Are You Afraid
A Sermon Preached
at Vashon United Methodist Church
Mark Fredericksen,
ND, MDiv
June 23, 2024
Job 38:1-11
Mark 4:35-41
When I was a wee lad, my
sister and I would be left at my aunt and uncle’s in Soap Lake for a week or
two in summer, and then my three female cousins would come to stay with us in
Bonners Ferry, Idaho, for the same amount of time—giving both sets of parents a
break from our hell-raising ways. I, being the boy amongst the rest, was never
the troublemaker. But I digress. One of these summers in Soap Lake, I was
around 8 years old; it was getting on toward evening, and a thunderstorm was
moving in. My uncle always felt sorry
for my lone maleness amidst all the females and would try to do something with
me when he got home from work. On this particular
evening, he said, “Let’s take my rubber raft to the north end of the lake and
row back down to their house, a distance of probably a mile or two. My aunt,
being a mom, raised questions about the sanity of this venture – “have you seen
the weather?” But my uncle – pshawed
her – and handed her the car keys so she could chauffer us to the north end of
the lake. They argued on the way, my
aunt memorably saying, “If you drown him, I and my sister are going to kill
you.”
Fast forward to setting
off in the rubber raft. We got in the
boat; you may be slightly relieved to know that he had brought a life jacket
that he put on me. You should also know
that I am from another planet because, for my entire life, I’ve known that I
cannot swim a lick – I have a denser mass than most humans, and I sink in
water. Innumerable people have tried to teach me to drown, I mean float, and I
just go straight to the bottom, so now I just avoid water over my head. We
started rowing. We are making decent
progress, and we’re about halfway; I’m having a ball. We’re cracking
jokes. The waves are getting a little
higher; occasionally, one sloshes over the side of the boat, but it’s like a
riotous fun roller coaster ride to me. But
the sky is getting darker. Some
lightning flashes are visible behind the cliffs around the lake. And a wind out
of the south is blowing pretty large waves at us by now and even pushing us. More
concerning, my uncle's demeanor changed from jovial to serious as he said, “We
need to row harder and watch for large waves to turn the boat into them. The
change on his face from smiling to grimly focused scared me.
So, when I read this
gospel lesson, I am right on board with those disciples, knowing all about the
fear of waves and storms. Jesus is not rowing.
He is asleep on a cushion. So,
while it was only on his orders that they had to “go to the other side,” putting
them in this pickle, he isn’t helping at all.
And like me, they thought they were going to die. We could take a simplistic surface view of
this story and chalk it up simply as a miracle story of Jesus having authority
over the wind and waves and move on with a “Trust and Obey” kind of hymn. And
there would be nothing wrong with that.
But Jesus' question to
them, “Why are you afraid?” (Other translations say, “Why are you cowardly?”)
piques my curiosity. Doesn’t it yours
too? To look a bit deeper, it’s helpful
to explore the context of looking for the author’s placement and possible
purpose in telling this story here in this way, as well as knowing a bit about
the culture and geographical/demographic layout of the area.
So far in Mark, Jesus has
been teaching and healing among the predominantly Jewish population on the
right side of the lake to the point he’s exhausted. Suddenly, with no warning, he is throwing a huge
monkey wrench in his Jewish disciples’ wheelhouse stating flatly – “Let’s go to
the other side.” The other side of the
dividing line – the Sea of Galilee – where on the other side meant going to the
Gentile side, the side where no good Jews go.
The side where the riff-raff, weirdos, and unclean live. So,
the weather disturbance taking place on the water also perhaps reflects the
disciples’ internal emotional state and discomfort being pushed out of their
comfort zone. He is pushing them beyond
their safe boundaries. And maybe I’m
alone, but I always feel a little edgy or a crabby pants when I’m pushed out
there. In the disciples’ minds, a taboo
is being broken, and meanwhile, Jesus is sleeping on a cushion.
The other note I can add is
the gospel’s structural setup. This
story is happening as Jesus’ venue of ministry takes a marked shift. What immediately follows this passage is that
they land at Gennesaret, where they come upon the crazy man with a legion of
demons in the cemetery; then, on those heels, they have Jairus’ dead daughter
to deal with and the woman who had been bleeding for years. So Jesus is widening faith’s boundaries – he’s
reaching out to a far wider circle of hurting people where wealth, nationality,
gender, and religion do not matter. Along
with this inclusiveness, is also woven Jesus’ sense of justice. For Jesus, there is no partiality. Oppression is oppression – in death, in mental
state, in health, in spirit and it is incumbent on the faithful, if you’re
going to be hanging out with Jesus, to be laboring for the sake of justice.
So, knowing what we know
now, we return to Jesus’ words and his question: Are we afraid or
cowardly? Is our faith boundary set to avoid challenge
and change? If we stay in our safe
harbors, letting Jesus snooze in the back seat, is anything won for the Realm
of God? Most of us may not feel like
we’re in a storm-tossed boat. But was Jesus aiming his criticism at their fear
of the storm or was it aimed at their inner grumblings of having to open their safe
zone to mingle with Gentiles? And to bring
the question home, perhaps uncomfortably so, of whom are we afraid, or where is
our cowardliness holding us back? You
can hear me starting to make the shift here – where I’m posing the questions not just for
you personally but also for the group/community setting. All of Jesus’ disciples in this day.
If we can answer the who
we’re afraid of question, then we can ask what is the faithful response? In short, the answer is simple. “Get in the boat.” There is an old Christian symbol of a cross in
a boat. We’re living in the boat. The waves around us can be or are substantial
– personal and the church and the country writ large. There are storms underway. But without faith to steer the boat - informed
by Jesus’ own acts -- WE are libel to drift either into purposeless anxiety or a
stagnant backwater where change is not even possible. These same cowering
disciples went out not just across the lake to the other side – but across out
of their known world in order to bring Jesus faith and justice to a planet –
the size of which they could not begin to imagine. So I leave you with this to ponder and perhaps
discuss among yourselves in the coming weeks or months. What’s steering the Vashon United Methodist
Church boat? Is it Jesus-faith &
justice? Or is it fear? Where are you being called? Across to the other side? Or closer amongst your own? Amen.