as it is by breadth. We must not fall into the error of assuming that everything that is not deep is shallow. Some things that are not deep are wide. Some situations that do not seem to be taking us deeper into our faith are actually broadening our understanding, expanding our horizons, lengthening our time line, and stimulating our imagination. Sometimes we are oaks; sometimes we are redwoods; sometimes we are fishermen.

“The water of faith is deep enough for you to dive as deeply as you can,” my friend said. And indeed, the water has always been deep enough.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer for February 7, 2010

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of the sun and the moon and the stars, we pray this morning for those who are cold.

We remember first those who are suffering from the winter weather. We pray for the generosity of spirit and of resources to make sure that every person is warm enough – to provide shelters for those who have no homes, and to provide safe and affordable homes for everyone else. We pray, too, for your guidance in ordering our life as a community, a nation, and a world so that every person is sheltered from the weather.

We pray, too, for those who are suffering from cold hearts. We lift up to you all of the men and women whose life experiences and circumstances have made them numb to the needs of others and indifferent to the feelings of others. We trust you to pry open their hearts and to make room for us to bring them companionship and to offer them hope. Give us the persistence and compassion to invite them into the warm fellowship of our church and our homes, and the patience to wait for their response.

God of all life, we add our prayers for those who are frozen in sadness, despair, and mourning. When we hesitate to reach into their unhappiness, nudge us into gentle action. Protect us from the contagion of their gloominess, but protect them from our lack of understanding and impatience. Strengthen and uphold the gifted friends, therapists, counselors, and health care providers who help to open the doors to healing and hope.

God of our hearts, we pray, too, for the coldness of our own lives. Where we are stuck in habits and relationships that drain away our energies, help us to set aside the old and move into new ways of being. Where we are locked in conflict, help us to find common ground from which to forge new and healthier bonds. Where we are selfish and self-centered, help us to see the world through your generous eyes.

All these things we pray in the name of the one who is with us in all seasons of the year and of our lives, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …