Boat Ride

Text: Mark 4:35-41

It is easy to imagine the expressions on the faces of the disciples. A mix of accusation, incredulity, and terror.

Why did Jesus send them out in this boat if he knew that a storm was brewing? How could he sleep so soundly when the waves were swamping the boats? Maybe they were like the waves described in the psalm that were so big they ascended into the heavens and the troughs so deep that descended into the depths. The disciples, some of them, were fishers. They knew about storms and seas and danger. The knew about drownings and boats lost and people with them.

Why are you afraid? Jesus asks them. You can hear them thinking: Why are we afraid? Because this is one big storm. Why are we afraid? Because we are going to die. How about you? they might have asked Jesus, Why are you not afraid? That would have been a good question. But they asked him something else: Don’t you care, teacher, that we are perishing?

We call these people disciples. The word means student, or learner. Their relationship to Jesus is student to master, as it is with people today who study under a spiritual guide. But in the Gospel of Mark, they are boneheaded students and poor learners. They forget what Jesus says to them, and they are slow to understand who he is. We are better to call them followers, since they are at least good at that. They follow Jesus around, listening and watching. Perhaps that is enough at the moment. Now they have followed him into danger.

The disciples have just heard Jesus tell lots of stories, or parables—we heard one last week about the mustard seed—and Jesus has spoken to them about the meaning of the stories. He has explained things to the disciples. Now, after crossing the sea, Jesus will begin to cast out demons and to heal the dying. To the disciples he speaks about the kingdom of God, and to the demons he speaks as only God could. Peace, he commands the sea. Be still, he commands the water. What he really tells the water is to be quiet: the words mean “shut up,”and “shut your trap.” Creation, un-insulted, listens to him as it would listen only to its creator.

Mark reports that the disciples are surprised. Whoa, they say, who is this person that even the wind and the sea listen to him? How can they be surprised? How can they have followed Jesus all over the countryside, sitting at his feet as he talked, standing by his side as he healed people, and not have just a little hint that he was a special sort of person?

Yet in their hearts they must have known, for it is Jesus they turn to when the sea threatens them. Maybe they were astonished and annoyed that Jesus was sleeping so calmly. Maybe they, being frightened out of their wits, want Jesus to join them in their fear. But their complaint to Jesus is not that he sleeps while they panic. It is instead that he is cold hearted in the face of their panic. Do you not care that we are perishing? They think in their hearts that Jesus could stop the storm if he really cared about them. They know who Jesus is. They know before the fact that Jesus could speak as God to the storm and could save them. And they are right. He does.

Why? Why does he do that?

There were other boats on the sea, in the storm, with frightened folks aboard. Would Jesus have saved them if the disciples hadn’t pestered Jesus into action? Do the disciples, by virtue of their special relationship with Jesus, get special treatment? They certainly expect to. (And we expect them to). Is that expectation reasonable?

We, like the disciples, are followers of Jesus. We try, as they tried, to listen to Jesus. We pay attention to Jesus as they did. We try to follow the way of Jesus and we try to do what he has told us to do (more or less, just like the disciples). Can we therefore expect special treatment, too?

Jesus hears the prayers of the disciples. On their account he is willing to alter the course of history and the laws of physics. Is God the creator of the universe in any way obligated to hear our prayers and to do the same? What if in doing so someone else is harmed? Do our prayers have power, and if so, do they have more power than the prayers of others? How about more power than the prayers of our enemies?

We teach, having be taught by Jesus, that we should pray and that God will listen to us. We don’t think too much about the logistics of how God might answer our prayers without bollixing up something else on the other side of the universe. We leave that to God to figure out, who after all has a better resume for that sort of thing than we do. But on what grounds does God listen? Do we have some sort of contractual agreement with God that obligates God? Or do we pray on the strength of our relationship with God, as the disciples did, it seems, with Jesus. And if that is true, what happens when our relationship with God is not so good, at least on our side? Sometimes we are embarrassed in front of God, and sometimes angry, and sometimes disappointed. The disciples in the boat were unhappy with Jesus, and they accused him of ignoring their fears. Maybe they shamed Jesus into helping. Is that a good way to ask God for something?

We have a complicated relationship with our creator, who is small enough to care about each us (he was human sized, as Jesus, after all) and large enough to do something about it. We are often in the position of the disciples on the boat, having mixed feelings about all this. Jesus is human like us, so he should understand how frightened we are. Jesus is God, not like us, and so he should keep us safe from disaster and suffering. But Jesus does not do what we think he should. Jesus does unpredictable things, like sleeping during the storm, and then transforming the storm into dead calm.

This powerful and almost magical action frightens the disciples even more than the storm. The disciples were timid, it says in Mark about the waves, but they were terrified, it says, about Jesus’ ability and willingness to calm the waves. (Maybe it is scary to have God right in your boat. Especially if God does what you ask.)

The story of the Bible is a rich story because it is the story of humans and God trying to live with one another, but we are certainly the odd couple.

God makes the world. In creation, there is an implicit promise. That promise is to be a hospitable place for creatures. The universe is a place that nurtures us into existence. You can think of that as circular reasoning; if it didn’t we wouldn’t be here. Or you can think of that as a great gift. God has given us existence, life. And more, God has given us pleasure and beauty and hungers and the elements and danger and feelings. Everything. God’s promise to us is fulfilled in us, that we even exist. It is, all of it, a wonder. Thank you.

Today we heard from the book of Job. In the fall, we’ll have a Bible study where we read the whole book of Job. But I’m sure you know that Job was not treated all that well by God, and Job accuses God—there is a pattern here?—accuses God and demands an explanation. Today’s reading is the beginning of God’s answer. Which is: Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Is that a flippant or arrogant answer? Or is God saying: I gave you the universe. I gave you creation.

The proud waves, as it says in Job, may be bounded, but they are deadly as well to humans among them. It is only creation, it is not Eden. We come thankful for our lives and fearful of danger to them. We pray sometimes in fear. We pray in hope that we will always be safe. And sometimes the waves are calmed and the storm shuts up and things are at peace again. God is good.

But God is not a magician. Jesus is not a magician. Jesus does not promise the disciples that he can or will always save them from drowning. His gift is not freedom from the elements of the world, but freedom from the fear of the world. Jesus sleeps in the boat. The disciples panic. Jesus sleeps. He cares for them. He speaks not in criticism but in sympathy. “Why are you afraid?” He is teaching his disciples.