This August, we are doing a worship series at my church on Summer Pastimes and how they speak to us of the life of faith. So each Friday I will turn from the lectionary to the gospel I’ve selected for worship that week.
The summer pastime we will explore this Sunday is boating. There are, of course, many types of boats and many kinds of boating, which speak to the life of faith in different ways. Sailing, relying on wind, tiller and ropes to position the sail, lends itself to different metaphors than canoeing or kayaking, or cruising in a motor boat or yacht or ocean liner. I could work myself into a lather trying to tie each of these modes of boating into spiritual life and how we and God interact in our lives.
Instead let’s focus on what all these modes have in common: water, wind, and a (hopefully) water-tight container that floats. Let’s say the water is our life in God – all- encompassing, bigger than we are, able to support us, giving us lots of room to move in and through, helping us navigate to places we want to be. Like bodies of water, our life of faith can seem still and calm, and sometimes to move swiftly and turbulently, but we are always supported in God-Life.
Wind might be that which helps us move or impedes our progress, the circumstances of our lives. Just as the wind on the water can make for idyllic sailing or cause frightening swells, so our lives produce challenges and dangers as well as pleasant pressures that move us forward. Boats generally move forward if the wind is behind them; we want to move blown by the Spirit.
And the boat is the container which allows us to live our life in God, since we are not spiritually strong or holy enough to survive God-life unmediated. The container can be a one-person vessel like a kayak, which allows us to move through the water almost at one with it, or it can be an ocean liner like a church that allows us to move through the life of God at a pretty far remove, with a whole lot of other people, or anything in between.
Does this metaphor break down when we think about the risks of boating - capsizing, ship-wrecks or drowning? (Sunday’s readings at CTH are all about boating disasters…). If the water is the life of God, can it be destructive? Or would it be frightening or tragic to be lost to it? Well, we could say that’s what happens in the next life. We can be completely alive, breathing in the water like fish do. We will be one with the water, needing no container, no mediating of our life in God through human experience or community.
Well, it’s high time I sailed away from this maelstrom of metaphors and let you think about it yourself. What are you experiences with boating? Do you see parallels between the joy of boating and your life in God?
I hope you (and I) get out into some kind of boat at least once this summer, whether self-propelled, wind or motor-driven, and trust yourself to the water. God is inviting us to trust ourselves to his love, which is deeper than we can imagine yet able to carry us to the end of time and back.
No comments:
Post a Comment