Lets start
with a story. And its the story of a young boy who was in the kitchen as his
mother was making dinner. Now you may remember the pantry or larder that we
used to have in our kitchens. They were a bit dark and you were never quite
sure what you might find if you ventured inside. Well the boys mother asked him
to go into the pantry to get her a tin of chopped tomatoes, but he didn't want
to go in alone. ‘It's dark in there and
I'm scared’ said the boy. His
mother persisted and asked him again, but again the young boy declined. So
finally she said to her son, ‘It's OK -
you don’t have to be scared. Jesus will be in there with you.’ So the young
boy walked hesitantly to the door of the pantry and slowly opened it. He peeked
inside, saw it was dark, and was about to leave when all at once he remembered
what his mother had told him, and said: ‘Jesus,
if you're in there, would you hand me that tin of tomatoes please?’
Fear. Most
of us encounter situations that will lead to that type of instinctive human response.
It’s the instinctive response of the disciples who are caught up in a violent
storm whilst crossing the Sea of Galilee in a frail sailing vessel, and can
resonate with us in the winds and waves that we sometimes face in our own
seemingly fragile lives. None of us are immune. Whether its a fear of the
future because of all the changes that have happened or are happening in our
lives; losing our health, and being dependent on others to take care of us;
fear of being unable to support ourselves financially; or fear of losing a
loved one, and the loneliness that that would entail for us - we know what fear
feels like. So how might we understand better the way in which God is active in
the fragility of our lives?
Mark
describes for us how in this story Jesus conveys three important things which
we might take hold of in the midst of difficulty and distress. Firstly recognising
that God is present with us; secondly discovering that we can trust
him with our lives; and thirdly that he wants to transform us from the
state of paralysis which fear can cause in us. Recognition - trust - transformation.
Firstly then
we are encouraged to recognise that God is, if you like,
in the boat with us. To begin with though we need to understand the context in
which Mark is writing. Mark writes to a community which is in the midst of
persecution, leading lives which were at
risk and governed by fear. It’s a desperate community where fear is all
encompassing and pervasive. So this story set on the Sea of Galilee would have
urged that community, and also us, to recognise that God is with us in the
midst of the storm. That he is with us. Not remote and uninvolved.
We might
think that it was patently obvious that God was with those disciples. Jesus was
after all in the boat. But listen to what those disciples say. ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are
perishing.’ Teacher, they call Jesus - not Lord. They do not
recognise who he is. But then Jesus rebukes the wind and gives a command to the
sea: ‘Peace. Be still!’ And the storm
is calmed. Its a repeat of a the episode in Capernaum where Jesus rebukes and
commands a demon to be silent. On that occasion also the disciples ask who this
Jesus is, that he commands even unclean spirits and silences them. And as the
phenomenon of silence is again delivered at his command on the sea of Galilee,
Mark moves the disciples toward the recognition that this Jesus is no ordinary teacher.
He is no other than the incarnate God of their ancestors. The same God
described in todays Psalm - 107 - as the one who: ‘commanded ...... the stormy wind’ .
But there is
something else. We often wonder where God is in the stormy wind. The disciples desperately
wondered that whilst their boat filled with water. And Job in the old testament spends 37 chapters giving voice to
the question - Where are you? The disciples - Job - we all plead, for
God's presence with us. A sense that God is near, concerned, interested, and
cares for us. We might not always
readily recognise his presence just like those disciples. We want him just to
do something. But Mark encourages us further that the deep calm sleep which
Jesus initially displays is not inactivity or detachment on his part. Instead
its a picture of that which he offers to us
in contrast to the destruction of the storm. Sometimes we just need to
be still and know that he is God.
The second thing that Mark urges us to do in this story is to
consider the question of trust. I was at the Abbey with
others last thursday evening to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury speak. One of
the stories he told was of the former Archbishop of Saigon who was arrested and
imprisoned in Vietnam for 13 years. In solitary confinement for most of that
period, subject to torture and having to listen to others undergoing the same,
he was challenged to consider whether he could trust God when God was all that
he had left. How do we respond in difficult circumstances?Can we trust him?
When Job complains about his own suffering, God answers him by taking him on a
whirlwind tour of wonder at the power behind creation. And God points to
himself as the one who is both intimately involved in all that he has created
and who remains in control of it. To Job God says - I am in control - trust me.
Similarly, Jesus asks the disciples in the boat, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith’, before they too are
awestruck at his command over creation by calming the storm.
In the difficult moments of our lives can we still have
faith? When we are losing something, can we hold onto a basic trust in
God, no matter what the circumstances? Because that is the challenge - to
entrust ourselves and our very lives into the care of this God - especially
when we’re afraid. And how might we trust? Its a difficult thing. But it
will involve us letting go of whatever it is we’re afraid to lose—whether it is our health, our financial security, our
relationships, even our very life. Because the essence of fear is an
insistence that we are in control.
The disciples battled with the boat in the storm rather than
trusting Jesus whilst he remained asleep. They couldn’t bring themselves to
trust in Jesus, who was with them, until they were so desperate that they
shouted at him in frustration. Sound familiar? The real essence of faith is
letting go. And its in the letting go that we find peace, contentment, even joy
taking the place of fear—regardless of our circumstances. We can’t pretend
that’s easy, because it’s not. Mark though urges us to look beneath our
fear and see the sustaining hand of the God of grace and mercy, even when
life’s twists and turns daunt us.
Thirdly, Mark presents a Jesus who calls us out of fear. Fear
is no way to live. God desires for us to flourish, to be whole, and we cannot
do that by living in our fear. This story in Mark’s gospel follows directly
after Jesus has delivered the parable of the sower. And Jesus asks us to
consider whether we will sow this seed of faith or trust upon fertile ground.
The fertile ground that vests in him so that our fears might be transformed.
Because he does not want us to remain in our fear and be governed by it. And so
he encourages us not to remain in the midst of the storm, but to trust in him
to transform that which we find disabling and debilitating. The disciples fears
are not evaporated as Jesus calms the wind and the sea. Instead he transforms
them from the paralysing anxiety that they create, and which assumes the worst,
to a kind of holy awe at the presence and power of the God in their midst.
That's the invitation for us as well: to bring our fears, anxieties, and
concerns to God as best we can. And to watch as they are transformed so that we
become increasingly aware of his presence.
So what in the end does Jesus have to say to us as we live
out the unpredictable lives which give rise to our fears. Well you have to
wonder if the disciples would have got into the boat if they had known that
they were going to sail into the storm. Maybe not. But thats what the Sea of
Galilee is like apparently. Calm and serene one moment but subject to sudden changes
which produce gale force winds the next. There are just some things that you
cannot predict. There is always a question as to whether we would have avoided
changes in our lives had we known they were afoot. But life isn’t like that.
Its not a question of if change will happen, but rather when. We can fear all sorts of things that
life might throw at us sometimes - the
wind and waves of fear that manifest themselves in our lives as
disapproval, rejection, failure, meaningless, illness - all kinds of adversity.
But if we will listen to the God who is with us and who
asks us to trust him, so that he may transform our fears, we
might too hear these words from Isaiah:
‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and
through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
do not fear,
for I am with you,
do
not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will
strengthen you, I will help you,
I
will uphold you with my victorious right hand.’
Then we might know the image conveyed for us by Mark this morning.
The image of Christ with his arms extended wide over the whole of our lives
saying, ‘ Peace . Be still’!
Revd Shaun Speller, Curate, Parish of Harpenden
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