Sheringham: St Peter

Our world is full of stories of lives lost at sea in often brutal circumstances. I expect some of you would be able to name several incidents. The stories in scripture that the Church uses today to mark Sea Sunday echo of these events and remind us of the incredible power of the seas and of our human helplessness in the face of it.

Few today have much real experience of the seas in a time of stormy weather. Though there are those whom we encounter, often on the news, who have direct firsthand experience of just how dangerous the sea can be. People for whom the stories of St Paul’s shipwreck and the Disciples’ fear will be very real and familiar stories. Seafarers, fishers, lifeboat crew, but also refugees.I expect that nobody here has gone many days without seeing something said in our media about small boats crossing the channel. Politicians regularly use loaded terms like ‘invasion’. Migration is often cited as one of the most important issues of our age and people respond to it with fear or even hatred. Hatred that we haven’t seen since the dark days of the 1930s.

Before I came to St Peter’s, the Church I was with did a lot of work with refugees and asylum seekers housed in hotels in the local area. These hotels were crammed full, and the people housed in them were in appalling conditions – hardly the images of luxury that some of our media would try to have you believe. Often, those in the hotels face far-right protestors trying to intimidate them or even threatening to set the hotels on fire. All of those whom I met fled their homes as a last resort. One watched as her father was pulled off the street by the secret police for the great crime of being a Christian. And has not been able to speak to him since. Another? A published and respected cardiologist who was forced to sit in a hotel, not allowed to work, as our NHS groans under pressure. A third, so horrified by the state of her country and what she had had to flee, that she wondered if independence had been worth it. Colonialism, imperialism and the authoritarian brutality of white, western rule viewed as better than the current reality at home.

Almost all of these people who came to the UK did so because of a connection. Usually, from having family or friends living here, and all of them seeking the only refuge they could. These are people for whom the dangerous journey across the channel has become the only option. Their only chance at safety. Their only chance at refuge.

Last year, at least 74 people, including children, drowned trying to cross the narrow strip of sea that is the English Channel. For those who have experienced the fear and terror of a channel crossing in a small, overcrowded boat, the fear of the disciples would feel very real indeed.

Indeed, the disciples' terror is something of specific note in the Gospel reading today. In their society, a man displaying such open fear would suffer a considerable loss of honour and status.

Jesus asks the disciples why they are so afraid. This isn’t Jesus asking them a silly and obvious question. Instead, as the Rev. John Clowes argued back in 1817, Jesus is asking the disciples to explore the root of their fears. He reminds them that their focus is on the temporal and physical world and not on the spiritual. There they were with Christ our Lord, and they were terrified of a storm that he calmed as if it were nothing.

Christ’s question, ‘Why are you afraid?’ applies to us today. In all things.When we see desperate people struggling across the English Channel, suffering terror and fleeing horror, we react with fear.

We’re focused on our envy of what little there is to go around in our unequal and divided society.

We’re focused on our fear of those who may be different.

We’re focused on our fear of changes in society that we’re struggling to keep up with.

We’re losing sight of our call to follow Jesus.

Jesus, who was himself a refugee to Egypt.

Jesus, who showed love and welcome to everyone .

Jesus, who called us all to take up our cross and follow him.

When our lives hit stormy seas, it becomes harder and harder to focus on our true purpose to follow Christ. Yet his questions remain, ‘What are you afraid of?’ and ‘Have you still no faith?’.

When we put Christ’s teachings first, we grow in faith and in love. When we welcome others into our own lives, churches and nations are enriched. It’s one of the reasons the book of Leviticus states, “the foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself”.

This Sea Sunday, if you pray for one thing, let it be for the safety and comfort of those who cross the Channel. Let your prayer echo your faith in Christ’s teaching. Let your heart reflect on your fear and your faith. And let your prayer be on your lips in everything you say and everything you do.Amen. Rev. Iain Grant Assistant Curate

Sheringham: St Peter

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