Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
Sunday Eucharist 8:30 a.m. - Spoken Word 10:00 a.m. - Music & Live Stream
June 23, 2024
Christ the King-Epiphany, Wilbraham
The Rev. Martha S. Sipe
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 12B
Mark 4:35-41
Jesus was asleep in the stern. When I hear the disciples’ question – “Do you not care that we are perishing?” – I am led to believe that the disciples thought that Jesus was being negligent. Like he was asleep at the wheel. And their concern, while misdirected, was not unfounded.
As I understand it, the storms on the Sea of Galilee are notoriously severe because that body of water is well below sea level and it is surrounded by towering hills. The difference in height between the land and the water apparently causes large temperature and pressure variations. Storms can develop quickly and without warning. And because the Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow, just 200 feet at its greatest depth, its waters are whipped up by the wind more rapidly than in a deep body of water, where energy is more readily absorbed. Mark tells us that all of a sudden, the waves were beating on the boat, and more than just beating on the boat, they were swamping it. And theirs was not the only boat. The others who were accompanying them were also in danger. Now remember, at least some of the disciples were fishermen by profession – fishermen on that very body on which they were sailing. That they, the professional sailors, were afraid for their lives tells us just how severe this storm was. And yet Jesus was asleep in the stern.
But asleep in the stern is not the same thing as asleep at the wheel.
The fact that Jesus was able to sleep through this terrific storm tells me that he was either
utterly exhausted or truly trusting. Or quite probably both. He must have been tired. He had been teaching and healing and appointing disciples and dealing with conflicts in his family and the crowds following just kept growing – and kept following! Hence, the other boats along with Jesus’ boat. When they had gotten on board it was evening, and I can only imagine that Jesus probably thought he could grab forty winks. And he must have needed it. But I suspect that he was ALSO able to sleep through the thunder and lightning, in spite of the wind and the waves, because he was trusting. So perfect was his confidence in his heavenly Father that I doubt much kept him awake at night.
And so the lesson for us is . . . be more like Jesus? If that works for you, then you can stop listening now. I don’t know, maybe the coffee’s ready and you could go out and get a cup and rejoin us when you hear Mark playing the hymn. No, really, I’m joking . . . please don’t go. Because even if all you need to hear today is “just try harder to trust,” and that works for you now, there may come a time when it won’t. Because I think, for most of us, fear and anxiety are not as abruptly and easily turned off as Jesus apparently turned off the storm. In fact, when I hear, “just try harder to trust,” or “just have more faith,” it usually has the opposite effect on me. Not only am I unsuccessful at flipping the anxiety switch, I also feel bad about myself that I can’t.
That’s why I find this story very reassuring because, obviously, the disciples can’t either. Even they, who had the benefit of apprenticing at Jesus’ side, even they who had seen Jesus do some pretty awesome thing, still didn’t have it all together. Faith is a journey. And it’s a journey of discovery – and rediscovery – of what God can and will do for us. If the disciples, in spite of their up-close-and-personal relationship with Jesus, still had the capacity to find new awe in Jesus’ power and identity, then so can we.
I also find this story reassuring when I notice how the disciples expressed their lament with such raw honesty: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” That’s a fairly inflammatory accusation to fling at the Son of God! But Jesus doesn’t rebuke them. He does ask them why they’re afraid, and I guess, depending on how you imagine Jesus’ tone of voice, you could understand his question to be a rebuke. But I, personally, don’t hear it as a scold – not for their fear and not for candidly expressing it. That tells me that there’s no need to pussy-foot around, no need to clean up our language or our emotions when we’re praying. God wants us honestly to express ourselves, whatever we’re feeling, even if it’s politically incorrect, even more if it’s theologically incorrect. God can handle it. And just as in our human relationships, the more honestly, we speak and the more openly we listen, the stronger our relationship with God will grow.
From this story, we learn that we don’t have to have faith all figured out and that we shouldn’t try to hide from God how we’re really feeling. And it's only when I acknowledge both of those things that I am able to receive the ultimate good news in this story: that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all creation; that ultimately, everything is under his control; that I can trust. In so many times and so many places, we may wonder if God is absent – in tragedies local, national, and global. We hear of murder-suicides and house fires in our own community. We read about two more mass casualty shootings just this weekend – one in Arkansas and one in Kentucky. We feel the intense heat wave which has brought discomfort and danger to such a large swath of the country and we watch, anxiously, for what is forecasted to be a very active hurricane season. Plus there are conflicts and wars, droughts and famines, human rights violations and oppression, not to mention that the whole planet is warming even faster than anticipated. It’s easy to wonder if God is asleep at the wheel. But as the disciples learned, even when the Son of God is asleep in the stern, it doesn’t mean he’s asleep at the wheel. There is no storm, no squall, no threat over which he cannot prevail. And as long as we let him stay in the boat with us, he will not abandon ship. Then, like the disciples, we will be filled with great awe when we realize that even wind and sea, even life and death, obey him. And then perhaps we, like Jesus, will be able to take our rest in the midst of the storm.
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