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‘Peace, be still,’ said Jesus to a raging sea, and the waters calmed.

The people in the boat where he had been asleep were amazed: ‘Who is this that even the waves obey him?’ During the storm they had been terrified, but also on the edge of outrage with Jesus: ‘Do you not care that we are going to die?’ They had to shake him awake, after all.

What are we to make of the Tsunami set in motion by the slip of one continent under another, sending millions of people to flee for higher ground around the Pacific rim? Thank goodness the warnings have been downgraded. But the question remains, was God asleep?

There was a moment of extraordinary, inexorable creation, and threat, as the continent quaked and shifted. The waves came for all, but the risk of harm was not shared equally. The risk is, as ever, greatest for communities already impoverished, without warning systems or infrastructure to support evacuation and recovery.

Thus, a natural event like a Tsunami can become a far greater disaster because of human failings and existing inequality. This should and does lead beyond the edge of outrage – it is not inevitable, and if someone was asleep, I do not think it was God. Imagine with me that Jesus, if speaking today, ‘peace be still’, might not face the waves but might instead turn to speak to humanity, together as we are in this one boat.

And it might be in our power to listen not just when a Tsunami is coming. On Tuesday on this programme, a volunteer with the RNLI, the lifeboats, spoke about why they try to rescue ALL in peril, including those crossing the English Channel in small boats. ‘We are driven by compassion,’ she said.
Driven is an interesting verb – it implies not just a warm regard or easy sympathy but being compelled. Not against their will – far from it. But compelled, nonetheless. Compassion is a muscle that strengthens as we use it more, and our communities are changed by its use: they get stronger, more resilient, dare I say of my adoptive nation, more British.

To obey in Christian teaching is never to be forced against my will, but rather to choose to let compassion takes my will and drive my response.
In the life of these islands, the sea has carried our missionaries, our armed forces, our goods in trade - sometimes to our great shame, and sometimes to our honour. The sea has always been a source of danger, and of opportunity. Today as it ebbs and flows, may all who travel on it or live beside it find safety.

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