Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ

Sermon for June 21, 2009

We’re in the Boat Together

Pastor Marj Johnston

Mark 4:25-31, Jesus Calms a Storm (New Century Version)

³⁵That evening, Jesus said to his followers, “Let’s go across the lake.”  ³⁶Leaving the crowd behind, they took him in the boat just as he was.  There were also other boats with them.  ³⁷A very strong wind came up on the lake.  The waves came over the sides and into the boat so that it was already full of water.  ³⁸Jesus was at the back of the boat, sleeping with his head on a cushion.  His followers woke him and said, “Teacher, don’t care that we are drowning!”  ³⁹Jesus stood up and commanded the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!”  Then the wind stopped, and it became completely calm.  ⁴⁰Jesus said to his followers, “Why are you afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  ⁴¹The followers were very afraid and asked each other, “Who is this?  Even the wind and waves obey him!”

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This morning’s story from the gospel of Mark is a familiar one.  Jesus has been busy traveling with his disciples teaching, healing, and praying with and for people.  Through stories and parables Jesus has been sharing things with people who would listen, and the reading from last week ended with “…he explained everything in private to his disciples.”

I imagine that before long the disciples quit asking Jesus, “Why?” to most things and instead asked “What’s next?”  So to board a boat and travel across the lake in the evening was another opportunity for private conversations between Jesus and those who had been most faithful followers.  Or not.

Jesus slept while the disciples tended to the task of crossing the lake.  He put his life in their hands knowing that most of them were fishermen with experience on the water, so when the winds rise and stir the water and the waves begin to threaten the boat, he apparently has no worries.  Meanwhile, the disciples, seasoned as they are, must be thinking, “What the heck?  How can he sleep at a time like this?” I just can’t fathom why they decided on THIS journey that the storm was more threatening than previous storms.  What was it that made them think they couldn’t handle the boat in the storm this time?  What was it that made them uncertain of their skills and abilities as fishermen and sailors this time?

Perhaps it was this:  They had been working with Jesus, following his words closely and watching his actions with the people he was teaching.  They had seen him perform miracles for so many who were considered helpless or unlikely to receive help or healing from any other source.  A storm comes up, and they think this should be an easy matter for Jesus to remedy, especially for them since they were so faithful in following him.  That what THEY may have thought.

I suspect the disciples were not so very different from us as individuals, as a community, or even as a church.  On so many levels we fear disapproval, rejection, failure, meaninglessness, illness, and even death … our own or the death of those we love.  Even the death of dreams or visions we have for various elements of our common life together.

What we have here this morning is a glimpse at the faithful disciples who found themselves debilitated by fear of the storm and a reminder in the words of Jesus that they were the faithful disciples and could rely on what they knew of God, even in those most threatening moments.  This is a story about being afraid and trusting God in spite of circumstances they couldn’t control.

This is a story about us.  The imagery is about us.  We are like vulnerable craft on a life and faith journey as individuals and as a community.  We have no control over things that might threaten us or situations that might try to overcome us.  And we can admit that we long for knowing calm … both within us and around us.  I know there are times I’d like a little less wind and waves!

It’s interesting to note in this story that while Jesus sleeps, the disciples continue to focus on the task of getting across the lake, keeping the boat upright and free of taking on too much water from the waves.  It doesn’t say that together they decided what they needed to do to complete the trip or to guarantee their safe arrival on the other shore.  It doesn’t say they shared stories and reminded each other that they had survived worst storms in the past.  The story doesn’t say that suddenly they became courageous and decide to let Jesus sleep while they do all they can to complete the journey.

No, it reads, “His followers woke him and said, ‘Teacher, don’t you care that we are drowning!’”  In response, Jesus probably shook himself awake as he stood up and—as this particular translation says—he “commanded the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind stopped, and it became completely calm.” 

Of significance is that Jesus calmed the wind and the waves, instructing the wind and the waves to be calmed.  Jesus didn’t tell the disciples to be quiet or to be still.  In fact, to the disciples, Jesus said, ‘Why are you afraid?  Do you still have no faith?’”

He asked them why they were afraid, and didn’t they have faith yet?  The experience of Jesus sleeping in the boat through the storm until the panicked disciples woke him could have been so different with just a couple of different lines.  You see, Jesus could have calmed the storm, and then he could have told the disciples to calm as well.  But he didn’t.  And Jesus could have calmed the storm and then said to the disciples, “You have nothing to be afraid of.”  But he didn’t.  He simply asked them WHY they were afraid, trying to get them to think about all the experiences they had shared with him so far when they had seen and witnessed him perform miracles that had changed lives everywhere they went.  When I read this text, I couldn’t decide whether Jesus would have been slightly amused at how quickly the disciples seemed to forget that they were traveling with the one they called Messiah, or if he would have been agitated that he had to remind them again to have faith in what they had experienced of life with him so far, trust him that he would not let them die.

What’s the difference between saying, “You have nothing to be afraid of” and “Don’t be afraid”?

When I was a child, I shared a room with my sister who is 19 months younger.  I had the lower bunk of the bunk beds, and every evening for several years I remember at bedtime tiptoeing on certain patterns on the floor in order to avoid waking the alligator that I was convinced lived under my bed.  Real or not, I was certain it was there.  My mom was gentle in her nightly reassurance that I had nothing to be afraid of. 

Being told you have nothing to be afraid of isn’t entirely true.  The likelihood of an alligator under my bed in our home in southwest Washington was pretty minimal, that’s true.  But that didn’t mean that there weren’t things of which I shouldn’t be afraid.  And I suspect that my grandfather’s unexpected death was the beginning of my mom’s teaching me the difference between “You have nothing to be afraid of” and “Don’t be afraid.”

Jesus did NOT say to his disciples, “You have nothing to be afraid of.”  Instead, Jesus said, “Why are you afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  You see, Jesus saw that fearsome things are very real.  Many of us have known fear.  Many of us know other people who are isolated or struggling with either a physical, mental or emotional illness.  There are people we know who wrestle with meaninglessness in their lives, with rejection, with fear of losing their job, with money problems, chronic pain, or even death.

As we ask questions and grow in faith about who or what God is in our life, we also come to understand that while there are things of which we are afraid, they do not have the last word for us or with us.  If we believe in the teachings of Jesus and this idea that the God who created us has not left us alone but instead has given us the Spirit to be present to us and with us, then we also can know that in calming the wind and the waves, we can expect to be reminded, “Do not be afraid.”  

It isn’t that we can’t be afraid of things.  The gospel records are full of people who heard, “Do not be afraid.”  When Emmanuel was born, it was the angels who told the scared shepherds watching their flocks “Do not be afraid.”  When Mary and her friends when to the tomb to tend to the body of Jesus after his death, it was an angel who met them and said, “Do not be afraid.”  

There are indeed things we are afraid of in life … but God is with us.  And when we can’t quite wrap our heads around the idea that God is with us, we look around to see if there are others—any one other even—traveling through the experience with us.  In a way, that’s why when we say, “No matter who you are , no matter where you are in your faith journey, you are welcome here” makes all the difference.  You don’t have to journey through life alone.  You don’t have to face the wind and waves of life by yourself.  We’re in this boat together. 

We know as children that there are things we’re afraid that aren’t real.  And we learn—some of us too young—that there are real things of which we are and should be afraid.  But as people of faith, as people who are seeking to understand a relationship with the Holy, we come to understand something different.  Through the sacred stories of scripture and texts, through sacred stories of each life here, we are given glimpses of the Blessed Presence even in the midst of deep absence.  We have opportunities to know that the fearsome things in life do not need to paralyze us.  These fearful things do not need to stop us from living.  We are not alone in the world or in the boat.  We’re in the boat together. 

My own sense is that we are called to faithful lives as individuals and as a faith community … with implications for the community at large.  I am called to a life in which even in the midst of my greatest doubts and disappointments, fears and frustrations I still find the courage and the nerve to believe, not in myself but in God and God’s promise to be with me through it all, from start to finish.  And for me, it happens because you’re in the boat with me.

If each of us can find our capacity to live that way, with faith in the One we call Holy, we can be there with each other too.  In being together can be reminded that we don’t have to be afraid of anything, that we can have faith to get through life’s storms.  It’s a way of living the compassion of Christ, taking opportunities to share the journey WITH each other.  And it is rich with experiences sometimes of bailing water out of the boat, hoisting and lowering sails, sometimes using an oar – whatever it takes to keep the craft upright and sailing as we together live in the faith of the One who calms the wind and the waves, reminding each other that we ARE in the boat together, and together we will have faith enough to weather the storms.