Rev. Ronald E. Halvorsen
August 20, 2006
Psalm 107:1-9, Mark 4:35-41
''NANTUCKET WISDOM''

At the end of the Old North Wharf in Nantucket is a small shack that a fishermen once used to store their boats and shuck oysters. Over the door is a sign reading ''Wharf Rat Club'' along with a smaller sign that says, ''All are Welcome.'' It struck me that the words ''Club'' and ''All are Welcome'' are seldom, if ever, used together. A friend, who is a long-time visitor to Nantucket and a member of the Wharf Rat Club, suggested that I visit the club during a vacation last year on Nantucket.

With some trepidation, I opened the door and entered a room about thirty feet square containing a potbelly stove and a small circle of chairs occupied by a few men having a conversation. The walls were lined with pictures of past members and Commodores, and letters describing how the club members have flown the ''Wharf Rat'' burgee all around the world. I learned from Paul, the Assistant Commodore, who was tending the fire and disbursing coffee and donuts, that the club was about seventy-five years old and anyone could come in and join the daily conversations. He said that at some point (it seems unclear how or when), one might be asked to join the Wharf Rats as a member. But, he hastened to add that there are no dues, no privileges of membership, and only one club rule. He then pointed to a large sign on the wall that said ''No Seats Reserved for the Mighty.'' No matter who you are, laborer, captain of industry, or Supreme Court Justice you were given no special status, and certainly no reserved seat! It is said that Justice Brennan visited the Club one day and no one was impressed and certainly no one stood up to offer him a chair.

I began to think that the rule ''No Seats Reserved for the Mighty'' should have wider use in our world, particularly here in Old Greenwich, where so many ''mighty'' reside. This Nantucket wisdom says to me that we all share a common humanity and equality, and maybe more importantly, we all participate in a common sacredness. In spite of our successes and failures, we all share a God-given wholeness and we all are sustained by an internal, God-given, wellspring of strength and courage. We are all children of God. But, somehow, most of us seem to have, what might be called, ''a desperate unwillingness'' to be quiet enough to receive these gifts into our lives. We are prone to lives of self-sufficiency and thoughts of self-importance and forget our need for God. We spend our energies trying to be one of the ''mighty'' and miss the peace and sacredness of life.

Following my visit to the Wharf Rat Club, I walked over to Nantucket’s Quaker Meetinghouse. The plain room with straight back wooden benches was built in the 1840’s and has been used to continue the Quaker tradition on Nantucket, which began in the 1600’s. I was reminded that Quaker meetings are usually held in silence and that the centerpiece of Quaker theology is the belief that within each of God’s children is a ''palpable inner Light,'' which Quakers believe is a ''spark of the Divine'' that burns brightly and surely. One Quaker writer says, ''Deep within us there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.'' The writer further states that ''yielding to this Light Within is the beginning of true life.''

Because of their belief of this Inner Light, Quakers value all inputs from people because they believe that each of us holds a fragment of the Divine Light. It is said that Quakers ''work, speak, debate, pray, and wait until they can hear that place where the Light of God shows itself in full agreement.'' So, it seems to me, part of the human healing process and part of finding our inner being is to wait for the Light of God to show itself. This, incidentally, is why our forebears did not install stain glass windows in early, or even current, Congregational churches. Quakers believe that ''natural healing energies emerge gently and reliably from deep within us, if only we will be quiet enough to listen.'' To continue the nautical imagery of Nantucket, and to add a little more Nantucket wisdom, even in the middle of a hurricane, the bottom of the sea remains calm.

So, we might ask this morning, what if we really believed that a sacred light was part of our inner being? What if we really felt God’s presence, in Christ Jesus, as an integral part of our very makeup? What if we really believed that this wellspring of strength and hope is always available during the storms of life? And, what if we really believed, as the Psalmist did, that God ''satisfies the thirsty, and the hungry he fills with good things.'' (Psalm 107:9)

Our New Testament lesson this morning from Mark’s Gospel tells a popular Nantucket nautical story-that of Jesus calming a storm at sea. We are told that Jesus tells his disciples that they should leave the crowd and travel to another shore in a small boat. And in the midst of their travels, ''a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.'' The terrified disciples woke Jesus and shouted, ''Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'' Jesus then ''rebuked the wind, and said, ''Peace! Be still!'' Then, we are told, ''the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.'' Jesus then asked his disciples, ''Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?'' (Mark 4:37-40). In the midst of this life-threatening storm, Jesus demonstrates the importance of being still and relying on a Presence, an inner strength, which is stronger than the storm. When we are buffeted by storms that threaten to swamp our lives, Jesus tells us that there is a place of truth and peace within all of us, but we must be still and have faith. We not only can survive the storms of life, but the experience can be a bridge to a deeper and richer life.

Recently, I was reminded that the phrase that is most often used in the New Testament is ''Be not afraid.'' And it is interesting that the writers of these books of the Bible would use this phrase so often because we know that the early Christians were constantly being persecuted, arrested, tortured and murdered. So, the writers surely did not mean, ''Be not afraid because nothing harmful will ever come to you.'' Rather, they meant that whatever challenges come to you, there is within each of us a tangible Presence, a Spirit of God, that will bear us up, hold us, and keep us strong. Jesus is telling us that in spite of the vicissitudes of life that tend to break us, there is something inside of us that is not broken, something eternal that knows what is true. Thomas Merton calls this a ''hidden wholeness'' and it is simply waiting to be uncovered. And when we touch this place of truth and peace, we feel hope, because this is the spirit of who we are. In the midst of the raging storms of life, Jesus tells us that our wellspring and guide is already within us…be quiet and listen!

The writer Jack Kornfield tells the story of a tribe in Africa where the birth date of a child is counted not from the date of birth, but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree and listens until she can hear the song of the child that she wants to bring into this world. And after she has heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father and teaches the song to him. And when the woman becomes pregnant, she also teaches the midwives and the old women this song so that when the child is born, they can sing the child’s song to welcome it into the world. As the child grows, the villagers are taught the child’s song so that when the child is hurt or sad, they can comfort the child with its song, and the child begins to learn the power of their inner song. The villages continue to sing this child’s song to celebrate important events in its life, including marriage and parenthood. Finally, after many years have past and when the child is lying in bed ready to die, all the villagers gather to sing the song of that person to celebrate their very essence as he or she passes from this life. Thus, this inner song was the very source of strength and comfort for a lifetime.

So, this morning we might ask ourselves, ''What is my song?'' What is my essential core that remains whole and unbroken? Do I believe that I, as child of God, am inherently fragile or strong, broken or whole, loved or abandoned? How might I learn and sing my inner song?

Returning to the Nantucket dock, by having one club rule ''No Seats Reserved for the Mighty,'' the Wharf Rats give us the Nantucket wisdom that we need not be defined or limited by our successes and failures. Something more vital, strong, and true lies embedded deep within each of us. We are all meant to move beyond the narrowness of life; we all are meant to know that whatever challenges are given to us, there is a Presence, a luminosity, an ''amazing inner sanctuary of the soul,'' inside each of us that is strong enough to bear the challenge. We all can experience the God of new beginnings through Jesus Christ; we all are children of God with powers to experience healing, even when a ''cure'' may not be possible. In the words of the author Wayne Muller, ''when we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that break us open, and in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature,'' our true song, our true story. May each of us hear this Nantucket wisdom and be still and feel God’s Presence, particularly in stormy weather. AMEN.

Amen.