Have you ever had one of those days when it seems as though your "to do" list is a mile long and growing? Well Bernard was having one of those days. Bernard had woken up tired. He didn’t think that it could possibly be time to get up when his alarm clock went off. He rolled out of bed and got ready to start his day. He packed lunch for himself and the kids. Got the kids on the bus to school and set off for work.

Even before he walked in the door, his boss was adding things for him to do. His desk was piled up with paperwork, the message light for his voicemail was blinking incessantly, and his e-mail inbox was threatening to crash with the volume of e-mails each meriting a response. Bernard jumped into the fray, tackling e-mails and phone messages, filling out paperwork but despite all his efforts he seemed to be making little headway. The e-mails kept coming and while he was returning one phone call three more messages were deposited into his voicemail. You might say that Bernard was straining at the oars as he tried to row his way through the sea of paperwork and messages.

In one episode of MASH, all of the officers are given special additional duties. Father Mulcahy is given the onerous task of garbage officer. It is his unfortunate duty to manage the waste that the unit produces and unfortunately they are way overdue for a garbage pick-up. In one scene, we see Hawkeye stop by the garbage dump to talk with the priest. Using modified broomsticks, Father Mulcahy and Hawkeye try to push the tall pile of garbage back into some kind of order. As they carry on their conversation, different parts of the garbage pile begin to collapse and they have to rush to that area to shore up the pile and keep the garbage from taking over the whole camp. You might say they were straining at the oars as they tried to manage the rising tide of the garbage.

The disciples were having one of those days too. The day had begun when they had come back from preaching and teaching in the surrounding countryside and were reporting to Jesus what they had encountered there. While the disciples were reporting in, crowds of people were coming to them begging for attention. They didn’t even have time to eat.

So they jump into a boat and rowed to what they hoped would be a deserted place where they could relax for a while. The deserted place turned out not to be so deserted what with the 5,000+ people there. So instead of resting and relaxing, the disciples listened to Jesus as he taught the crowd of people.

Exhausted from the day, the disciples remind Jesus of the lateness of the hour and the rumbling in their stomachs. But instead of sending the crowd away and allowing the disciples to rest, Jesus instructs them to wait upon the vast crowd with five loaves and two measly fish. But passing out baskets of food wasn’t the end of the disciples’ day. After everyone had eaten, the disciples still had to do the clean-up. They had to go around and collect all the crumbs and leftover pieces of fish. Surely after collecting the food, they would be able to rest, right?

No. No sooner had the extras been put in the basket when Jesus (here’s Mark’s favorite word again) "immediately" makes them get into the boat and row to the other side of the sea. There is just no rest for the disciples. I wonder what the disciples were thinking as they got into the boat for a second time that day. I wonder what must have been running through their minds as they put their hands on the oars for another trip across the sea. Were some of them too exhausted to row? Were others resentful about being sent off from the crowd so quickly? Did one of them ask why they couldn’t just spend the night right there on the green grass where the people had eaten? Did any of them stop to wonder how in the world Jesus was going to meet up with them?

Last week, while at the beach with my family and my Uncle Ernie we were reminiscing about some of the previous trips we had taken together. I was reminded of one trip that I had almost forgotten about. We had gone up to visit my uncle in Minnesota and were taking a canoe trip with his children. My sister, cousin and I were in one canoe while the others followed in a canoe of their own. When we got to the river there was a powerful wind blowing upriver. In fact, it was blowing so hard that it was difficult to tell which way the river was flowing. It whipped our hair around as we pushed the canoes into the water.

We had planned to go a few miles downstream, stopping somewhere along the way to have lunch. Going downstream is supposed to be easy – you just let the current take you. But the wind was so ferocious that day that we were straining at the oars to get downstream. We struggled until we reached a sandbar that was large enough to have lunch on. Exhausted, we ate our sandwiches.

After some discussion about the struggle it had been to get downstream this far, we decided that we would no longer fight the wind but allow it to take us back upstream. So after lunch had settled, we got back into the canoes and allowed the wind to blow us back to our starting point. When we gave in to the wind, we were no longer straining against the oars but allowed the wind to guide our course.

After the disciples had pulled away from the shore, Jesus dismissed the crowd and went off by himself to pray. It was around 4 a.m. when Jesus came down from praying on the mountain and saw that the disciples were not making any progress against the wind on the sea. They were straining at the oars as they tried to row against the ferocious wind. Or more literally they were "being tortured in rowing."

With his eyes opened from his time in prayer, Jesus sees his disciples struggling and walks out to them. Now as we learned before, it had been a very long day for the disciples. Now they had been rowing and rowing for hours without seeming to make any progress. They must have thought that they had truly lost their grip on reality when they saw someone come walking toward them on top of the water. Exhausted and thinking that they were hallucinating, the disciples are terrified when a voice rings out over the noise of the wind, "Take heart, it’s me. Don’t be afraid." But the way the disciples would have heard it was more like, "Take heart, I AM. Don’t be afraid."

"I AM"…these words had come out from the burning bush that Moses stopped to take a look at. "Who should I say is sending me?" "I AM is sending you." And here in this moment of panic and terror, the disciples hear, "I AM. Don’t be afraid."

After Jesus declares who he is, he hops into the boat, the winds died down, and the disciples don’t have to strain quite so hard at the oars to row across the lake. But Mark tells us that the disciples still don’t get it. They didn’t understand what feeding all those people was about and their hearts were hardened. Another echo of Moses’ story comes through here. When Moses went to Pharaoh and said, "Let my people go." Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. When Moses said, "I AM has sent me. Let my people go." Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Now the disciples hear that I AM is in the boat with them and their hearts are hardened.

It is no mistake of architecture that the underside of the roof of many churches looks like the hull of a boat. It is a sturdy construction technique but it also reminds us that we as a church are like the disciples in the boat. Sometimes we row like crazy against strong winds. We strain at the oars or the rising waves around us.

But how easy is it to forget that I AM is in the boat with us? How easy is it to have our hearts hardened by the rising tide of paperwork facing us at work or the sea of chores around the house that never seem to end? How easy is it to have our hearts hardened when we see the signs that people hold up on street corners – from "Hungry, in need of work" to messages of hateful protest? How easy is it for us to harden our hearts to the ones in the boat with us – fellow disciples or even I AM? It is easy isn’t it? After all, a hardened heart is impervious to pain. A hardened heart is tough to break.

But even as the disciples’ hearts were hardened, they put their hands to the oars and rowed to the next stop along the way. Even with their lack of understanding, they rowed on ahead. Even with their doubts, they rowed on ahead. Even with their fears, they rowed on ahead.

Where is this boat, this church, rowing to? What’s the next stop along the journey for us the followers of Jesus gathered in this place at this time? What are the fears and doubts you have? What hardens your heart about moving forward? Hear these words of Christ anew, "Take heart, I AM. Do not be afraid."