A Sideless God - June 21, 2009 at St. Stephen's Church, Reno

Mark 4:35-41

My wife, Stefani and I have a cat named Baba that we found at the Reno shelter in September. We were told that he had a very difficult life. He was abused, adopted then rejected by his adoptive parents after only three weeks. Honestly, if Stefani and I were not sharing the cat, then Baba would have likely ended up back in the shelter. Several times I was tempted to return Baba. Yet in the last few months he has considerably calmed down. He spends his whole day on a soft blue blanket on our bed. He can go anywhere if he has his blanket.

It is common knowledge at Trinity Episcopal Church that I want to get a dog. So two parishioners were going away for a few days and thought it would be a good idea for me to care for their dog as way to have a better sense of what it is like to have a dog. So a few weeks ago we dog sat for a lovely poodle. The poodle’s name does not matter to the story. This poodle sits in his household on his blanket too for most of the day.

When Baba and the poodle met even though they shared similar blanket rituals, they hissed and barked at one another. We needed to keep them separate from one another. We imagined the two blankets side by side, but it was our vision not theirs. The cost of this separation was that Stefani slept with Baba and I slept with the poodle in two separate rooms. Needless to say we will not be getting a dog anytime soon!

Territory is important – for people and as you can see for cats and dogs.

Where are we when we hear Jesus’s invitation to go to the other side?

Often I suspect we metaphorically bark and hiss at God. Just as the cat insists on his own blanket without interruption from the strange dog, we find ways to relocate our metaphorical blankets – our customs and patterns in to new places.

The words “the other side” carries with them powerful cultural and political resonances. Other side can be as mundane as going to the other side of the street or as mysterious as to an unknown place.

We talk commonly about the other side of our families – the maternal and paternal sides.

The other side of a church aisle is merely descriptive. Often when we say other side in this way it is merely a way of differentiating between where we are and where others are. There is no judgment in saying that people sit on the other side of the church. You may have a pew you commonly go to, but there is no culture for that side of the church.

Little is at risk when we say let us go to the other side of the street for we can see what is ahead of us and behind us. We are still in control. We can see the other side as we leave from the one side of the street to the other. What we see from the other side of the street is different than what we see on this side, but it is the same street. The distance is short between two sides of the street. We see the same people as there is an easy passage from one side of the street to the other.

It is common even expected in scholarly arguments to present both sides of a question, weigh the sides and then make a judgment based on analysis for one more than the other or to reframe and create a third side.

We speak of the other side of a political issue and this often in our culture can lead to suspicion of and at its worst demonization of the other side. The Religious Right condemns pluralism and the progressive liberal condemns the narrow gate. Blue states versus red states, gay versus straight and black versus white.

The other side of the ocean does not bring with it much fear if you are going to London, but if you are going to Iraq, Africa or India to be among people who speak a different language or in a turbulent context this can provoke anxiety, fear or even our refusal to go.

When we talk about death there is an unknown quality to the other side of life.

So the other side can be as mundane as the other side of the street or the other side of death into the complete unknown. There is a spectrum or range of feelings that come with going to the other side.

In this morning’s Gospel going to the other side is not quite as simple as going to the other side of the street as the disciples take a boat to get there so it must be reasonably far away. Given the examples of the other side I have shared we can empathize with the disciples.

When you have traveled I am sure you have experienced the way ordinary events like finding your way around the city can be anxiety producing as you are in a different place. Likely the disciples at home would have experienced other storms without the same fear they have in this story.

When we travel over time in one place we realize our way and settle into what is initially different and develop a comfortable pattern and confidence. We make the space our own but the space does not change. We either change by being open to new customs or we insist on our own customs in this new place. The disciples in their fear of the storm express their anxiety about a new place.

A few months ago the Lutherans from Faith Lutheran Church crossed the street after your church’s fire to join worship with the Episcopalians here at St. Stephen’s. Crossing the street I said was pretty mundane but was it mundane for you? Was it mundane for you to cross the street? You encountered a different worship style, different space, different people, different leadership, different ministry priorities and different resources. You were not alone as although the people of St. Stephen’s did not physically go to the other side of the street, you welcomed new people into your worship space and community. Perhaps at times you even were aware that people from the other side of the street came over to this side of the street. How did that make you feel?

As you both prepare to return to your ordinary way of life without the proximity of the other, what have you learned from this pilgrimage of crossing to the other side of the street or welcoming a different people to a different tradition? How will your time give you empathy for times in the future when you will be called to go to the other side?

I grew up in a very home-bound family. My parents were proud that they never left NYC. As a result later in life leaving to go anywhere produced great anxiety in me. In the nineties I took a job where I had to do 90% travel. A priest friend said to me that I should find a restaurant in each city where I was known and go there to feel a sense of safety and companionship. In a way I relocated my familiarity to a different place. Like the cat I kept my blanket with me.

Then in 2000 I was offered a job to leave NYC for LA. Shortly after getting to LA I was homesick. I considered returning home to NYC. It was hard to put down my blanket in LA, as it was dramatically different from any city I had ever been. My urban patterns did not fit comfortably in to LA. For example LA is not walking city, as had been my custom, but a driving city. I had to learn how to drive on really fast freeways.

Then one day I thought back to all my travels and I realized how I had always been safe even in the midst of my anxieties. I sensed God calling me to trust at an even deeper level when I moved to LA. The words that came to me one morning in prayer were to accept LA on its own terms and not to compare it to NYC where I grew up or other cities I worked or lived. I lived into this mantra in a way that changed my life and opened up opportunities for me that I never had before. Since LA I have lived in affluent Cambridge, just outside of Boston, then in working class Manchester, England and now in Reno – three very different places with very different people and customs.

After living in LA though I began to see people in their contexts in a different way. I judged their way against the measure and standard of my way less frequently. In January I will travel to India to give a scholarly paper. It will be the most dramatically different place I have ever been to in my life. I am excited and also a little anxious. Yet I am going to India with a deep sense of trust that I never had before in any of my previous travels. The trust I have is that God goes before me. God is within me. And now I am confident that God is on the other side in people who look different than me. In a way it has been like learning to float. If you think about it too much you sink. If you relax then your entire body, mind, heart and soul can enjoy the calm of otherwise turbulent waters.

I have a confession. I don’t know how to swim but on occasion my wife lets me lay my body against her body in the water and for a moment I feel the extraordinary calm in my body as I rest in God’s waters. I intend conflation here – as I rest against my lover I discover I am also in the hands of God. The disciples thought about it too much and they thought they were going to sink. I often think about it too much and feel like I am sinking too, but than Stefani and or God is there to keep me afloat.

Jesus is calm on both sides of the boat and also in different places. His center is not Bethlehem or Nazareth or even Jerusalem, but life with his Father and through the Holy Spirit preaching and living the Gospel.

What have you learned from your pilgrimage to the other side or with the other side? Are you impatiently waiting to get back to your comfortable routines without the other or do you have a deeper awareness that God abides with you on both sides of the street?

I hope you have had at least a glimpse that God dwells deeply on both sides of the street. I hope you have partially witnessed God in different customs and rituals. The Good News of today’s Gospel is that when we can trust God on God’s terms than we are freer to go beyond just the other side of the street. Then our cherished church rituals become a means and much less our ends. The triumph of going to the other side is having the privilege to encounter God in a new and different place. The other side may be mysterious to you and I but God dwells on all sides.

When we live with the conviction that God dwells on both sides then we can hear and embody Jesus’ words -- Peace, be still. In the years ahead wherever you are on whatever side of the street or on the other side of the world, remember that God is with you. But God is not just with you. God is on all sides, in all places and conditions of life. If you trust and accept God on God’s terms you will never sink, but rather you will live a glorious life of unexpected and abundant grace and blessing. This is God’s gift to us today, next Sunday and throughout our lives. God everywhere is our grace and blessing, so let us live into God on all sides.