Sermons at St. John’s
Presbyterian Church
2727
College
Avenue Berkeley, California 94705
(510)
845-6830
Two Wave Hold Down
Walking on Water 3
Transcribed
from the
sermon preached March 20, 2011
The Reverend Max Lynn,
Pastor
Scripture
Readings: Jonah 1-2, Rev.21
I resisted the dark sea
last week, as I had hoped to stay in the garden a bit longer, to relax
in the blessing of Creation. But as so often happens in life,
the darkness will demand our attention, a dark whirlpool will form and
suck us in. I assume that a majority of you have seen footage
of the dark whirlpools and waters of the tsunami in Japan, and have
been watching anxiously as nuclear reactors explode and send radiation
to who knows where. And then, if that were not enough, we
decided it would be a good idea to be bombing three countries at once,
as the slimy Moammar Gadhafi’s doesn’t know when to quit. And
in minor local news, a Hawaiian big wave surfer named Sion drowned
Wednesday at Mavericks, the big wave break out at Half Moon Bay.
I don’t really like the image Revelation paints of a new heaven and new
earth without any sea, but after the tsunami, we are reminded of how
ominous and dark the sea can be. And of course, our inspired
and loopy author recognizes the sea as representing all things evil,
violent and oppressive; even the dark seas within ourselves. I don’t
know about you, but I can use a word of hope about a God who will wipe
away every tear from our eyes.
Sion, the surfer, suffered a dreaded “two wave hold down,” when you
don’t make it back to the surface for a breath before the next massive
wave rolls over. This has happened to me twice in my life, at
La Jolla Cove in San Diego and Ocean Beach in San Francisco, both times
in very big surf, though not the massive size of Mavericks on
Wednesday. The first time I ever attempted to surf big waves
was during my senior year in college at San Diego State. I
was in very good shape, but didn’t know what I was doing. The
whole coast was closing out and unrideable…too big a swell for a good
surfing wave, all except La Jolla cove, which breaks out into deep
water.
We pulled up and three hundred people lined the cliff watching at a few
brave souls attempted to catch the massive waves. There were
only a couple of people really catching the wave and riding them, while
most just tried not to drown. The coast guard had a zodiac
just outside the break and each set wave boards or leashes would snap
and the zodiac would rush into save floundering swimmer s from being
smashed on the rocks. While I didn’t have the right
equipment, I didn’t know it. So despite the strong advice
from the lifeguards, I paddled out to see if I could catch a big one.
I was brave enough but with too short a board I couldn’t paddle fast
enough to get moving on the wave and stand up before the lip heaved
out. I decided to paddle right next to and copy the guy who
was getting the good waves. Still no luck. He had a
big stick; I had a small one. But then we heard surfers on
shore start screaming, “OUTSIDE!” Outside! When we
came up over the crest of the next swell we could see what they were
screaming about. Four massive waves were rolling in way out
at sea. The lifeguards, who were in the midst of rescuing a
boardless surfer pushed him out of the boat and punched the gas as hard
as possible. They sped out to sea in hopes of getting over
the waves before they broke. They hit the lip just barely in
time and went sailing off the back straight into the air, launching one
of the guards out of the boat. The crowd on the beach hooted.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were hopelessly caught inside and we bailed
from our boards and dove as deep as possible to avoid the rapidly
descending violence. The leashes snapped on the first two
surfers hit, flinging their pointed boards directly at us further
inside. I took the biggest breath I had ever taken and went
as deep as I could. The wave violently yanked and thrashed me
about until the water became dark, pitch black. I was so deep
I couldn’t tell by the light which way was up. Luckily, my
leash did not break, so when the wave let me loose, I swam in the
direction my leash was pulling me. Since the board floats I could
assume it was up. The people on the surface would notice that
my board was “tombstoning,” an ominous term for when the leash of a
submerged surfer holds the tail of the board under water so that the
nose sticks straight up, like a tombstone.
I fought like a mad dog to get back to the surface, but just as I
thought I could see the top I was hammered by wave number
two. Now there was a moment of panic as the water went dark
and threatened to rip me limb from limb once again. First I
thought of the very real possibility of dying. Then I started
to fight with desperation. But I was in the midst of a big
lesson. Sometimes the way to hold on is to let go. Stop
fighting and relax, really relax. Relax as if your life
depended on it. Go with the flow. People
who have had this experience of being so clearly overwhelmed and
overpowered by dark nature or life that we have to let go of our own
individual mental and physical resistance often note graciously
experiencing great expanded mental and physical capacity.
Time stretches out, but since you are not in a hurry, so do
you. I waited patiently until the waves power let me go, then
swam firm and steady for the surface. The
lifeguards were in searching for me, but they had to bolt away as I
took another big breath to go under the third wave and fourth wave of
the set. Sometimes you have to face the dark truth; you can’t
save everybody. Sometimes we find ourselves or get ourselves
into such tough situations that others simply cannot help us.
Eventually we have to face death.
The Western, productive, creative, competitive, light oriented mind is
aggressive, a go-getter, a muscler. You have heard the
saying: Indian build small fire and stand close. White man
build big fire and stand waaayyyy back! We want to shape life
and nature to fit our desires. We even shape ourselves to fit our
desires, and we have been quite successful in many ways. We are
addicted to the light. Lamen Sanneh, professor of World Christianity
and Missions at Yale, called Las Vegas “the burning bush of secular
culture.” Light, light and more light, twenty-four seven,
with plastic breasts, air conditioning and sprinklers watering golf
courses in the desert. Our demonstration of our ability to shape the
world the way we want it…to deny the dark. And
since we tend to have this assumption that we should be able to avoid
or overcome anything nature throws at us, when nature throws us for a
loop we are quick to blame somebody for messing up. We should
be able to be perfect. And so, in our idolatry of ourselves,
we convince ourselves that nuclear power and nuclear weapons can be
handled, that we can avoid the eventual meltdown because we are smart
enough.
One stormy day out at Sloat Street at Ocean Beach I was getting dressed
in the rain and a news crew showed up to ask my opinion about
reconstructed road. You remember Howard spoke of this when he
said he was surprised to turn on the TV and see his minister naked and
talking to a reporter. The reporter asked me if I thought the
road which washed out last year and was reconstructed would
last. Now if you know the ocean, especially Ocean beach, then
you know this is a ridiculous question. It is like a child
asking his dad if the sand castle they built will be washed
away. Same question, just different scale. The
answer is, eventually.
Can we avoid a nuclear disaster is the same ignorant or arrogant
question. Sooner or later some kind of human error or natural disaster
will lead to a nuclear meltdown or explosion that will literally, once
again unleash hell. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the physicists
who helped create the first nuclear bomb said:
Despite the vision and the far-seeing wisdom of our wartime heads of
state, the physicists felt a peculiarly intimate responsibility for
suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for
achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that
these weapons, as they were in fact used, dramatized so mercilessly the
inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense, which
no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the
physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge, which they cannot
lose.
Nuclear power is the apple on the tree, the original sin that cannot be
undone without God’s grace. It is so tempting for so many
reasons; it is red and juicy and tasty, it gives us power and light and
knowledge and all the stuff we want. It will decrease our
dependency on foreign oil and the burning of fossil fuel, which
contributes to global warming and war. But just like the tree
in the Garden of Eden, pick that fruit and life will never again be the
same. Sooner or later a horrible global disaster will
happen. Now people say this is cynical.
And people would have said Jonah was cynical. And the serpent
said that God was cynical in suggesting Adam and Eve would die if they
ate from the tree. But I think it is cynical to think we
cannot live without something with such evil consequences. It
is cynical to deny our mortality and our inability to control all
things. I think it is cynical to pretend that we hold back
the sea or stop its natural flow, rather than move out of its
way. But it is one thing to build a stretch of road that will
eventually be washed out; it is quite another to risk a disaster that
will affect life on this planet for 300 years.
There is a basic fact of life; sometimes nature and life will throw us
more than we can handle, and the way to survive is not to resist, but
go with the flow, or flow in a different direction. Even then, someday,
it will be our time to move on from this life. Still we trust
that the dark sea is not void of the eternal God, and that even
darkness is as light to God.
In other words there is wisdom in the dark, in silence, in being
emptied, in resting in nothingness, in not fighting dark feelings but
letting pain be pain, in the humility of recognition of limitations, in
letting go. We are conceived in the dark, we grow in the dark
waters of the womb. We get good sleep in the dark. We dream
dreams in the dark. We make love in the dark. We
often discern the will and truth of God in the
dark. T.S. Elliot – “I said to my soul, be still,
and let the dark come upon you which shall be the darkness of
God.” Some of my most powerful meditations have been surfing
alone in the fog. Even though there is a couple of million
people living and working 300 yards away on shore, for a couple of
hours you cannot see or hear evidence of another human being.
It is just me, God and the big fish.
Jonah gets a word from God to go to Nineveh and prophetically call them
to repent. Now Jonah has a couple of problems with
this. First, he doesn’t like Nineveh and would like them to
be condemned. And he certainly doesn’t think they can change,
or even if they could he doesn’t think they deserve
forgiveness. And second, he just wants to hang out.
Why does God have to call him? Why can’t God get someone else
who wants such work and is better qualified? Jonah jumps on a
ship heading in the opposite direction. Now God doesn’t cause
all bad things to happen but if we turn away from God and head in the
opposite direction, we should not be surprised if we run into a storm
and a big fish. This is just the way it is. Now we
wouldn’t normally think of getting eaten by a fish as a good
thing. I mean, this is darkness within darkness; he is in the
dark belly of a dark fish in the dark and stormy sea. But the
extra layer of darkness saves Jonah’s life.
He sings his poem from the belly of the whale.
[1] Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the belly of the fish,
[2] saying, "I called to the LORD, out of my distress,
and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
and thou didst hear my voice.
[3] For thou didst cast me into the deep,
into the heart of the seas,
and the flood was round about me;
all thy waves and thy billows
passed over me.
[4] Then I said, `I am cast out
from thy presence;
how shall I again look
upon thy holy temple?'
[5] The waters closed in over me,
the deep was round about me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
[6] at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
whose bars closed upon me for ever;
yet thou didst bring up my life from the Pit,
O LORD my God.
We might be heading in the wrong direction. We may not want
to pay attention to the call of God. But we will then likely
find ourselves in the middle of a dark storm that will challenge us to
repent and take another look at God’s will for our lives. We
may not be able to fight against the current of the dark sea where we
find ourselves, but we can learn that God is with us and teaching us to
go with the flow.
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