The Injured Swan
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I was so scared. I was about nine years old and did not want to go to bed. Night after night, I did not want the light to go off in my bedroom when it was time to go to sleep. I was terrified. You see, for several night after the lights went out, just as I was falling asleep, I saw through the sheer curtains of the window what seemed like a moving shadow and then a pair of eyes – a pair of eyes that seemed to light up and stare right at me. I would yell for my mom who would come running but by the time she got there, the eyes and the shadow would be gone. How could this be? My bedroom was on the second floor of our house.
One day I happened to be in my room – it was the middle of the day – light and bright – when I noticed out of the corner of my eye, that same shadow in the window. I looked and I saw it. I finally saw it! It was a big gray cat pacing back and forth on the outside windowsill. When the big, gray cat saw me moving towards the window, it scampered down the branches of the tree outside my window. The mystery was solved. And to this day, I know why I am not a cat person. I do not like cats – at all!
The unknown is memorable and often very scary. However, knowing or solving the mystery so it is no longer scary can be just as memorable. I remember equally both the fear of whatever was in the window and solving the mystery of what was actually in the window. “Fear,” writes Karl Barth, ‘is the anticipation of a supposedly certain defeat.” My fear of that shadow and eyes in the window is all about being certain that something bad was about to happen to me. A storm was brewing. My cry, my call to my mother is my plea, my search for safety, for protection. In the words of that familiar hymn, “Hear my cry, hear my call, hold my hand lest I fall. Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.” Lead me home to the precious safety of my mother.
Elijah is scared, too. At first, all seemed well. God called the prophet warrior to heal a nation, to bring people together, but it does not seem to be working. The people he was supposed to lead are not listening. War is raging. The entire nation is split in two, and people’s affection for God turns into disobedience. Their loyalty to God turns into idolatry. There is a war raging for the very souls of God’s people, and then Elijah has his own “cat in the window” experience. Queen Jezebel who feels threatened by him sends Elijah a special hand-delivered death threat, and what does Elijah do? He is scared to death. He sees eyes in the window staring him down and he runs away. He flees to Mount Horeb to give up, to turn in his prophet’s license and retire in disgust and defeat.
I would like to tell you a story about a little boy named Tony who is about 7 years old. You may know him! (He is right here, and he said I could share this story with all of you. He told me this story here in the church lounge where he was building Legos) Recently he and his grandmother, Kim were at Long Pond where in the parking lot they noticed an injured swan. The swan was struggling to walk and not getting anywhere. One of its legs was injured. They noticed a small group of teenagers was trying to help. One of them took a jacket and tried to wrap it around the swan to pick it up to help it, but it was working. The swan was not accepting the help.
Tony walked up to the swan. I asked him why. He said, “I was sad for the swan. I didn’t want him to suffer.” When Tony got close to the swan, he got down on his knees and prayed. He said to me, “I didn’t want him to suffer so I thought I should pray for him.” When Tony was done praying, with the teenagers and Kim looking on, the swan got up on both of its legs, walked to the pond and swam away. I asked Tony what made him think of praying for the swan, he looked up from the Legos and said with eyes wide open, “Because God really listens to me!”
Whatever wars are waging, whatever storms are raging, even if the storm to a little boy is an injured swan, where is God in the midst of such fear and violence and destruction? In fear, Elijah fled to Mount Horeb where the Lord told him to stand. While he stood there a great wind passed by, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, a fierce, intense and deadly fire like those in Maui in Hawaii that forced people fleeing to jump into the ocean, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire the sound of sheer silence. The sound of sheer silence. The sound of Tony praying on his knees on that pavement in front of that injured swan. The sound of silence. The sound of prayer and in that silence…in the prayer the Lord spoke. The Lord rescued. The Lord saved. From the psalm for today, “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for the Lord will speak peace to his people…”
And Peter, in our gospel text for this morning has his own storm raging, his own nightmare, and his own “cat-in-the-window” story. Along with the other disciples, Peter witnessed the jaw-dropping power of Jesus repeatedly. In fact, the disciples were in the boat in the middle of the lake just after they feed over 5000 people with a few fish tacos that Jesus blessed and became a feast for thousands.
Jesus went away to the top of a mountain to rest and to pray. Meanwhile that small fishing boat was filled with weary disciples. The boat was being rocked and tossed about by the whipping winds of a frightening gale. With rain and wind blocking their vision, they too saw a shadow. They too say the eyes of someone or something peering at them through the storm, and they were terrified and cried out in fear, “It’s a ghost!”
Like me calling to my mother for protection from that ghost in the window, Peter, too yells out to Jesus, “If it’s really you, let me come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come!” And Peter steps out, but soon notices the storm still raging about him and he begins to sink. The storm rages about him.
For so many, the storm does not let up. The storm does not get up, like the swan and simply waddle away. The storm is scary. Whether the storm is the uncertainty of illness and the confusing maze of the health care system. Whether the storm is the fear of never-ending gun violence – children afraid to go to school and parents afraid to send their children to schools – now over 430 mass shooting so far in 2023 – that is one mass shooting every 12 hours in this country. Whether the storm is the insecurity of homelessness or the destructive addiction to alcohol or drugs. Whether the storm is the aging process or the terrible divisions in our country that divide people against people. Whether the storm is how to pay basic bills or how to get out of mounting debt. Whether that storm is grief that just does not seem to heal or guilt that weighs you down.
Whatever that storm is, Jesus who is in the midst of that storm with us says simply, “Come to me.” But he does not wait until we get our act together and come to him. Rather he reaches out his hand to us, carries us back to the boat, and gently lays us down in the midst of our sisters and brothers. He gets on his knees in the middle of a parking lot, he prays, and we are healed.
At last Monday’s Purple Heart ceremony at Easton’s Town Hall offices where I gave the invocation, I met a town employee who, before the ceremony began, told me the story of what it was like when her very young daughter died. After her daughter died, she tried to find a way to explain to her other daughter, also a child, about her sister’s terminal illness. She told her that she had boo boos on her body some of which you could see and others inside her body that you could not see. Because of those boo-boos, she said her sister went to live with the angels and God in heaven.
Weeks later, in the car with mom driving and her daughter in a car seat in the back, the daughter said to her mom – out of the blue, “Mommy, I just wanted to tell you something about my sister. Up in heaven, she does not have any boo-boos anymore. She’s all better.” And her mother, with tears streaming down her face, said a prayer of thanksgiving. I asked her what she made of what she just heard and she said, “That’s the power of faith!” And she said, “Share this story. Tell my daughters’ story.”
Whatever the storm, God is found in the still silence. Whatever the storm, God reaches out God’s hands, lifts us back into the boat and gently places us in the care of our sisters and brothers. Whatever the storm, remember the image of little Tony on his knees praying for the injured swan. Whatever the storm, remember the little girl who knew her sister is healed. Amen