“The Sailboat in Our Backyard”

December 10, 2006

Scripture Reading:  Luke 3:1-6

Rev. Dr. Carol  L. Kerr

 Blue Point Congregational Church

It always startles me when I see it sitting behind our barn all winter.  That is where we store our sail boat, a 30 foot Pierson sloop.  No matter how many wintry months it has been there, it always takes me aback, whenever I drive up our long driveway pass the barn, stop the car, and look right.  There it is, a whale out of water that somehow got beached in our back yard. 

In the summer the boat is tethered to a mooring off of Town Landing in Falmouth.  There it swings around according to the wind and the tide.  It bops up and down all season in a delightful dance with the bay.  I have grown completely addicted to sailing.  As soon as you arrive at the docks you begin to enter a different world entirely.  Shop and Save, Wal-Mart, Mobil gas station and all the other icons of our modern civilization loose all meaning and relevance.  Other things take over such as the sound of sea gulls.  Star fish clinging to the peers.  Crabs hide under the rocks by the beach.  There are the ever present barnacles creeping over everything.    We get into our dingy which is one notch above a plastic toy boat and row out to where the sloop is moored.  Then we start carefully climbing from the dingy below onto the large mother boat above.  Like clumsy worshipers we genaflex on one knee as we brace the sides of the dingy, center our weight and heave ourselves on board. 

That is just the beginning.  When all is stowed away, we kick on the engine as it roars, someone scrambles to the bow and lets go the pennant which is holding it to the mooring.  We fall off slightly, one calls “All clear!”, and we motor forward.  Passing the red and green channel markers, we then turn into the wind and hoist the main sail.  As this monstrous triangle of canvas climbs the 30 foot mast it flaps insanely in the wind as if a hurricane were hitting it.  Then when it has reached its zenith, we cleat it, cut the engine and fall off to catch the wind.  This is one of my favorite moments.  Silence.  From the deafening engine roar and flapping sail, the boat comes alive and performs her true calling.  She heels over, catches the wind and sails, without pollution, without gas, without noise,  without need of anything but what is given by the ocean and the air.  The movement of the boat is so graceful as she rises and falls cutting through the waves that it always seems to me like it is a form of water flying like a sea gull gliding along a flow of the wind. 

That is in the summer.  Now it is winter and this grand and glorious sail boat, sits on eight steel braces, it’s keel propped up with a few two by fours.  Instead of white sails unfurled we have a blue tarp tied around it like a scarf under an old lady’s chin.  Instead of rowing up to it in a dingy, we have a ladder propped against its side.  There is a cord of fire wood rudely dumped in a pile on the brown and gray grass next to it. 

During the Christmas season  people put out yard decorations to celebrate.  There are lights tracing the edges of houses.  There are lights draped over bushes and trees.  Once a saw someone wrap their front door with red shiny material and put a big ribbon on it.  Sometimes people put big balloon like Santa’s or Snowmen waving to traffic going by.  Every once in a while someone puts a life like sleigh with reindeer on their roof.   We, however, are not very good a putting Christmas decorations in our yard.  Being a minister and it being the Christmas season the busiest season of the church, there are some things that just don’t get done.  We would like to, but for several years we haven’t had a chance, except to put a few candles in some of our windows which we often neglect to turn on.  But, this Christmas I think I will do one thing outside.  I am going to put a wreath on our boat behind the barn.  This is because of all things in the yard, the boat waiting for summer, waiting for this glorious other life, is one of the best symbols of Advent there is. 

Advent is a time of waiting.  We are not just waiting for the birthday of Jesus, the anniversary of the day he was born 2,000 years ago.  We are also waiting for Christ to come again.   No one knows when or how this will happen.  It could be in a week, it could be in a century, it could be in thousands of years.  None the less, there is always this future vision in Christianity when the dominion of God is going to happen on earth.  John the Baptist cried in the wilderness,   

 Prepare the way for the Lord,

  Make straight paths for him.

Every valley shall be filled in,

  Every mountain and hill made low.

The crooked roads shall become straight,

  The rough ways smooth.

An all mankind will see God’s salvation.  (Luke 3:4)

We still need to prepare the way today, as they did back then.  Christianity believes that a whole new and better world is going to happen.  There is a great future of hope.  This does not mean that the future is wholly determined.  It does mean, however, that in essence the final destiny of the world is not in doubt.  Christians trust God’s promise that in the end God’s good purpose will overcome all evil.  In the end, creation is going to be redeemed and take a new and eternal form, beyond death, beyond change and sorrow, to a union with God’s own heavenly kingdom.  We are a hopeful people.  This hope give meaning to our present struggles.  All will turn out good in the end even as we battle evil, and suffering in the face of death. 

It is hard to imagine the boat will ever get back into the water again as I look at it now.  But, I must reassure myself that spring will come after a long and hard Maine winter, it always does.  And we will once again call the man that will come down with his huge truck, load the Pierson onto it and take it up the highway to Freeport and  to the marina to put in a sling and drop it back into the water once again.  But, even so, it seems unnatural and bizarre to think of this boat being driven down the highway at 50 miles per hour or more even as  trucks right now are  hurdling south right loaded with Christmas trees grown in the northern territories on silent fields. 

Likewise, is hard to imagine the Kingdom of God ever happening here on earth.  We seem so far away from that reality.  Take, for example Darfur.  World Vision web site describes the situation as being the worse they have ever seen in their many years serving the needy.  As many as 10,000 people have died monthly since the conflict began in Darfur, Sudan, mainly due to pervasive – and preventable – disease and hunger.  Brutal ethnic conflict has driven over 2 million people into homelessness, their huts and villages pillaged, burned, and destroyed.  Victims end up living in ramshackle huts in numerous camps along the edge of the Sahara.  Families barely survive.  The lives of thousands of children are threatened, their fathers, homes, and communities lost. 

Snow is now shrouding the blue tarp covering the boat.  It is still as death.  Never the less, we do prepare for the far off summer.  That is why we have a ladder propped up against its side so we can get in and out easily enough and take care of it.  Likewise we Christians in spite of all the dismal circumstances we can see around us, still prepare for the coming Kingdom.  To say the least, Dave is making new cushions for the seats.  He has bought a video which shows how to do it.  The video is pretty boring.  The man talks in a mono tone.  You can hear the phone ringing in the back ground.  Periodically the audio is compromised by the dull roar of his air conditioner turning on an off.   None the less, Dave is learning how to cut, fashion and sew cushions for the summer.  Likewise, we Christians go to church to listen to sermons about what the Kingdom of God is going to be like.  Sometimes these sermons are pretty boring  and certainly not as sleek as the big productions on national networks, but hopefully the information is solid and useful.   We will do some rewiring.  I am reading a book on navigation. 

I once heard that there is little difference between sea water and our blood.  Diluted seawater contains almost the same concentration of minerals and trace elements as blood plasma and it sodium content matches that of blood.  We emerged from the ocean so many dinosaur ages ago.  Never the less, we still have a deep and abiding kinship with the ocean.  Not only physically but spiritually we resonate with the sound of water and waves and wind.  If you put a shell to your ear and you are as far away from the ocean as Iowa, you can still hear the sound…pssshhhhh….pssshhhhhhh…..psshhhhhh….the rhythmic sound of waves captured in our veins as our blood pulses through. 

Likewise, even though the Kingdom of God has not yet arrived on earth, we can find it inside of us.  That is love.  Jesus told us to prepare for the Kingdom we have to start living like we were in the Kingdom.  He wanted his people to keep the commandment that formed the heart of his law, the commandment to love God above all else and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.  (Lev. 19:18, Mark 12:28-34).  When the kingdom come the world will be flooded with this love.  But, until then we can find this love within ourselves and practice it in our lives.   The law says not to murder, but if you really love your neighbor, you won’t even get angry with him.  The law says not to take your neighbor’s wife, but if you really love your neighbor, you wont’ even desire to take her.  The law says even if someone has offended you turn the other cheek.  Jesus says we should forgive 70 times 7 times.  You should love even your sworn enemies.  Jesus told us to love those who were underprivileged and oppressed – the impoverished, terminally ill, the terminally ill, the outcast, the imprisoned.  These people would inherit the kingdom when it arrived.  The apostle Paul, echoing the message of love writes “Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud  it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails…Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  (1 Cor 13 ff)

After I hang the Christmas wreath off the bow of our boat I am going to go down into the cabin and take a deep breath.  It is like a prayer. Now, anyone who sails or has boats, knows exactly what I am talking about.  There is a musty, salty smell that is tinted with a bit of gas, that boat cabins gain over the years.  Even if it is out of the water, it still holds this smell all winter.  It is an acquired taste, I have to admit, but whenever I smell it, the whole summer back to me and fills me with memories of what was and what is to come.  As Christians we remember the stories Jesus told of the Kingdom and believe once again. 

Carl Sandburg writes a poem called, “Young Sea:”

The sea is never still

It pounds on the shore

Restless as a young heart,

Hunting.

The sea speaks

And only the stormy hearts

Know what it says;

It is the face

Of a rough mother speaking.

The sea is young.

One storm cleans all the hoar

And loosens the age of it.

I hear it laughing, reckless.

They love the sea,

Men who ride on it

And know they will die

Under the salt of it

Let only the young come,

Says the sea.

Let them kiss my face

And hear me.

I am the last word

And I tell

Where storms and stars come from.

And so, I look forward to the summer day I am once again back in our boat as it heels over and takes on the ocean swells of Hussey sound like a lover’s embrace.  Now stymied in our back yard, then it will be Set free once again and fly with sails set wing on wing, in holy silence.  I will look up and see the mast pierce the sky true to its calling just as a  cross on the church steeple heralds the future hope of the coming Kingdom of God.