June 20, 2021
The Rev. Todd R. Goddard, pastor
Rush United Methodist Church
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?”
| Centering Prayer |
“Why are you afraid?” Jesus asks.
Why are you afraid?
There are many things in this world that frighten us.
This being Father’s day,
I recall the feeling before each of my two sons were born;
Wondering if I’d be a good enough father.
I was afraid of failing,
Of not loving each child enough,
Of not passing to each child the values and faith
My father had passed on to me.
My fears, so far, – knock wood – have proved to be baseless.
God has shown me the way.
God has provided.
Why are you afraid? Jesus asks.
According to the Mass Shooting Tracker project
Between January 1st and May 31st Mass shootings in the United States have killed 283,
Injured 1,005,
For a total of 1,288.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2021)
Why are you afraid? Jesus asks.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
28 people die every day
– one person every 52 minutes –
– 10,142 people in 2019 –
Due to drunk-driving crashes.
(https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving)
Why are you afraid? Jesus asks.
According to the New York Times
599,485 Americans have died of COVID-19 as of June 15, 2021.
(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html)
Is it the apparent randomness?
Is it the frailty of life?
We fear that life is a gamble
Every time we walk out of the house in the morning.
The angry driver committing road rage,
The moronic fundamentalist,
Or, for many of our sisters and brothers of color,
The possible knee on the neck;
They all cause us to fear,
To hibernate,
To gather weapons,
To throw down neighbors
And build up walls.
Anyone, anything, at any time
Can end life as we know it in a millisecond
And there isn’t a thing we can do to stop it.
We are afraid
Even though God has provided silent protection all our days.
We are here today,
Because God has wanted us to be here today.
By His mercy,
Our fears have been unjustified.
Why are you afraid?
The older we all get the more aware we become of our mortality.
Family and friends receive that dreaded life-ending,
Often life-defining,
Diagnosis,
And we stand vigil
Hoping and praying with all our heart
That they survive.
Yet, many have gone,
Disappeared,
And we can only hope and pray we meet our loved ones again
Gathered around God’s heavenly throne.
There is no greater fear than
The harm or death
Of a child, grandchild, or soul mate.
Fear can be paralyzing.
When will the sword of Damocles drop?
I wonder about
My own mortality,
Of pain, suffering, and the potential of life being cut too short.
With every sunrise,
With every breath and heartbeat,
Our fears have yet to be realized,
Wholly and simply
By the grace of God.
Why are you afraid? Jesus asks when he is roused.
It’s it obvious?
The boat is sinking and we are all going to drown!
Keep calm
and consider for a moment
The God of creation.
Out of chaos,
God created all things.
From the far corners of the cosmos,
God gathered the seas and filled them with life.
God raised the land,
And filled it with plenty.
God created the wind and filled it with birds of the air.
God created man and woman in God’s own image.
All this is God’s!
When seas roll and the wind howl
And our ship is tossed towards the rocks,
Jesus commands, “Peace! Be still!”
Our God, Father and Son,
Created it
and can
Still it
– SNAP –
In a New York minute.
Let there be no doubt,
When the police officer comes to your door,
When standing in the ICU,
Even when looking down the barrel of a gun (God forbid),
Jesus is with you,
Ready to loose his thunder:
“Peace! Be still!”
But, we protest,
Evil still acts,
Cancer still strikes,
Alzheimer’s steals memories and neurons one-by-one.
Bad things happen to good people,
And hatred, oppression, and injustice
Continues to suck humanity dry!
“Peace! Be still!” Jesus commands the wind and the sea.
“Have you still no faith?” Jesus asks.
But I don’t want to adult!
I don’t want to grow up.
I just want to be left alone.
I just want to return to the simplicity of my spiritual childhood
When Andy Taylor was Sheriff and
Captain Kirk streaked across the universe.
Ah! There we have it.
Jesus teases the fear right to the surface,
Just as he instantly saved his disciples and filled them with great awe.
We long to return to Egypt, even though we were slaves to Pharaoh.
We want to go back to our “Leave It to Beaver” household of our childhood.
We remember life when it appeared simpler and as pure as a mountain stream.
We just want a safe, predictable, pain-free life for our families and ourselves.
“Have you still no faith?”
Buck up, Buttercup,
Jesus commands today.
Get in the boat with Jesus
The storms of life will certainly take your life
If you’re not safe and secure in the boat.
Get in the boat,
Which symbolizes the Church,
Because this boat protects us.
This boat
Holds us together
Through every storm.
Get in the boat and stay in the boat.
Oh, it’s tempting to abandon the boat,
To fish other seas,
To explore on our own,
But there is no fate quicker than death,
Than to be caught outside the boat.
“Have you still no faith?”
Buck up, Buttercup.
The consequence of sin is death.
Biology drives cellular senescence, damage, and death.
Physics drops the anvil, the piano, the random bolt of lightning.
We try to rid the world and our lives of sin.
We attempt to prolong life even at the expense of living.
We spend billions in the attempt to create a risk-free world.
Yet, in the end,
We can’t save others.
We can’t even save ourselves.
That’s why we’ve been given a Savior to still our storms.
This boat is Christ’s boat.
This is where Christ resides.
This is where Christ abides.
So, get in the boat!
The same God who created the wind and seas can still them.
The same God who granted free will to man and woman to sin
Sent his Son to wash that same sin away.
The same God who breathed life into our lungs and gave us His Spirit,
Is the same God who will one day,
Safely bring each of us home.
Sometimes we float lazily on inner tubes along this river of faith.
Other times we batten down the hatches, hoping to survive the hurricane.
The apostle Peter accurately reports,
“… that with the Lord
One day is as a thousand years,
And a thousand years as one day.”
– 2 Peter 3:8
There isn’t a storm Jesus hasn’t stilled.
There isn’t a gale that God hasn’t quelled.
Spiritually, it is time to grow up,
Claim our Savior,
And dive deep into a discipleship relationship with Him.
Let us always
Have the will and the faith
To cry out to Jesus in the midst of our storms
With confidence
That Jesus is here to save us.
Amen.
Breaking Yokes 