Mark 4:35-41:
On that day, when evening had come, Jesus 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 Jesus 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 calms. 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.”
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You need not be a prophet to see that there is a storm coming. You do not need to divine the “signs of the times” to situate your place in what seems to increasingly be “a time such as this” where the only sign that the sun has been eclipsed by clouds is that we no longer remember the brightness of daylight. As the Church, we have seen the high tides of violence washing over our bulkheads, onto our streets, into our pews, and finally, into our Bible Studies. We have heard the sound of the heavy rain of the tears of those who have lost their friends, families, pastors, senators, and congregants of Mother Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina. We have seen the ever darkening clouds of injustice fill to overflowing our penitentiaries with non-violent offenders. We have seen a tsunami of citizens go hungry while others feast on the fatted calf. We have seen the hail storm of racism beat back the hopes of a people who “had a dream” turned nightmare. We have stood by and seen too much for too long, we have observed the horrors but we have not seen nor heard of a “change we can believe in.” We have seen floods of disenfranchised people leave houses of worship all across America in search of meaning because they found none in the Church. Perhaps they left the church door open on the way out asking, “Where was the church when people were dying on my street?” You need not be a prophet to see that there is a storm coming.
“What do you want from me?” Jesus asks us. What is it that you, sitting in the pew or perhaps reading along, or praying, daringly hoping and waiting, what do you want from Jesus? This is the question Jesus asks us today and everyday. There is a storm coming, or perhaps, we are in the storm’s eye. At a time such as this, when the Church’s hallowed walls have been soaked with blood not of the messiah, not of the sacrificial lamb nor the True Shepherd, but of a few wayward folk gathering to hear God’s word at Mother Emanuel. A few “fools” in the world’s eyes for even having let someone in the door without patting him down or installing a metal detector… The storms of our lives, the losses, the longings, the broken beginning and unresolved endings, these storms rage and like the disciples, not the ones gunned down at Mother Emanuel, no… the ones who were terrified of the storm when Jesus was asleep in the boat, they woke up Jesus and begged him for help because the storm was too much to bear. All of life’s storms are too much bear. And we, like the disciples on that boat with Christ, want to grab Jesus by the arm and yell, “Why are you asleep when this storm is about to overtake me? Lord, people have perished, I may be next, wake up! LORD, why don’t you do something?”
What we want is the big miracle, we want that storm, that terrible wind that blows cold water over our boughs to stop. We want an end to racism without ever having wrestled with from where it comes. We don’t want an umbrella, that won’t suffice, we don’t want any rain. And yet, the people of California would offer up their first born for a hurricane because of their droughts, and the people of Texas would give their left arm for the rains to cease. We want rain, but not too much, we want wind, but not enough to tussle our hair. And, we want the perpetual threat of the hurricane winds of violence to stop. We want Jesus to stop it all, no more storms, no more tears, no more loss. Let us join that great refrain from the disciples in the boat, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
But, deep in our hearts, we all know that the storms will not cease. The storms will still rage, we will always be imperfect, there will always be another Dylan Storm Roof who will seek to execute people based on the color of their skin. There will always be another storm coming, even after this one passes. We know this is true, but this current storm is enough trouble for today.
In search of hope we turn to the Gospel. In it, we find the disciples fearing for their lives as they are threatened with waves too high for their boat, rain too hard to see through, and winds too strong for them to maintain their course. Indeed, the storm had come. The tradition of interpretation that we have inherited for dealing with terrible storms, tragedies, and unhappy endings goes something like, “If the disciples had enough faith they could have stopped the winds from blowing, they could have caused the rain to cease, they could have calmed the seas that threatened there very existence if only they had faith enough. Or, if they believed in Jesus to still the storm the disciples wouldn’t have panicked.” But, when parity between faith and “results” is drawn, the translation into today’s world is damning, even death dealing. If the way we translate “Jesus calming the seas” into today’s context is based on such a surface reading of the text, then we are left with sentiments such as, “If I only had faith enough I wouldn’t have lost my mother to cancer.” Or, “if I had faith enough I never would have lost my job.” If I had faith enough, I could kick my drug habit… stop my husband’s abuse… be successful… If only the people of Mother Emanuel had faith enough there would be nine more living people in the world today… Such interpretations of God’s story as well as dealing with life’s troubles are FALSE.
When such an interpretation is rendered, what we get in this story from Mark’s Gospel, in this view, is Jesus literally asleep at the wheel while the disciples fear for their lives. And, as usual, the disciples cannot live up to Jesus’ expectations so Jesus comes to the rescue and prescribes a healthy dose of faith to cure their ills.
But, what if this is not what Jesus is talking about at all? What if the goal of Jesus’ reproach is not to prescribe enough faith to calm the storm, but rather, what if he, in the midst of a storm that could destroy the boat, with winds tussling his hair and coursing against his cheeks, what if Jesus, amidst conditions not too dissimilar to the storms of violence beseeching our country today desired not faith or belief, but rather, calm enough to sleep?
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You see, the disciples were afraid for their lives and they didn’t think they could handle it. They, out of fear, woke up Jesus who was casually sleeping on the boat. Amidst a terrible storm that could take all of their lives, Jesus slumbered in the serenity of the presence of the One who gives and sustains life perhaps without fear of a storm that could take it. The disciples would never be able to calm the storm. They would never be able to undo Jesus’ death nor their own. They, like us, can never get your grandparents back, nor your lost job, nor your broken relationship, nor rid the world of a madmen who walked into God’s house and killed people because of their race… But, what the disciples could do and what we can do, perhaps an even bigger miracle, was rest amidst the storm. What if Jesus equated faith with peace? It isn’t such a stretch is it? Jesus was asleep himself amidst the storm. And, after having been woken up he was surprised and angry. The failure of the disciples in this instance was not their lack of ability to still a storm, nor was it a lack of faith in Jesus to calm the storm for them, but rather, their failure was to assume that their life of discipleship would be anything other than stormy weather after stormy weather. And, their call from Christ was to embody peace amidst the storm. The storms of life are a given, but how we handle them is the miracle.
The storms will continue to rage, but what if our peace is not based on the absence of the storm, but on the presence and promise of God the Creator of all. What if peace is not based on our outer context of cultural violence and racism which is all hurricanes and hail, but on our inner one, which is constituted by God’s redeeming love and serenity.
Think about young children for a moment. They fall asleep wherever they go. They can be sitting in a car where they are, one minute, yelling and screaming, and the next they pass out as if they had forgotten they were previously all riled up. Or, sometimes young children will be playing with toys in the and then they pass out. Or, sometimes on the way to bed time, the tiny ones will fall asleep before ever having made it to the bed. Or, I have seen kids pass out at restaurant tables, rock concerts, waiting in-line at Disney world surrounded by a lot of people making a lot of noise. I have personally comforted two children who, being terrified of thunder and lightning storms, were able to fall asleep because their parents were near. The point of this is not so much to highlight a child’s exhaustion, but rather, kids feel secure enough to fall asleep in just about any surrounding in the presence of their parents. They may not understand the potential threat of falling asleep in a car, restaurant, or other public place, but they know that their Father is near, and when the Father is near, peace is here. I believe this trust, this faith, is what Jesus is calling us to today. Our Father is near, even when the storms of our lives rage, even when Dylan Storm Roof assumes the power of God by removing life from God’s children… And Jesus, trusting enough in his Father’s presence and benevolence, is able to literally take a nap in a storm that cause the disciples to fear for their lives.
This could easily be heard as a call to inaction or even quietism. Lord only knows that the Church appears to have been asleep while slaves were sold, women were silenced, gays were ostracized, corporations bought the capital after looting the treasury, etc… etc…. Sleep as quietism would be a misunderstanding of Jesus’ example of rest amidst the storm. You see, our current storm caused by a murderer, there are many who are panicked and not thinking clearly. But, such a response, while genuine and heartfelt, may actually further the span and scope of the storms power and destruction as well as cause emotional trauma to our communities. What we need are leaders who can rest in the presence of God the Father, who does not promise to remove our storms, horrors, or even evil. But, while God does not promise an easy or trouble free life, God does promise peace enough to weather the storm. Peace enough….
God’s peace does not call us, however, to sleep, but rather, God’s peace calls us to serenity where we are called to be storm chasers, to seek out those situations from which others retreat. We are called to the storms of injustice that plague our nation, courts, and work force to bring God’s peace which can only mean speaking out where no one else will. Peace for all means standing with those who have none. Peace amidst a storm means standing with those who tremble in fear. Peace is found in the sure arms of people standing along side each other as wave after wave threatens to knock one down, but not all. We are called to the storms of violence which are now not only found on our streets, but also in our churches. We are called to exemplify that peace which God promises amidst the storm, a peace which does not lead to inaction, but rather, a peace which embolden’s God’s people to calmly and persistently march into those storms from which others flee. The storms will continue, for there is always another storm coming, but God shows us today in his Son, Jesus Christ, what the peace of God which passes all understanding looks like. It does not look like panic, it does not look like fear, it looks like Jesus Christ, the Son, calmly waiting, sleeping, in his Father’s arms as he waits for his time to act. And, at a time such as this, the time to act is now, but not an act out of fear, an act of peace so full of hope that no storm, not even Dylan Storm Roof, can take our hope away from us.
