Homily, Finding Connection in the Storm
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 12A, 2023
Good Shepherd Episcopal Church
Tequesta, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33,44-52
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
For the last week, I have been captivated by this incredible story I read in the news. Earlier this year a man from Australia, Timothy Shaddock, set sail from the port town of La Paz, Mexico with a dog named Bella as his companion. In early May under the light of a full moon they left the Sea of Cortez and entered the Pacific Ocean headed for French Polynesia. As a seasoned sailor, Shaddock knew that to enter the Pacific at this point meant that there was no heading back. The wind and the current would pull him further and further from shore whether he wanted it to or not. But Shaddock loved the sea and looked forward to his long journey.
About a month into the trip his ship was struck by a storm which tore down his sail and knocked out his electronics, including his communication and cooking gear. Shaddock and Bella were stranded. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months. Shaddock and his companion survived only on their provisions, rainwater, and the raw tuna fish they caught along the way. And Shaddock had resigned himself to the reality that they would most likely die out there in the open water. Their boat drifted more than a thousand miles with absolutely no sign of human contact. Shaddock began to get thinner. His hair and beard grew wild. And still he survived.
After three months at sea, a Mexican fishing vessel stumbled upon his small boat miles from shore, and they rescued Shaddock and his dog Bella, bringing them safely to shore.
What an incredible story of survival! But what strikes me most about this story is Shaddock’s words minutes after he stepped on shore, “I love the ocean” he said. “I don’t know how far out [I’ll go] again, [but] I’ll always be in the water…I very much enjoy sailing, and I love the people of the sea. And it’s the people of the sea that make us all come together. The ocean is in us. We are the ocean.”
As a priest, I can’t help but hear these words as something of a theological statement. I can’t help but hear this story as a parable. Somehow—despite his extended isolation from all humanity and profound challenges in circumstance—somehow Shaddock found connection. Somehow, instead of seeing the ocean as the source of his suffering, he saw the ocean as the source of his sustenance and his connection to all life.
We’ve been slowly reading through the Book of Romans on Sunday mornings, and today we have this wonderful passage of Scripture as our second reading. Romans can be quite a dense theological text. We see some of that in our reading today. It’s really a systematic soteriology—a theological study of salvation. But as abstract as this letter can be, Paul often brings it home by touching on the very real, lived experiences of his listeners.
The passage we read this morning starts by talking about weakness. The experience of feeling like there is nothing left to give, and there is a loss for even how to ask God for help. The passage talks about distress, persecution, hardship. These are real experiences. And not just for Paul’s listeners in Rome; these are human experiences. These are feelings we know well. Even if we’re not being persecuted under the Roman emperor, and even if we’re not adrift in the Pacific Ocean.
You don’t have to get caught in a storm sailing to experience the storms of life. You don’t have to be stranded at sea to feel isolated and alone. You don’t have to feel the weakness of hunger to know weakness of spirit.
Even here as we sit today, I know many of us are carrying heavy burdens. Grief. Pain. Stress. Anger. Feelings of being overwhelmed. And in those experiences it’s often hard not to feel abandoned and isolated from one another and, especially, from God. It’s hard not to wonder, “where is God in this moment? Is God there? Or has God left me alone?”
Perhaps you’ve felt that before or you feel that today.
Paul, then, in this passage is speaking directly to that experience. And his message is this: though you may be going through an incredible storm; though you may feel at the end of your rope; though you may feel like you have nothing left in you; you are not alone. Deep within you, even now, the Spirit of God dwells, and will sustain you in your need. And if God’s Spirit is in you, then nothing you face will have the last word. “If God is for us, who is against us?,” the passage says. You are not alone, through Jesus, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Thinking about Shaddock out there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I imagine there were days when he was tempted to look at all that water with bitterness. I imagine he was tempted to see the water around him as that which isolated him. To see the water as the source of his suffering.
And yet, somehow, when he came through it all, instead, the water, for him, became his sustenance and joy. He saw it as that which kept him afloat. He saw it as that which provided his food. He saw it as that which cooled him in the heat, and that which connected him with all living things. He saw himself as part of the water’s vastness. The ocean became for him, his connection, his life, his love.
What if that’s how we experienced God? What if in the midst of our challenging circumstances we came to know God not as the one who makes us or lets us suffer, but the one who sustains us when we suffer? The one who sails with us through it all. The one who keeps us connected, even when we feel alone. How might that change the way we encounter the storms in life?
Today, if you’re going through something—if you feel like your adrift in the sea—I encourage take a moment. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. You don’t have to say a word. And turn your attention towards God’s Spirit that dwells in you. You may not find the shore right away, but you may just find the sustenance and connection for which you long.
Because connection is the very heart of the God who dwells in you. And there is nothing that you face that will take that away. “For I am convinced,” Paul says in this passage, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, nor WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE GOING THROUGH will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate us. Nothing. Amen.
Thoughts on Faith 