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August 2, 2009 Sermon

Beachcombing for God (II Samuel 11:26-12:13a, John 6: 16-20)

Rev. Sally Harris

Several years ago I read a book called Beachcombing for a Shipwrecked God; I remember it as a good read. As I planned the summer services the title of this book kept coming back to me but somehow a shipwrecked God didn’t sound right. Yet as this week went on and I continued reflecting on the scriptures, beachcombing for a shipwrecked God didn’t seem too off base. According to Wikipedia, “beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time. A beachcomber is someone who "combs" (or searches) the beach… looking for things of value, interest or utility.” Hmmm… there might be something theologically relevant here. But what about the meaning of shipwrecked. As those who live on the seashore we are familiar with this word. Images from the movie “The Perfect Storm” come to mind. Shipwreck: the remains of a wrecked ship, the loss or destruction of a ship through storm, collision, or going aground or any ruin, failure or destruction. OK the image of the ship has been used to describe the church - the vessel that contains God. Hmmm… maybe we are beachcombing for a shipwrecked God.

Let’s take the story of King David. A king in those days was considered God’s anointed; God’s representative to the people. And no king was considered more worthy of that role than David. David was considered the ideal king; the king from whose royal lineage shall come the Messiah. King David the one who seduces, lies and kills. King David the representative of God, is surely ruined - shipwrecked in this story. Strange that the Bible, unlike much of other ancient literature, does not spare its greatest heroes but reveals, sometimes in great detail, their humanity; their brokenness.

Then there is the church. The institution considered God’s vessel, God’s instrument to the world. Consider the sordid history of this vessel of God. The wars, the inquisitions, the injustices done in God’s name. Consider the legacy of the residential schools. Consider the decline in the importance of the church within our culture. Surely this vessel of God seems shipwrecked, floundering in the sea of change we call the post-modern world. Beachcombing for a shipwrecked God.

Then there is the story of our lives and the lives of those we know; even those we don’t. The daily news of horror, starvation, murders, floods, famines, fires… that bombard our senses and sensibilities. There are the losses and traumas of our human condition; the countless prayers that cry out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” Consider our lives. Recall the times each of us have doubted and questioned the existence of God or at least questioned the justice, love or sense of God in our lives. Surely there have been times when our understanding of God has collided with the reality of our existence. Beachcombing for God. Beachcombing for a shipwrecked God.

From the novel of the same name we read: “I rowed ashore later and began beachcombing for a shipwrecked God, a battered and wave-broached deity; a God which now mingles with grains of sand and supports only the most rudimentary of life: seaweed…, barnacle and boring worm; a God whose only infinity is one reaching into the past. I came upon the bleached curve of a whale’s ribs and stood in the airy cavity where Jonah wept. I came upon the black oak of a boat’s ribs where fish once gasped and birds now nested. It seemed that everything came into shore at last… The land laid out sand to soften the blow, to accept even the most fractured and diminished…. I walked along this margin between worlds, a tidal zone, neither land nor sea and at times both.” [J Coomer]

Perhaps the most faithful thing we can do is to embrace this shipwrecked God. Perhaps we have tried too hard to create a God in our image. To contain God only in human ideas and institutions. A God forced into what we require, we demand, we need. Interestingly after the feeding of the five thousand and just before the story of Jesus walking on the water we read of Jesus’ perspective: Perceiving then that they [the crowds] were about to come and take him by force to make him King, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. (John 6: 15)

And the disciples… they went down to the sea, got into a boat and started to cross the water. The sea became rough, threatening the seaworthiness of their vessel. Unable to get to the shore, fearing, no doubt, a shipwreck, they rowed and rowed, going nowhere. And then through the howling winds and ominous waves Jesus walks toward them. An unexpected figure in an unexpected place. And they were terrified. Suddenly this mysterious aberration spoke: It is I; be not afraid. Almost as an afterthought the author writes:

and immediately the ship was at the land to which they were going. The danger of a shipwreck was gone and the shore received them. Beachcombing for a shipwrecked God. Searching for the real thing. Engaging in an authentic quest for a sense of God is the most faithful thing we can do. For maybe as we search amidst the flotsam and jetsam of our concepts of God. Maybe as we stop trusting our human attempts to contain and capture this presence. Maybe in the times of our deepest perplexity; the times when our images and thoughts about God and church and king are shattered. In those times, out of the mist of our fear and disbelief; through the fog of our human existence, comes a mysterious presence, the Wholly Other who touches our soul and brings us safe to shore.

Perhaps the writers of our sacred story wrote with such brutal honesty about their heroic figures because they wanted to remind the reader that the shore accepts even the most fractured and diminished vessels. That it is in our shipwreck-ness that we are most open to our need of God. The broken King cries out: Create in me a new heart, heal my brokenness. Parts of the broken church cry out: Create in us a new heart, heal our brokeness. Our broken selves cry out: Create in me a new heart, heal my brokeness. And hidden in the beach lies bits and pieces of beauty that have been created over time and under pressure. Hidden treasure of shells and rocks and wood smoothed by time and water. Yes slowly we recognize a God freed from our expectations and abstractions. A sense of God not defined or contained by us but a God who works in and through our brokeness. Hmmm… perhaps I did get the title of this reflection wrong after all. Perhaps it is God who is beachcombing our shipwrecked world. Beachcombing our shipwrecked church. Beachcombing our shipwrecked lives. Beachcombing and finding what is of value; reclaiming it and reshaping it to better reflect the mystery we name God. In this hope that God is beachcombing Trinity on the shoreline of the Pacific we dare to walk with this mystery of many names: walking in protest of unjust elections and wars. Walking in the gay pride parade in downtown Vancouver. Walking the labyrinth in the sanctuary of Trinity. Walking our faith so as to bear witness to a love that shines through our fear and doubt, the storm and the shipwreck, the burdens and the brokenness. May it be so. Amen.

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