As we continue with our sermon series on real life proverbs, I was thinking of a proverb from the Book of Psalms. Psalms 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” This is in proverb form. It is short and pithy and it will help us with life. But many of us have lost the knack of how to use the bible. Maybe we never were raised with sacred texts, or maybe we have grown cynical and grown away from the habit. Or maybe we just never think about the bible much at all. Too many other things spring up and claim our attention. But this morning I would like to start out with a word of advise. Get yourself a favorite story from the bible, or maybe a handful of stories. We know we should read the bible beginning to end. That is a great practice. We start out strong in Genesis and a lot is happening in the creation of the world and in the lives of the patriarchs. We slow down a little in Exodus but shear willpower keeps us going. But then even the devout stall somewhere in Leviticus. We give up the project as beyond us. But we so desperately need a scriptural emergency kit, a set of stories that tell us about God and us that we can turn to again and again. God stories can save our lives. We need to grab these stories and chew on them so that they become not just God stories but our stories too.
Today’s passage from Mark, about Jesus asleep in the boat, the disciples panicking in the storm and waking him up and Jesus calming the sea, is one of those important stories and it is one of my absolute favorites. Every time I turn to this story I find more parallels to my life. I see more wisdom. This is a story about what to do in a storm, how it feels to be in a storm, how God saves our bacon every time. Today’s core real life proverb is, when trust is impossible, wake Jesus up.
Ever notice how irritating it is to watch someone else sleep? This irritation has a lot to do with what is inside of us. I suppose when I am in a calm peaceful state; I can look at others sleeping peacefully with equanimity and tolerance. Certainly I love to look at toddlers and babies sleeping. But that is because when I see a toddler or baby sleeping, my life is more peaceful. But watching a teenager, or a spouse or a school chum or a sibling sleeping is completely different. This isn’t peaceful. It is often irritating. One of two things are going through our minds; all the things they, the teenager, spouse, co-worker, could be doing to help us if they were awake, or how peacefully we could be sleeping if we weren’t awake watching that irritating person sleeping. If you can, I want you to think about a time when you were watching someone peacefully sleeping and you kicked their foot, dropped a bucket of water on them or blew a foghorn in their ear. Or if you didn’t do one of those things you thought about it. Sleepovers, pajama parties, college dorms and youth group mission trips are ground zero for these kinds of pranks.
What is happening when we want everyone to be awake like we are? We are people driven by needs and wants. The harder our needs and wants press on us the more we want to stir up everyone around us. This passage of Jesus asleep and being awakened by the disciples is a microcosm for what happens inside of us when we are in turmoil. This passage doesn’t yield just one real life proverb it reveals many. As we go through this short passage we are going to pull out proverb after proverb to help us to live life with God’s word as a lamp unto our feet.
The story starts out so ordinary. “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” Gosh, many of these guys were fisherman. Going in a boat to the other side must have been so ordinary. This was as ordinary as a run to the grocery store or the commute home or getting on the school bus. That is how life is right before the storm; you just don’t anticipate the extra ordinary happening. The line that is so telling for me is that Jesus went, “just as he was.” We go into the good and bad of our lives “just as we are.” We can’t possibly arm ourselves for every eventuality. Perhaps it would be best if we always carried our “Mae West” life preservers, our inflatable life raft, our water purification tablets, our snake bite kit, our seatbelts fastened and our tray tables in the upright and locked position. We go into our lives “just as we are” with what preparation we have made.
A TV New camera crew interviewed a homeowner in southern Florida after the destruction of Hurricane Andrew. The whole neighborhood was devastated but this guy’s house remained. The owner was asked why he thought his house stood the storm. He said he built the house to the hurricane code, with 2x6 roof trusses. He understood that whether the storm came or not wasn’t about him. His job was simply to be as prepared as he could be.
You have only to speak to a long time pastor to understand the people go into the great storms of life just as they are, prepared or not. Ask the Reverend Doctor Steve Polley the difference between walking into the hospital room of a faithful mature believer and the hospital room of someone in an un-reflected life and you will sense the difference. Recently I visited with a man in at the very end of his life. This was a joyous visit, filled with grace and humor and acceptance. This man’s life was not without storms but he weathered them secure in his knowledge that he was loved, accepted, forgiven and healed on the most important levels. This is the difference made when we go into the storm as we are, prepared by God.
This is what Jesus spoke of when he said we needed to build on a rock and not the sand. Life will throw storms our way. So when we get into the boat just as we are, it is helpful to get into the boat with Jesus, just as he is. There is the core of wisdom. Go with God. Jesus is the Immanuel, which means ‘God with us’. So set out with God. Prepare, as you can, be an expert sailor like the fishermen in the boat. But ultimately, when you go with God you have the essentials, just as you are. So the next real life proverb is to go into the storm just as you are with Jesus just as he is.
The passage goes on, “Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.” Other boats were on the Sea of Galilee. Boy! It is easy to overlook this line. As the boat was being swamped don’t you immediately think of them all alone on the lake! How many times have I read this passage and not paid attention. Other boats were with him. This is how it is when we are being swamped. We think we are alone. We have this tunnel vision that forgets how many people are if not in the same boat, in the same storm. This is one of the things that God is constantly trying to remind us. We are people of God, not God’s only person. We are children of God and not the only child. Paul is constantly reminding the churches that he is writing to that they are not Christ’s only church, but that this church needs prayer, this church is in the midst of famine, that church is sending workers and help. The blindness that happens in a storm is that we don’t see the other boats around us. This is the kind of myopia that Christ came to heal us of. The next real life proverb is that we aren’t the only boat on the lake.
When the disciples were about to be swamped they did the most natural and profound thing. They woke Jesus up. “But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Now this wasn’t the best example of trust in God. It was not accompanied by swelling music and downy wisps of angel wings. The cry for help was as much recrimination and accusation as prayer. But it was still prayer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t yank the pillow out from under Jesus head and give his shoulder a good shake. If buckets weren’t in use from bailing out the boat they might have thrown a pail of sea water on him. We think of prayer as sweet and polite, beseeching and timid, as though God isn’t strong enough to stand up to our great need. But God is. The Psalms are full of prayers that aren’t blessedly reverent and properly humble. They are sometimes bitter. They accuse God of not hearing them. They wonder how long, how long is it going to take God to act. Need is a sharp pointy stick that often does not bring out our best. Sometimes we can’t wait to get the words of our prayer poetic and elevated enough. We can’t be calm and polite. Yet God answers the prayers of our heart in all their forms. Jesus acts and answers this kind of prayer too. For our passage says, “He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.”
Jesus says a curious thing to the disciples now after the sea is stilled. “He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’” So often this passage is treated as Jesus waiving a finger at and rebuking the disciples for their fear of the storm. But that might not be the right interpretation. Notice that Jesus asks why they are still afraid, not why they were afraid. The verb tense is important. Anyone who encounters a class four hurricane or a tornado or an earthquake and isn’t afraid is an idiot. God created us with an inherent sense of preservation and part of that God given emergency adrenaline response is fear. We are physical creatures meant to act quickly to survive. Jesus isn’t rebuking the disciples for their fear of the storm. He is rebuking them for their fear of him. It is after the storm is past, when the sea is calm that the disciples have an awe that boarders on fear. When we encounter God, when we encounter Jesus as he really is as master of wind and sea, then we are suddenly aware of how little we know and how dependent we are. God wants us to move from fear to trust.
In C.S. Lewis' fairy tale, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, four children find themselves in a strange world. A talking beaver welcomes them into his home and explains that the land is held captive by an evil sorceress, but hope is beginning to blossom. The true king, Aslan, is returning. When Mr. Beaver explains that Aslan is a lion, Susan asks,
Is he — quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.
That you will, Dearie, and no mistake, said Mrs. Beaver, if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.
Then he isn't safe? Said Lucy.
Safe? said Mr. Beaver. Don 't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? `Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.
We want things and storms and God to be safe. Safe is the thing we control. The truth is we don’t control God. When we wake up Christ we don’t wake up Christ so that he can do our bidding. We wake up Christ so that we can live in him in life and death. This is not safe, but it is good. Faith is better than safety. Faith drives out fear.
The disciples ask the most important question at the very last of this story. They ask, “Who is this?” That is the question we all have to ask. Who do we want to entrust our lives to? Can we wake up this sleeping Christ? Can we stir a living God in our life? Amen
