2024-07-16
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Our Church is Called to a Lifeboat Rev. Betsy Wooster
July 14, 2024
Scripture: 1 Peter 3:18-20
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water.
Let us pray, Oh God, let us hear you speak, for you will speak peace to your people. Amen. (based on Psalm 85.)
In this month of July, we are looking at how the church is called to be a fortress, a lifeboat, a training ground, and a hospital. Each of these metaphors, or images, is illuminating. And each also has limitations, so that we need the whole collection of them to complement and complete one another. Today, the church is called to be a lifeboat. It’s an image that implies the danger of drowning, right? Lifeboats are what we need to survive the turmoil and the depths of the seas.
The church is called to be a lifeboat for people who are drowning. Maybe you’ve had that experience of drowning and being rescued, in a literal or in a metaphorical sense, and maybe not. I grew up in a small college town in western Pennsylvania, an idyllic community where everyone knew everyone and growing up there felt something like having extended family on every street. Much of my childhood was centered around the town park: Its baseball field, playground, stream to walk through and best of all a big swimming pool that we enjoyed at every age.
I am the youngest of four children, and I benefited from older siblings comforting me when I was little, playing with me in the shallow end, and later on, teaching me to dive off the diving board. Never to be forgotten, were the annual Labor Day swim races sponsored by the Rotary Club. When I was 11 years old, I won the underwater swimming contest, meaning that I swam as far as I could without taking a breath. My relay team won the pajama race and were awarded our medals by my dad, a proud Rotarian.
Everyone I saw at the pool I already knew. This was my home. No one was a stranger. Until, someone was. When I was young, the park had swimming lessons every summer in the mornings before the pool opened for the day. By the time I took my first official lessons, I had been playing in the shallow end for many summers. I remember arriving at the pool and walking toward the swim teacher, who, shockingly, I did not know.
She was a stranger to me, and on top of that, she behaved like a drill sergeant, and I was scared. But then it got worse. This stranger started picking us up and throwing us into the water.
I was scared out of my mind and began crying as I attempted to swim across the pool. I felt like I was drowning. Then, when lifting my head to try and catch some air before the water overtook me, I saw my older sister swimming toward me. My lifeboat. She reached me, put her arms around me, held me close, and helped me to the side of the pool and out of the water.
She comforted me while I cried and told her about the horrible woman who threw me in the water. Those moments have been alive in my memory all these years since. My sister saved me. She saved me from the terrible arms of the mean stranger; she saved me by showing that I was safe and that I would be a good swimmer, and best of all, that she rescued me. I was drowning in fear and anger, and in those moments of rescue, my sister was like Jesus to me. In many ways, she has been ever since. I can swim on my own now, and she has been my confidant and comforter for all of my life. That day in the pool, she saved the body, mind, and spirit of 5-year-old me.
The Church is called to save people from drowning, from drowning in fear, in grief and loss, meaninglessness, isolation. Maybe there are times when we are drowning, and we don’t even realize it. Drowning in the bitterness of divisive rancor. Drowning in fears for the future. Drowning under the pressure to be successful at all costs. Maybe these don’t feel like drowning. Maybe it just feels like normal life. You don’t realize that you’ve been drowning until you wake up one day and realize that you just can’t keep carrying all of this. You can’t keep treading water and staying afloat by only your own strength and determination.
And that’s a day of surrender to God. That’s the day when you stop treading water because arms are reaching down from the lifeboat and pulling you up, out of the water and into safety and comfort: “come and be with us. You don’t have to do this all alone.” The church is called to be a lifeboat. Rev. John Dorhouer served for 8 years as the general minister of the United Church of Christ. That’s the Protestant denomination to which Federated church belongs: the UCC. John retired after 8 years of traveling around the country, & meeting people all over. He said that people would pull him aside, over and over again, to tell him their own “the UCC saved my life” story. People who were judged or rejected by their own faith communities or by their families, who found no place of understanding, no place of acceptance until a loving and inclusive church gave them a safe place of belonging and heavenly affirmation. “The UCC saved my life.”
People who struggled with the weights of hunger and disease who were met by the mission of a church that seeks to mend a broken world, and to create opportunities for justice and for healing. “The UCC saved my life.” You, Federated Church, are keeping a lifeboat strong and ship-shape to travel the roiling seas. Federated Church has many ways in which we are called to be a lifeboat, within our congregation, our broader community, across the country and across the globe. I have lost count of the number of times that members of our church have shared their depth of gratitude for the love and support that they receive from this church.
Both within our community and far beyond our borders, I’ve seen the endless ways in which all of us have been called to be a lifeboat, and we quickly jump into the boat and sail the seas to reach those who are, at best, treading water to survive. We are partners in supporting the St. Paul’s church and community on the near west side of Cleveland, and closer to home, we are partners in supporting the programs at Chagrin Falls Park.
We are one of several faith partners to support Edwins LEADERSHIP & RESTAURANT INSTITUTE, that offers formerly incarcerated adults a foundation in the culinary and hospitality industries and a support network necessary for long-term success. We support the Good Samaritan Fund, the UCC 5 for 5, and most of our church’s Christmas Eve recipients work with the most vulnerable populations, such as Family Promise, and A Place 4 Me and others. We reach beyond greater Cleveland to different parts of the world, often through the UCC’s global ministries, to be in solidarity with and help people and places recover from large scale natural disasters, such as the wildfires in Hawaii last summer.
It so happens that today is Pray with Kenya day across the United Church of Christ. We are called to pray for the Organization of African Instituted Churches when extreme weather conditions impact Africa and as floods rage Kenya. Sometimes the seas that rage and threaten to pull people under are financial, sometimes the seas are emotional, sometimes they are physical or spiritual, or sometimes a storm with all of those at once. In the storms of life, the church is called to be a place of safety, an oasis in the desert, a harbor in the storm, a lifeboat that pulls people out of the storm into a community of support and faith.
The community of support is so important. Without it, we might just cling tight to what we can, and miss the gifts that await when we feel safe enough to let go. It is the assurance of support that allows us to live fully. Renowned preacher Barbara Brown Taylor tells a story about a young boy who was hanging out down by a river with some older boys to watch them swing out over the fast moving water on a rope tied to the branch of a tree. He sat back and watched them arc across the sky and then let go of the rope, falling down through the air and disappearing into the current.
A little ways downstream their heads broke the surface of the water, and they swam back to shore, egging him on to take his turn in the air. He was afraid, but he decided to try, he considered them his best friends after all. He grabbed the rope, got a running start, and swung far out over the water. At the height of his ride, he willed his hands to let go of the rope, but they would not. – it was so far down, the water was so fast, and he was so afraid.
So, he hung there, dangling between sky and river, until some-one hauled him back to earth. He does not remember how many tries it took him to finally let go, but now, as an adult, he says that when he finally let go, it was because of his friends.
They had gone ahead of him, paved the way, and assured him he would be okay. When he finally let go, it was because of his friends.[1] This is how he remembers it. He couldn’t remember how many times it took him to summon the courage to let go, but he does remember that it was his friends who got him through it. Sometimes when we are afraid, scared for our lives, it is our friends who save us. Sometimes it is our family. Sometimes it is the church.
In the first century of today’s scripture text, this very new set of Christian communities was thinking about who they were called to be, and one of these communities received a letter that we know as the book of 1 Peter in the New Testament. It’s a lesser-known passage these days. The letter proclaims that Jesus Christ was put to death in the flesh. And we remember that, right? He was crucified. And then made alive in the Spirit, in which he also went—that is, Jesus in the Spirit went—“to make a proclamation to the spirits in prison who in former times did not obey in the days of Noah.” To follow what this is saying: Jesus, after being put to death in the flesh, goes in spirit to proclaim to the spirits from former times—way back in the time of Noah even. Jesus went in the Spirit to extend God’s ministry to people who had died long ago.
It doesn’t say that they are in hell, or in a place like sheol, or in a place of deathly sleep—it’s not specific. But this is one of the scripture places that gave rise to the early Christian creed which says that Christ suffered, died, and then descended into hell, before being raised in the resurrection. We follow the God we have known in Jesus who did not create hell, and certainly does not banish people to hell. No—Jesus goes to hell! Jesus goes to whatever kind of hells people find themselves in, in order to extend the ministry of God, in order to extend the saving work of God, in order to bring them home. Jesus goes to pull them up from drowning. To save them. To bring them close. Our church, following in the way of Jesus, is called to be a lifeboat.
Let us pray, O God, we praise you for the saving work of your churches amid the storms of life. Today we pray especially for the churches and people of Kenya as they have been hit with this cyclone of extreme rain and life-threatening floods. We pray for your strength to offer it to others. We pray that the churches will continue to be beacons of hope as they work to support the affected families by sharing food and hosting families who are displaced. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
[1] Mixed Blessings, Barbara Brown Taylor, p. 124.