Fraternity-Testvériség, 1962 (40. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1962-07-01 / 7. szám

FRATERNITY

3

“IN CHRIST THERE IS NO EAST OR WEST”

SERMON PREACHED IN WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL

by

The Very Reverend Francis B. Sayre, Jr., Dean

And behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea: But he was asleep.

And they came to him, and awoke him, saying: "Save, Lord; we perish!"

And he saith unto them:

"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"

Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea; And there was a great calm.

(St. Matthew 8:24-26, ASV)

★ ★ ★

Surely a storm at sea is a terrifying thing! I was once on a ship that was all but broken in two by a hurricane. She held together only by a few twisted plates of steel. Like the disciples, in their little boat, the crew and I commended ourselves to God’s mercy; and I suppose that our fear betrayed our little faith. But such a tempest, upon the waters of the deep, is but a tiny squall compared to the holocausts that sweep through history — the wars and empires, revolution and slaughter. We, who live at this moment in the aftermath of the most devastation of these turmoils, are aware that the vessel of man’s common life is sundered all but in twain. It hangs together by a few twisted strands: a world divided and broken, in danger of the final break which will send it to the depths.

Those who had known Christ, by that Sea of Galilee, remembered Him later on when the wrath of the Roman Empire crackled about their ears. They remembered how He alone stilled the storm and gave calm. They recorded in their Bibles the story of the lake, knowing now that it was the truth of all history. Through Christ’s love the holocaust is quelled and brokenness healed.

There are some in the world today who believe this. But many more do not. Never was the watershed between them of little faith and them of none made plainer to me than by two visits — in the space of six days recently — to two towns newly rebuilt after their destruction by the Nazis.

The first of these was Lidice, that quiet village in Czechoslovakia of which the Germans made a dreadful example by killing every male inhabitant, imprisoning the women and children, and flattening every house literally to the ground. But it was no joy to see the new village erected by the Communist regime of the latter day. For hate had been answered by hate. We were taken to no homes of Christian folk, but only to see the gruesome film the Germans themselves had taken