Morning Prayer: Tom Lyda Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *The Storm Is Strong* Witness of Scripture: Mark 4: 35-41 Anthem *I Will Arise* Alice Parker & Robert Shaw. Chancel Choir Sermon *Faith and Fear* David Spain
Recorded on June 23, 2024
About a year ago, we were visiting family in Florida. One morning, our son-in-law took a small fishing boat from a slip in St. Petersburg back to its harbor in Tampa, a nice trip across Tampa Bay that normally takes about an hour. Pam decided to go along for the ride, while I travelled by car with our daughter back to Tampa. We all left about the same time, but Jana and I stopped for a quick lunch on the way back.While we sat in the restaurant, a storm kicked up…a dark blue menacing line moved in from the northwest and the wind was whipping the trees. As we crossed the causeway bridge toward Tampa, the placid bay was foaming with angry white caps. They are out there in the middle of that maelstrom…life jackets on the boat, yes; although that provided only small comfort. As Jana drove, I searched the waters for any signs of their boat, as the harbor where they were headed was not far off the road we were travelling.There was a small boat slowly making its way toward the harbor, still buffeted by the winds but none-theless upright and with power. What my eyesight could only guess, the sophisticated GPS on Jana’s phone confirmed…it was their boat. They were fine…a bit wet, but remarkably unshaken by the whole ordeal, although both agreed they never wanted to go through anything like that ever again.Life can turn in a hurry.
About 2,000 years ago there was another crossing of a body of water during which Jesus is with his disciples as they sail the Sea of Galilee. Oddly, Jesus and the disciples head into the waters as evening approaches, which is not an ideal time for making such a journey. The darkness is dangerous enough, and then a gale hits the boat and quickly their craft is taking on water. Jesus, who as Mark tells us boarded the boat ‘just as he was,’ whatever that might mean but we can presume it means Jesus is on board with neither life jackets nor sophisticated sailing gear; and neither is he in the crow’s nest on lookout. Instead, Jesus is fast asleep on a cushion in the back of the boat—a picture of exhaustion, and why wouldn’t he be, after all the preaching, healing and travelling. A three-hour tour at night is a perfect recipe for a quiet respite. We know that kind of exhaustion from time to time—who hasn’t slept through a nighttime storm at least once?
When it comes to this story, most of us are inclined to identify with the disciples in the boat more than with Jesus. Waves crashing across the bow of a ship in the darkest of night is terrifying.Their question to Jesus—“Do you not care that we are perishing?”—makes sense. Let’s give the disciples credit…they were afraid, they turned to Jesus.Seems like a faithful move on their part. For his part, as Mark tells the story, Jesus gets up from his tomb-like sleep and talks to the storm…which soft pedals how Mark wrote it. Jesus told the seas to zip it, which at times is how he spoke to antagonists; and then he told the seas to really be quiet (we would tell our 4-year-olds not to speak so rudely). Jesus employed the same language on occasion to muzzle unclean spirits. So far so good, all is calm if not bright. Then Jesus turns and asks the disciples a couple of questions—"Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” The questions seem obvious at one level and illogical at another level. When the waves are crashing and the boat is taking on water, being afraid seems pretty obvious; and the second question somehow does not follow the first. The disciples turned to Jesus—isn’t that an indication of faith not a lack of faith?What do we make of this story?
Years ago, during an episode of the television series M*A*S*H, one of the doctors is sitting with a soldier, listening to him talk about being afraid while being on the front line. During their talk, the company clerk Radar O’Reilly comes in and is very frightened about something that is happening outside. The doctor needs to attend to that issue, so asks Radar to sit with the soldier, telling him they have been talking about their fears. Radar connected immediately with the scared soldier by saying, “Fear is my best subject.” There are times when we are afraid. The title of the sermon is “Faith and Fear,” not “Faith or Fear.” When we think in terms of faith or fear, as if the opposite of fear is faith, then the gospel itself can be fearful in the worst kind of way with implications that can only make life worse. We have likely heard people say, “If you just had enough faith, then you would get what you pray for; if you just had enough faith, then you would get over being sick; if you just had enough faith, then you wouldn’t be afraid; if you just had enough faith, then you would win the contest—as if faith’s purpose is to gain advantage instead of keep perspective. When faith is simply set in opposition to fear—as in if you have fear you must not have faith—then our biblical story has become a tool for inducing guilt at the least and instilling terror at the worst.
Years ago, author Madeline L’Engle was asked, “Do you believe in God without any doubts,” to which she responded, “I believe in God with all my doubts.” A corollary can be made when it comes to fear.‘Do we have faith without any fears?’, to which a much healthier framing is “We have faith with all our fears.”Disciple minister Fred Craddock once said that no one’s faith is like high noon all the time. We all have times of doubt, uncertainty, fear.Sometimes faith and fear occupy the same space—Matthew said that when the women learned of Jesus’ resurrection, they had fear and great joy; and later Matthew wrote that the disciples believed and doubted. Both/and, not either/or.
Admittedly it is difficult to know exactly how to respond to this story. On the one hand we receive it—there is a storm and Jesus calms it. Maybe we have all sensed at some point that peace which passes all understanding—a calm emerges that we did not talk ourselves into but simply comes to us as a gift. Thanks be to God. It doesn’t mean we didn’t have fear; we had both faith and fear. But we also know there are times when the winds don’t let up immediately, when the storm does not abate quickly. Whether an internal or an external storm, feelings of fear do not mean faith is absent. When we are afraid, we do ourselves no good by beating ourselves up like waves against a boat, some scornful voice in our heads shaking a finger at us telling us our faith is lacking.
So, what do we do with Jesus’ question to his disciples about their faith? It is a rather pointed question. What is interesting about the disciples is that Jesus’ question stirs their own question. The disciples didn’t go into some funk about their ‘lack of faith;’ instead, they ask a really good question—“Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Jesus is not interested in embarrassing anyone, annihilating anyone, conquering anyone.Instead, he wants to engage people —he invites people to consider how faith informs and shapes our living.What does our faith offer to any issue, to any challenge, to any difficulty? We have so many ways in which we make sense of life—we have our own experience; we have civic perspectives; we have family filters; we have tradition and history. How does faith shape and reshape our perspective on any question? How does faith address fear? The disciples ask a very fine question, and in story after story when people encounter Jesus, they often come away with a life shaping question.“Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him? Who is this that speaks with such authority? Who is this who eats with sinners and tax collectors? Who is this who instructs his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath? Who is this that not even the grave can contain him?”
There is no single answer that addresses these questions, because Jesus is not to be reduced to a bumper sticker slogan, nor coopted for any particular interest.Mark’s story reminds us that Jesus spent his life crossing all kinds of expanses. He crosses the threshold of heaven and earth, is born and baptized, and then spends most of his ministry getting crossways with both religious and civil authorities by confronting entrenched interests on the one hand, and healing people many considered a lost cause. He crossed the sea, crossed the neighborhood, went out beyond the protective gates and the secure enclaves to walk on soil called pagan or occupied. This one who talks to legions of demons and foaming waves “will talk to anyone: members of opposing parties, hostile foreign heads of state, sinners, Samaritans, people out to destroy him,” writes Katherine Layzer.“Offered a choice between fight and flight, he goes with direct engagement. He speaks to the storm and utters that word of power spoken over the waters from the beginning. He speaks, and the eternal word is present—greater than the wind and the wave, greater than our fear of conflict, greater than our drive for power and dominion, greater than sin, greater than death.” (The Christian Century, 6/16/2009)
“Who is this?” The story invites us to ask, ‘What do we fear?’ There were some who feared Jesus, because if he wasn’t rocking the boat himself at times there were powerful forces stirring up tempests against Jesus.What do we fear? However we respond, let us always ask the follow up question—“How can our faith respond to our fear?” No one says this is easy, nor at times even comfortable—but it can be healing, it can be redeeming, it can be empowering. Jesus asks about faith and fear; but when he asks, fear is never the goal; fear is never the method. The goal is goodness, mercy, well-being; and the method is always love. So, if you run into a religion that is trying to scare you or threaten you into faith, find another religion. And if you run into a religion that is willing to talk about how faith and fear interact, you might have run into Jesus there in the boat with you. If he is asleep, go ahead and wake him up. He’s never too tired for honesty, never too tired for wonder, never too tired to transform and renew anyone.
We may be heading back to Tampa in September…hurricane season! Oy vey! We may pass on the boat ride across the bay this time; but that’s okay because we have learned several things, the most important being that faith is not the absence of fear; it is the presence of love in the face of fear.