We Are Perishing – sermon on June 21, 2015
Mark 4: 35-41 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Sermon: We Are Perishing by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Much of my sermon today includes the words of David Henson in his blog for Patheos. I’ve added some thoughts and questions of my own, but use Henson’s reflection as my base. (Henson’s words are in italic.)
“Even the wind and the sea obey him,” the awestruck disciples say. Just minutes before, they had been in the most terrible storm of their lives. Out on the open sea, the storm had threatened to swamp the disciples and their boat. They were terrified. Completely undone and beside themselves at the prospect of capsizing and drowning. They were baling water, wrestling the wind-whipped sails, and hanging on for their lives. And Jesus was fast asleep. In the stern, his head propped up on a cushion. Were it not for the crashing waves and shouting disciples, I’m pretty sure you could have heard Jesus snoring. Finally, the disciples, in terror and exasperation, shout, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” Jesus wakes and rebukes the wind and commands it to quiet down. “Peace! Be still,” he says, but I imagine this is as much a rebuke of the disciples as it is at the wind.”
Henson goes on: “We are like the disciples. We want God to calm the wind and seas. We want to shout at God, ‘What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see we are perishing? Don’t you see so many of us — children, even! — have already perished? Wake up, God! Stop sleeping when we need you most!’”
I know what he means. I have shouted in my heart to God many times in the past year, “Aren’t you paying attention? People are perishing here! Help us!” As most of you know, I have a passion for racial justice, and I believe the blows to people of color in in this past year have been significant – the killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the absolution, without even a trial, for those on the other side of the gun; the accumulating evidence of an extremely unjust system of law enforcement and incarceration; and now the murder of nine people who were at bible study. This is painful to me looking in from outside of the black community. I can only imagine the despair, anger and panic in the people whose very lives are in danger. In some way it is like I am on the shore with binoculars, looking at the ship foundering, seeing Jesus asleep on the cushion and wondering why he doesn’t help them.
And yet I believe we white people are on our own storm-tossed boat, in desperate need of rescue. It is not so much our physical lives I fear for, but our souls. It is not that I think the sins of racism will bring down the wrath of God, but that we have moved so drastically from what we were created to be, beings that glorify God. I remember when I watched the movie 12 Years a Slave. There is a part of the movie where the slave traders are displaying the merchandise – men, women and children from Africa, stripped, being poked and prodded, while potential buyers negotiated price, pointed out flaw. Then settling on a price and separating families – mothers, fathers, each child all going off a different way. And though the Africans were being treated as less than human, it seemed to me that it was the whites that were dehumanized, made into monsters by this process. Likewise, for us to shrug off these racially-motivated crimes or the injustices caused by deeply entrenched belief in white supremacy dehumanizes us. It is the worst version of who we could be. Lord, don’t you care if we perish! Save us.
Henson notes: “Like the disciples, we believe the power — the divine — is in the ability to control things. We assume, like the disciples, that the miracle is in Jesus rebuking and calming the storm. But if you notice, Jesus only reluctantly uses his power. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. He wants to keep sleeping! He goes so far as to rebuke his disciples for even asking for his help. He calls them faithless. This storm-calming power isn’t the kind of power Jesus came to demonstrate. Rather, it is the exact kind of power Jesus came in order to give up, to empty himself of. It is the same power he rejects when he refuses to throw himself from the pinnacle when he is tempted in the desert, the same power he turns down when he refuses to kneel before Satan, that same superficial power that controls earthly things.”
He goes on, “Though we might like it to be, this isn’t a story, I don’t think, about Jesus’ ability to control the weather. He is bothered to perform the miracle and is annoyed, it seems, that his disciples even asked.” This assertion of Henson’s affirms for me my belief that Jesus – God incarnate – is not interested in making things safer and more comfortable for himself or those closest to him. That is not his purpose. He is not a genie in a bottle granting wishes. His miracles have never been about helping someone win the lottery or its first century Palestine equivalent. He has performed feeding miracles – bread and fish, not the fatted calf and the freshest produce. Even for himself – he sleeps soundly in the back of a storm-tossed boat – a man used to making due with all manner of sleeping arrangements.
So what was he about? He himself declared he had come to proclaim the good news that the kindom has come and is coming. He came to bring a message of God’s love and mercy and he would do whatever it took to spread that message. His physical comfort and safety were irrelevant. He tried to teach his followers likewise – “go out and preach and heal. Take nothing with you.” He constantly redirected them when they got caught up in arguing about who was greater, who would sit at the right hand of Jesus when God’s reign began. He reminded them that he came to serve, and they should do likewise. It is not about preserving one’s life, it is about living one’s life fully.
“Why are you so afraid” he asks them. Let’s assume that the boat and those on it were truly in peril. They could well have drowned. I have to wonder if Jesus is trying to tell them that death is not something to fear. What they assume will be the end of them in the stormy sea is not the end, not something to fear. Perhaps there are worse things than being on a boat with dear friends, working together with purpose and love to try to save each other, even if the boat sinks. Maybe it would be far, far worse to grow up in a way that such hatred festers in your heart that you see some of God’s own children as worthless; that you would see God-loving people trying to share that love with others as threats to your sovereignty and would cold-heartedly kill them. Isn’t that worse than drowning in a storm? I believe Jesus came to help us see ourselves and each other more clearly. He modeled the ideal with is presence – teaching, healing, breaking bread with all who wished; offering forgiveness and mercy even on those who would kill him.
As Hanson says: “God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them. It isn’t in imposing the divine will or insisting on its own way but in sojourning with us as we fumble around and make our way in the world. God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world.” That is the salvation Christ offers.
“And isn’t this true power? Instead of enforcing control and solutions onto the world, God’s power is revealed in coming alongside us, journeying with us, suffering with us, and even staying with us in the boat when the storms come. The omnipotence of God isn’t about having all the power. That’s would turn God into a controlling, insecure narcissist. Rather, the omnipotence of God is in the sharing of power. God’s power is in the giving up of power. God’s power is in the act of becoming empty (kenosis), in becoming one of us. In simply getting in the boat with us, in the midst of terrible storms.”
I say to you, Christ is in the boat with us. The kindom has come and is coming, and God offers us a chance to participate, offers us power to bring it closer for more and more people. What will we do with this opportunity? Will we continue to cling to illusions of safety, to temporary comforts? Will we continue to accept a society in which some lives are seen as more worthy, more valuable than others? Will we continue to ignore the way that 400 years of abuse and oppression of a race of people continues to impact our country today? Or will we say “No more!”? Can we learn to tolerate the discomfort, even pain, of seeing what is going around us, just outside our bubble of privilege? And will we, finally, lift every voice and sing til earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmonies of liberty? May it be so.
