SETTING THE CONTEXT

All four Gospels have a story about Jesus confronting the raging sea. There are two separate stories; one where he stops the storm and then the story we’re about to read. This story follows the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. These two miracles happen back to back before Jesus begins a very difficult teaching, one so difficult that the Scripture says, “Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:66). This layering of story after story of Jesus’ power and authority from God surely must have led Peter to answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also wish to go away?” with his declaration of faith, “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:67-69). We too have this story to cling to in our times of difficulty.

Read John 6:16-21

THE SERMON

It is hard to have faith in hard times. It is hard to believe and hope when you’ve just lost your job or see the next layoff coming. It’s hard to believe when you haven’t felt well in months or when you’ve just lost someone you love. It’s hard to have faith in the midst of war when images of death and destruction are daily events.

Jesus used stories to teach and to help people understand his saving message. In that spirit, we begin a sermon series today that uses some of the most popular stories of our culture to teach Biblical truths. We begin our Gospel in Disney series with the sequel to the classic Disney film, Peter Pan called Peter Pan 2 Return to Neverland. The movie is set in war-ravaged London during World War II. Wendy, who was a girl in the first Peter Pan movie, is now a grown-up with a husband and children of her own. When her husband is sent off to war, he asks their daughter Jane to promise to take care of her mother and younger brother. Jane takes this responsibility very seriously. The movie opens with Jane walking around her war ravaged home in a helmet, dodging bombs and going into a bomb shelter with Wendy and Jane’s brother. As I watched this part of the movie, I was reminded of the stories Maria J. who spoke at last Wednesday’s program. She talked about the terror of bombs dropping all around her and about racing to the bomb shelter as a child in World War II Italy. This movie image is not just fantasy; it is a reality millions of children have endured even to this day. In the midst of the bombings, Wendy tells the children stories of Peter Pan to bring them comfort and hope. She tells them, “Hook (the villain) will never win as long as a there is faith, trust and pixie dust,” but it’s so hard to believe that good will win over evil in the midst of war. The war is now going to separate Jane and her brother from their mother, Wendy. Let’s watch.

SHOW MOVIE CLIP 1 FROM PETER PAN IN RETURN TO NEVERLANDⁱ. 10:47-12:26 (Start as Wendy enters door and says “Jane dear” End after Wendy leaves saying “Jane you still have a lot of growing up to do”)

It is hard to believe in faith and trust and pixie dust when your world is crashing around you, but faith is what you need most in those difficult times. Many times we can’t foresee them coming, a sudden illness or death, an accident, the day starts out as most days do, but then everything changes in a matter of moments. Although often such experiences turn us to God, growing that relationship before suffering hits allows us to draw on God’s healing love immediately. Faith is so important for the quality of our lives, but it’s especially important when we’re hurting.

Dominic Crossan made the comment that in the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks to a defeated community and teaches them how to live.ⁱⁱ The passage we read in John was the fifth miracle he included in the Gospel and it revealed that Jesus is the master of even stormy seas. Each story shows that Jesus is truly the presence of God among them. The way Jesus identifies himself as he approaches the boat sounds normal to us, but some scholars say that John portrays Jesus as speaking the way YHWH (God) speaks in a salvation oracle in Isaiah which offers “words of comfort to end the distress of God’s people.”ⁱⁱⁱ On a more poetic level, when we face the storms of life, Jesus walks with us not consumed by the storms, but rising above them. His words echo through the fear and pain, “It is I (the very presence of God,) do not be afraid.” In the book, The Shack, God as Papa says that pain “clips our wings and keeps us from being able to fly.” It reminds me of Jane’s inability to fly for she lacks “faith, trust and pixie dust”. God goes on to tell the main character in The Shack “Mack, just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes. … Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colors.”^iv Jesus’ miracle of walking on the stormy seas, in the middle of chaos, tells us that we can indeed place our trust, even in the midst of fear, that Grace is right beside us.

How do you help someone have faith? This question became extremely important to Peter Pan. Even though Wendy had told Jane about Peter Pan for years, she didn’t believe her. She called it childish nonsense until one night, Captain Hook kidnapped her and took her to Neverland. She met Peter Pan face to face, but she still had a hard time with this faith and trust stuff; she still couldn’t fly. At one point an angry Jane told Tinker Bell that she didn’t believe in fairies and Tinker Bell’s life light started going out. If Jane didn’t believe, Tink would die. Peter and the Lost Boys puzzled about what to do because as Peter said, “you can’t force someone to have faith.” They decided that the only way to help was to make Jane one of them, to invite her into their group. Let’s see what happened.

SHOW MOVIE CLIP 2 FROM PETER PAN IN RETURN TO NEVERLAND. 44:30-46:40 (Start when Peter Pan drops out of tree and says “We want you to be one of us End after song)

They helped Jane by inviting her into their fellowship and encouraging her to think and act like them. As she joined them, as she started thinking and acting in a different way, she gained faith. Wendy had laid the foundation by teaching Jane about Peter Pan, but Jane needed her own experience and transformation to come to faith. We, too, can’t force someone to have faith, but we can invite people to join our fellowship, to join us in thinking and acting a different way, the way of Christ. We can invite them to come and see lives touched by Jesus and show them, to the best of our ability, how to think like Christ and act like Christ. Now that means folks that we have to try very hard to think and act like Christ ourselves. We have to use our freedom, as I mentioned in my last sermon, to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Jane comes to believe and in the nick of time she gives Tinker Bell her light back. Meanwhile, the evil Captain Hook has captured Peter and the Lost Boys. Jane and Tink go to Hook’s ship to save them. Hook tempts her to give up. Let’s watch.

SHOW MOVIE CLIP 3 FROM PETER PAN IN RETURN TO NEVERLAND. 56:12-57:22 (Start when Jane and Hook are fighting before he says, “Give up girl” End when Peter & Jane fly up together)

It takes faith and trust to fly when it feels like life has kicked you in the teeth. It takes an “assurance of things hoped for, and a conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Jane went back to her war-ravaged home, but she returned with optimism and she returned willing to hear and tell the stories that gave her mother and brother comfort and hope. We too have stories to bring us hope in uncertain times. We have great stories in the Bible for hard times like Daniel in the Lion’s Den and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. We have the story of Jesus walking on the stormy waters and stories of people Jesus freed, healed and loved. We have each other to remind us of Christ and his saving grace when times get tough, to be Christ-like for one other. We have a gracious God who loves us and who walks with us through pain and who can bring good even in the midst of tragedy. When we come to trust in that at the deepest level, even if we are weighed down by the hard times of life, through Christ we can learn to fly in faith, hope and trust. It works even better than pixie dust. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on July 19, 2009.