“Fight, Flight, and Faith”- June 24, 2012 Sermon
June 24, 2012
Scripture: Mark 4: 35-41
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. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 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?”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. 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?”
Sermon: Fight, Flight, and Faith
By: Rev. Doreen Oughton
So it’s officially summer. We had the summer solstice, school is out, the weather sweltered, and I am going on vacation. Today, right after annual meeting. It’s been a busy month for me. How about you? How much did you take on, not just this month, but over the year. I’ve seen what goes on here – the programs, the fundraisers, the fellowship. And I know how involved many of you are in the community, and how engaged you are with your families. I know how many of you I’ve turned to for help, support, to take on a task. Sometimes I feel like I am a go-to person, and I recognize that trait in lots of you here. The go-to people. As capable and gifted and energetic as you are, I know that there are times when you, when we, when I get overwhelmed, exhausted.
When I read this week’s gospel, I was struck with the reality that Jesus got exhausted too. He was the real go-to guy. In this morning’s passage, it is evening, and Jesus asks his disciples to take him in the boat to the other side, leaving the crowd behind. This mention of a crowd gives us some idea that Jesus may have been busy earlier that day, and the verses before this passage spell it out. Such a crowd had gathered that he had to push out in the boat to teach them all. It says he taught them many things in parables. A little later it says that when he was alone, meaning with the twelve disciples and other, he continued his teaching, explaining his parables, throwing out more metaphors to help people understand, imploring them to pay attention, to hear. It was a busy, busy day, and it seems the most “alone” he could get was to go out on the boat with the disciples. This morning’s passage tells us that other boats followed them out to see.
But Jesus, exhausted, heads to the back of the boat, to the cushions, and falls asleep. A big storm swells, and still Jesus sleeps. The disciples wake him, frightened, annoyed perhaps that he is still sleeping. I read a wonderful book by one of my professors, Dr. Kirk Jones, in which he points out a contradiction in this passage. The disciples woke him in verse 38, and then in verse 39, it says Jesus woke up. Jones proposes two possible solutions – one continuous motion – they prod, call, etc, and he gradually rouses himself in response. Or that Jesus fell back to sleep after they yelled at him the first time, then got up on his own after. Either way, the message is the same – Jesus does not hurry to action.
This is not an exception to stories about Jesus and his responsiveness. It is not just because he had a long day of preaching and teaching. There are many examples that show that Jesus does not rush about. And you would be hard pressed to find an example of him doing so. Even when he heard that his dear friend Lazarus was ill and dying, John tells us he stayed two more days where he was. He was never too busy to respond to the call of a beggar, a blind man, a leper on the road. He took time often to go off to the desert to pray alone. He never said, “I can’t, I have too much to do.” He was in the moment, attuned to what was needed, both for others and for himself. He understood the need to replenish his own spirit in order to care for others.
Jones points out the message of self-care in this passage, and in the pace by which Jesus moved. He calls it a Sacred Pace, characterized by peace, patience and attentiveness. He says, “By peace, I mean an abiding sense that all is well. By patience I mean activism with waiting inside of it. And by attentiveness I mean being thoroughly focused on the matter of the moment.” Does his peace mean he was never frightened, never angry? No, but somehow the tension, the agonizing were routed through Jesus’ peaceful center, his trust and purpose. He attended to problems, to pain, to suffering, but not by moving fast. I read a line once that said that one person who never suffered from a Messiah complex (an anxiety about having to fix the world) was the Messiah. Jesus took time – time to listen, time to deliberate, time to pray, time to celebrate, and time to mourn.
Consider the contrast between the pace of the ministry of Jesus with the way care-giving is often practiced. We do too much, we do too much at one time, and we do too much as fast as we can. We might consider it a problem of our time and culture. We point to technology and the increased speed by which people and ideas can get around. The easier it is to do things, the more we are expected to do – to make full and efficient use of our time. But what if it’s less a problem of our time, and more of a problem of human nature? What if it was a problem in the first century Palestinian culture also, or for the disciples?
You know as much as I’ve appreciated Jesus’ calm in the storm, I always sympathized with the disciples here. I wondered if Jesus’ tone with them is accusing or disappointed. He asks them why they are afraid, and the follow up question – have they no faith. Is he saying that if one has faith one would never be afraid? Is he saying if one has fear that they can’t possibly have faith? That never seemed right to me. As we talked about in the children’s message, a fear response is built into us. It is not an unholy thing. It is a good thing. And it’s not like the disciples were over-reacting – they were being swamped. There was a very real threat to their existence at work. Does having faith mean that our neurochemistry will be over-ridden? I can’t imagine that, and I don’t think Jesus would lay that on his friends. And I don’t think Jesus is laying that on us. Now I think it is true that having faith and living out that faith can require great courage, but we all know that courage is not the lack of fear, but what we do even when we are afraid. And Jesus provides us a model for that also – the way he continues on in his mission despite the conspiracies, the death threats, despite his awareness that they those threats would become realities. He voices his fear in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he sweats blood. He asked for this cup to be taken from him, but he kept going.
So I think this is a tricky text – to look past what seems on the surface a judgment or disappointment in the disciples. What else could be going on here? He has already calmed the storm when he speaks to them. Maybe he is reaching out to them in a way that will calm those fear chemicals coursing through their bodies. Maybe he is trying to help them move past that animal brain where the flight or fight response is triggered, and engaging them at a higher level. Maybe his tone is not critical or accusing, but calm, maybe curious. They have survived something they weren’t sure they could, and he is asking them to see something in that. Perhaps it is a pastoral question, like one I often ask people who have been through a hard time – where was God in this? Where was God in the storm when the boat was getting swamped? Where was God when their hearts burned with anger at Jesus asleep in the boat, seeming not to care at all? It may have seemed like God is asleep, like God didn’t care, but here you are, you’ve survived, now what do you make of what you have been through?
It is not a question to be asked when the boat is being swamped. A person can’t think then. But perhaps we are asked to take time to reflect after we’ve been through something hard. Don’t just rush off to the next task, relieved that that’s over. Don’t use all that adrenalin to get busy, to push onward. Take time to consider your faith past the fear, let God hold your hand, give you a hug, remind you of her power and care. When the storm is calmed, recognize it; take time to experience the awe and wonder of that. And start moving again, finding a rhythm at a sacred pace, one of peace, patience, and attentiveness.
Have you been through a storm lately, or does it just seem like you are constantly buffeted by winds? Are you burdened by the weight of trying to fix things and control things? What do you need to stand in the holy ground of a sacred pace? More solitude, more prayer, more sleep? Or less of something? Fewer obligations, fewer unrewarding tasks? Where is God for you in your discernment of how you spend your time?
We are leaving this room in a few minutes and going to gather for our annual meeting. Some may think of it as about the business of the church, something to get through. But maybe it is all a form of worship, or ministry. Maybe we can engage at this meeting at a sacred pace, present to the moment, letting go of our personal agendas – whether they are to speed through and get out early, or to go over every detail no matter what. Maybe we can let God guide us in how we spend our time today, being as present as we possibly can, sharing with love and honesty when it seems time to slow down for something, or time to move forward to another thing. May it be so.
