Adapting to Rip Currents of Life and Faith

At the tip of Pointe Pelee in Ontario, Canada, where water on the east and west side of the point collide,  is a rip current so fierce the no on is allowed in the water

Luke 18:1-8 Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept com- ing to him and saying, `Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, `Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the un- just judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" 

When I was 16 years old I spent most of the summer with some friends and their family in a cottage near Lake Michigan. There was a small inlet lake where we sailed,  but if I walked a little further I’d come to Lake Michigan and a pristine beach. One day we were all lounging at the Lake Michigan beach, it was hot and sunny. I walked into the water to cool off and as I turned around to walk back to shore, I fell down. I stood up and tried again, and again I fell down. Each attempt to walk to shore pulled me into the water and further from shore. I was confused and couldn’t quite grasp my inability to walk to shore. I was getting scared and tired when one of my friends on the beach noticed what was happening and came out into the water and pulled me out. He was bigger than me and stronger and the rip current that I was stuck in had less impact on him. 

Rip currents are similar to rip tides, except rip currents occur on the great lakes. They are a smaller section of water that has created a current, often strong current, pulling water back from the shore toward the middle of the lake. The great lakes are known for rip currents, which cause many drownings. A person dies from drowning, not because the current pulls them under the water but because the effort to get out of the current is exhausting. People drown from exhaustion. 

It turns out that the way out of a rip current is really simple. Instead of moving straight to shore, someone in a rip current is supposed to swim, or in my case, walk parallel to the shore until one moves out of the current. The pull is less intense when one shifts to parallel movement and eventually the current ends. 

It’s a tiny shift, a little bit of adaptation, but the outcome is life saving. 

In our Gospel reading this morning a woman comes before a judge seeking justice. The judge ignores her request, and refuses to grant it. But the woman comes again and again. The judge realizes that she is going to wear him out with her persistence, and so he decided to grant it. He doesn’t grant it because he cares about justice for her. He only grants it because he doesn’t want to be worn out. Jesus continues with this analogy by saying, if the judge, who does not care, will grant justice, how much more will God, who does care, grant justice?

Jesus’ point however, is not just about God. He is also making a point about us. How do we want to live our lives? Are we going to be like the unjust judge, who essentially makes decisions without really examining his own life, who just wants to be comfortable? Or are we going to behave as God would like us to behave - to become fully aware of how we are living our lives, making decisions from our values and principles which we have explored and examined?

The world has always been full of injustice, and the injustices of today are no exception. Perhaps the only difference today is this global pull to become aware of how each one of us, in our own way, contributes to the injustices of the world.

Every single day I yearn for a quieter life, one where I can just be comfortable and appreciate what I have. Because truly, I have a good life. I have a family I love and adore and work that is stimulating and engaging. 

However, I have always been the kind of person who wants to be better, who values learning and growing, who actively seeks out knowledge and awareness. I live in a worldview filled with clergy from across the spectrum of Christianity and other faiths. These people share their insights, their pain, their awarenesses, their challenges, their hopes. Listening to their stories informs how I see the world and how I want to live. They compel me to want to be a better person of faith. This is particularly true as I come off of the Season of Creation where much of my thinking revolved around the environment. I’ve been compelled to understand the intersectionality between patriarchy, colonialism, racism, and the environment. People invested in saving the plant from climate change have come to understand that we can’t fix the climate without also addressing these other systems of oppression and suppression. 

This simply tells me what I’ve always known, we are interconnected. Every living creature has a purpose and contributes value to the sustainability of this world. Likewise, each one of us, brings value and worth to this community of faith. 

This stewardship season we are spending time inviting each of you to share from your experiences: what do see as the strengths of this parish? what are areas that we can grow stronger? what are areas that are challenging. 

Modeling gracious leadership means making room for every voice to be heard and by embracing the parts, we can better understand the whole. This is not only about inviting voices to speak, and its not only about creating the environment in which we listen, its also about understanding the value of each and every voice, so that those who tend to say more will begin to listen more and those who say less will find the capacity to say more. 

It’s about embracing the nature of God. In Hebrew the word for widow means silent one, or unable to speak. This parable reminds us that God invites all of us into relationship. And while it can be scary to look deep into one’s life and easier to just stay on the beach than wander into the water, we are actually called to trust in the buoyancy of God, as Marcus Borg once said. Faith, he wrote is trusting in the sea in which we live and move and have our being. 

But trusting it means that we trust all of it, not just the surface and not just the areas that feel safe. Because honestly, the life of faith is not safe and its definitely not comfortable. I mean, we center our lives on three tenets of faith - Christ was born, Christ died a tragic, painful, unjust  death, and Christ will come again. 

In story after story we hear Jesus ask people about their lives, and those who can speak the truth about their lives, because they have examined them and know the whole truth, respond likewise. And then Jesus says, Go, your faith has made you well. 

Examining my life, going deep inside, where I have to look at the broken places in me, and the ways I have contributed to the brokenness of others, is painful and unsettling. But it is also the only way that my faith can make me well. Jesus tells us that that is true for all of us. Our faith will make us, but only if that faith dives into the deep water, navigates the pull of the current, is willing to be adaptive to the challenges, confess our contributions to the brokenness of others, and then seek to grow in health. 

Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, who has created a community in Northern Ireland that is working on truth and reconciliation writes this: “These are the kind of things we need for the tired spaces of our world. This is the way we need to move forward in a world that is so interested in being comforted by the damp blanket of bad stories. We need stories of belonging that move us towards each other, not from each other; ways of being human that open up the possibilities of being alive together; ways of navigating our differences that deepen our curiosity, that deepen our friendship, that deepen our capacity to disagree, that deepen the argument of being alive. This is what we need. This is what will save us. This is the work of peace. This is the work of imagination.”

This stewardship season, as we ponder who we are and who’s we are through the concepts of Holy Currencies, as we seek to know ourselves better, to embrace with greater clarity our strengths and the many wonderful vibrant ministries that are alive here, and as we ponder what other areas we might build into strengths, each person is invited to share their insight, their perspective, because it is valued. The primary quality of gracious leadership is making room for each of us to share our stories, to be listened too, and valued. This is what Jesus did, he listened to people, and in being heard, they were also healed. Jesus’ ministry is all about creating beloved communities. That is our goal too, as we prepare to welcome Mother of the Savior and initiate our Partnership in Faith, our goal is, and has been, to create beloved community.  And as the Holy Currencies remind us, beloved communities are formed when we practice gracious leadership, build trusting relationships, create the grace margin for truth and wellness to take place, honor this building and our time, and use our financial resources wisely. Holy Currencies invites us into a flow, into life giving waters, the bring life and vitality to sustainable ministries.