Jim Gill                                                                                               June 25, 2006                                          “According to Code”                                                Mark 4 35-41 The first day of summer has come, as has the first storm.  As of this week I shifted my day off from Friday to Monday.  This week it was a good thing. Last Monday I couldn’t have gotten to church if I had wanted to.  This last Monday we all woke up to wall to wall weather news on every channel.   The weathercasters did not warn me about this the night before.  I missed my soaps.  (fortunately they ran them at 3:30 in the morning and I could tape them…not. Yes, we had a storm--all while I was asleep in the bed.  The disciples had a storm and Jesus was asleep in the boat.  But none of them were asleep at the wheel.  They were scared silly.  And yet Jesus was at peace. A young girl was working so diligently at her homework that her father became curious and asked her what she was doing.  "I’m writing a report on the condition of the world and how to bring peace," she replied.  "Isn’t that a pretty big order for a young girl?" her father asked.  "Oh, no," she answered, "and don’t worry. There are three of us in the class working on it!" H. G. Wells was one of the best educated, most creative men of our time. He was also an atheist. He said in his autobiography: "I cannot adjust my life to secure any fruitful peace . . . Here I am at sixty-five still seeking for peace . . . Dignified peace . . . is just a hopeless dream." Dante, the great poet of the Renaissance, was exiled from his home in Florence, Italy. Depressed by this cruel turn of fate, he decided to walk from Italy to Paris, where he could study philosophy, in an effort to find a clue to the meaning of life. In his travels, Dante found himself a weary pilgrim, forced to knock at the door of Santa Croce Monastery to find refuge from the night. A surly brother within was finally aroused. He came to the door, flung it open, and in a gruff voice asked, "What do you want?" Dante answered in a single word, "Peace." Peace is a beautiful word, is it not? Yet it is a word that is a stranger to many people today. The fast-paced life that many of us lead provides us with an unprecedented measure of material possessions, but it does not provide us with peace. Stress is our constant companion, anxiety haunts our dreams. What if we should be downsized out of a job, what if we were ill for a prolonged period of time, what if our next project is a failure? The disciples were not the only ones to long for peace in a raging storm. Everyone here this morning has found Peace…at least found a church called Peace.  But from time to time we find ourselves in the midst of a storm and fearful that Jesus can’t see us through it because he’s asleep in the boat. Hear the gospel of our Lord from Mark 4:35-41 ________________________ Let us pray.  Dear Lord, thank you for this glimpse into your power and your  peace.  You are Lord of creation and Lord of my life, Lord of the winds and the sea. You were Lord of the heavens before there was time and Lord of all lords you will be. Amen. ******* Did you know that the bathtub was invented in 1850? The telephone was invented in 1875. "Just think," someone said, "You could have sat in the bathtub for 25 years without the phone ringing." (1) It never fails, does it? Just when you think you will have some peace and quiet, the telephone rings, or the baby cries, or a water pipe breaks, or the boss calls you into her office. Peace is a precious commodity and it is so, so elusive. Yesterday I stopped by a friends house to sing Happy Birthday to him.  As I stood in his living room playing Happy Birthday on my banjo, I could hear his voice but I couldn’t see him.  Then I looked up and saw his eye looking down at me through a hole in the ceiling.  He was directly above me, putting in a bathtub.  A jaccuzzi bathtub.  He was going through a storm of installation, but preparing for some moments of peace.  The waters in which he will one day sit will be troubled and bubbled, but it will be of his own making.  John Wesley could hardly have been called a faint-hearted stay- at-home. But there were times when even he lost his nerve. During one of Wesley's several Atlantic crossings, a frighteningly fierce storm broke out, pitching and tossing the ship about like a bathtub toy. While Wesley and others clung to their bunks and hid their heads, a community of Moravians, traveling to their new homeland, calmly gathered to hold their daily worship service and sing praises to God. Watching these Moravians, so apparently unperturbed by the howling winds and crashing waves, Wesley realized he was witnessing a truly waterproof faith. From that moment on, John Wesley prayed that God would give him the ability to likewise ride out life's storms with as much confidence. What made those Moravians so peaceful in the face of the tempest? It was the same trait that the disciples so woefully lacked in today's gospel text: an unquenchable trust in Jesus Christ. After stretching out his arms and stilling the storm, Jesus turned to his companions and chastised them. By cowardly cringing and crying out to Jesus in fear, they had revealed the shallowness of their faith in the face of a storm of considerable depth. Although they had been specially chosen as Jesus' fellow travelers on this journey, even though they were in it, ….they missed the boat. Storms come. Sometimes they come suddenly and violently. Sometimes they tear your world apart. Storms are part of life.  Some days are pleasant and non-challenging, but, as we all know all too well, the weather can change. We go to sleep at night and wake up to wall to wall weather on every channel.  Storms come. They may not come in the form of a sudden, furious squall, or a hurricane. Sometimes they come in the form of a phone call--from a doctor confirming a diagnosis, from a police officer telling you of an automobile accident. Storms come in many forms--a note from a spouse saying she's leaving, a pink slip from an employer. Storms come. Just as they came to those disciples on the Sea of Galilee.  Here's what's frustrating: Sometimes when storms come, it seems as if God is asleep.  "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" asked his terrified disciples. And sometimes when we are going though a crisis, it does seem that either God doesn't hear or doesn't care.  You may remember Robert Browning's famous poem:    The lark's on the wing, The snail's on the thorn; God's in his heaven, All's right with the world.    Browning wrote those words in the mid-Nineteenth century, an era of boundless optimism. But after two world wars, the Holocaust, and numerous genocides, as well as the terrible specter of international terrorism we face today and few people would now dare to say, "All's right with the world."  Worse, as author Philip Yancey notes, "God seems to stay in his heaven despite all that's wrong with the world.  Why doesn't He do something?" (2)  Be honest now. Sometimes terrifying storms come up in our lives and we turn to God and all we find is an awful silence. And we cry out with those disciples of old, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"  I believe this is the crux of the lesson. We know that storms come. We believe that Christ has the power to calm the storms. But he also has the power to calm those of us in the boat who have “missed the boat” when it comes to faith and trust in the midst of storms.    Christ knew that his disciples were human beings, given to fear. There is no television show called “Faith Factor,” but there is one called “Fear Factor.” Jesus knew that his disciples were still growing in their faith. His retort to them sounds harsh, but it is the harshness of a coach who wants his players to get the routine down precisely so that when they are tested they will be able to respond as they were coached. Jesus wants to help us with our fear--for a greater tragedy than the storms that come in our lives is the inadequacy of the response that we make to those storms.  Let me make a few suggestions as to how we can cope with life in the midst of storms.  First of all, prepare for them. That makes sense, doesn't it? If we know storms are going to come.  According to those who are warning us about global warming it is inevitable that storms will come.  When Hurricane Rita came to Houston I decided to prepare too late.  I went to buy plywood to cover the windows and every store was out of plywood.  All I could find was Hardy Siding…which I now realize is too heavy to have done any good.  I still have some in the garage if any of you need some.  It just has a few holes.  Now that storm season is here and guess what? I still don’t have any plywood. Back when Hurricane Andrew hit Florida, a TV news camera crew was on assignment filming the widespread destruction. In one scene, amid the devastation and debris, stood one house on its foundation. The owner was cleaning up the yard when a reporter approached him. "Sir, why is your house the only one in the entire neighborhood that is standing?" asked the reporter. "How did you manage to escape the severe damage of the hurricane?"  "I built this house myself," the man replied. "I also built it according to the Florida state building code. When the code called for two-by-six roof trusses, I used two-by-six roof trusses. I was told that a house built according to code could withstand a hurricane. I did and it did. I suppose no one else around here followed the code." (4)   He was convinced.  He built his house according to his convinci code.   He was a wise man who built his house upon the rock AND he built it according to code! That man was prepared, for a hurricane….But suppose that storm had been something other than weather related like cancer or the loss of a child or some other great tragedy, how could he have prepared?  One way to prepare for storms that aren’t weather related storms is to make sure our relationships are strong-our family relationships, our relationships with his friends. It helps when you are going through a storm to have others there with you. You may not be blessed with a family, or may not live close to your family, but here in this church but you can build relationships so that you will have people who will serve as your support group. Ask someone who has gone through the storm of an illness or the loss of a loved one whether close relationships made a difference. They do.  We can prepare ourselves for storms that aren’t weather related storms by getting physically, mentally, and spiritually fit.  Does your general health make a difference in a storm? How well you've taken care of yourself can make a significant difference when you are struck by a catastrophic illness. We don't talk about this much at church, but maybe we ought to. A person undergoing surgery or chemotherapy or radiation will generally do better if his or her overall health is good. Being in good physical condition is also a good way to deal with the depression that inevitably comes with a terrible loss. Prepare for life's storms by keeping yourself fit. Don't wait until the storm comes to get in shape.   Mentally and spiritually we prepare ourselves by building our lives according to code. There comes a time in our lives when we decide what we believe and how we will live. "I will live according to God's building code," we decide. "I will live a life of quality, trusting God's promises."  I will follow God’s design for building my life. I will take God’s advice from scripture as to how I live.  I will read the warning labels AND obey them.  May Cause Drowsiness.   Asleep in the boat? There are other ways to live that might bring us more sensual and immediate gratification and less sacrifice, but we believe that our lives have purpose and meaning, that a loving Creator has intended our lives for something more than mere carnal, physical satisfactions. And so we seek to live our lives according to God's code so that, when the storms of life come, we respond reflexively with faith instead of fear, just as a well-trained athlete responds in the contest as he or she has been coached. This is not to say that we cease being human. We still may go through all the steps associated with grief and loss--denial, anger, rejection, guilt, bargaining, depression/confusion, and acceptance. But we go through the process without being overwhelmed.  Eventually, when the storm has run its course, as all storms do, we see how God has guided us through. We had despaired at times that we could possibly make it, but we did make it and we gave God the glory. And, if we are wise, we reflect on the lessons we have learned from the experience. For storms have a natural byproduct—growth.   What do they say, “what don’t kill ya makes ya stronger.” Each of us must face our own storm. Often the greatest adversary we face is our own fear. That's a question that many of us might ask ourselves from time to time when the winds are howling and the waves are beating on our boats. "Why am I afraid? Have I no faith?" Storms come. Some of you are young. It seems like you will live forever. That's wonderful, but if you are smart, you will prepare yourself for that time when life sends us the unexpected squall. Prepare yourself by building strong relationships. Prepare yourself by keeping yourself fit physically, mentally and spiritually. Prepare yourself by building your life according to code.    Rabbi Jan Goldstein recalls one unexpected benefit from the 1994 earthquake that rocked Los Angeles.  The disaster caused massive power outages all over the city. But, for the first time in years, Goldstein saw his neighbors wander outside at night and gaze at the stars.  Usually, the artificial lights that powered the city blocked out most views of the night sky.  In Goldstein's experience, few people had the opportunity before this earthquake and the subsequent power outage to appreciate the beauty of the stars. (6)  I wonder if something like that didn't happen that night to the disciples. After the Master had calmed the storm, there was a great calm. But the wind from the storm had cleared the air in a wonderful way and, as they gazed at the heavens, they could see the stars as they had never seen them before. And they reflected on this man who had power over the wind and the waves. And they learned the meaning of a life built according to code. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, when the storms of life rage about us, filling our hearts with fear, give us the confidence to trust in your presence. Then rebuke the forces that assail us with your eternal peace. _______________________ 1. Christian Values Quarterly, Spring/Summer 1994, p. 10. 2. Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990). 3. The Week, October 28, 2005, p. 8. 4. Leadership 14, no. 1 (Winter 1993): 49. Steve Farrar, Standing Tall (Sisters, OR:     Multnomah Publishers, Inc.  2001). 5. Dump Your Hang-ups (Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1993). 6. Jan Goldstein, Life Can Be This Good (Berkeley, CA.: Conari Press, 2002), p. 96. INVITATION: The lyrics to our closing hymn were written by a man named Horatio Spafford.  He wrote them after two ma­jor trau­mas in Spaf­ford’s life. The first was the great Chi­ca­go Fire of Oc­to­ber 1871, which ru­ined him fi­nan­cial­ly (he had been a weal­thy bus­i­ness­man). Short­ly af­ter, while cross­ing the At­lan­tic, all four of Spaf­ford’s daugh­ters died in a col­li­sion with an­o­ther ship. Spaf­ford’s wife Anna sur­vived and sent him the now fa­mous tel­e­gram, “Saved alone.” Sev­er­al weeks lat­er, as Spaf­ford’s own ship passed near the spot where his daugh­ters died, the Ho­ly Spir­it in­spired these words. They speak to the eter­nal hope that all be­liev­ers have, no mat­ter what pain and grief be­fall them on earth. The music to this hymn was written by Philip P. Bliss in 1876.  The tune is named af­ter the ship on which Spaf­ford’s child­ren per­ished, the S.S. Ville de Havre. Iron­ic­al­ly, Bliss him­self died in a tra­gic train wreck short­ly af­ter writ­ing this mu­sic. This closing hymn is one on invitation.  I invite you as you sing to think about the storms in your life.  Think about the storms you have survived.  Think about the storms yet to come.  Are you prepared for them?  Has your life been built according to code?  Do you have the relationships to sustain you through the storms that come?  If you are looking for a church family to support you and sustain you through the storms, I invite you to come and stand on the front row as we sing.  If you have never prayed to ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life I invite you to come and let me and a couple of our elders us pray with you following the service.  We believe we are a great place to ride out the storms. We believe we can help build lives according to code. Let us stand and sing, “It is Well with my Soul.”