Storm Stories

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 gale 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?’

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We all have a storm story. Here’s mine. Several years ago, Katelyn and I went camping in upstate New York. We were most excited about renting a boat and fishing on this small lake. And here’s us in our boat, just as we began fishing. Now it wasn’t big, just a simple row boat. Which means I rowed and Katelyn fished. And Katelyn is a really good fisherman but not so good at taking the fish off. So by the time I got us to a good spot, she would have already caught multiple fish, which I had to remove.

I rarely had a chance to toss out my own line before moving to another spot. Finally we got to a spot on the far side of the lake where we had our anchor down, bait on the hooks, lines out, and ready to reel 'em in. Then, the wind kicks up and dark clouds start moving in. We hear thunder and its pretty close. So we both agree we should make our way back across the lake to the docks. We reeled in our lines and I started rowing. I rowed for maybe 15 minutes, but I wasn’t getting very far.

The wind is really picking up now and those clouds were nearly on top of us. So I rowed harder and harder, but with each stroke forward, I felt like the wind picked up just a little bit faster, pushing us backward. At this point we are only half way across the lake and the heavens could rip open at any moment.

Both of us are scared, I’m tired from rowing as fast as I can, and rain is starting to collect in our boat. I started rowing like a mad man against the wind, cursing at the paddles and this boat for not going faster, when Katelyn said to me “just take a break for a second and catch you breath.

So, I said to her “okay, put the anchor down so we don’t drift backward”... and then it dawned on us: the anchor was down the whole time. I had drug this cement filled coffee can clear across this whole lake. When I pulled it up, 10 pounds of seaweed covered the can. I was outraged at the situation: the rain, the boat, the anchor! Katelyn, though, was beside herself in laughter, nearly in tears at how funny it all was. I rowed us to the dock and we made it to the car just as the hail began.

Katelyn has always been good humored, able to laugh at herself and situations outside her control. I get frustrated, impatient with the wind and waves that arise in life. Our literal storm experience mirrored our lived experience. There’s nothing like a storm to teach you about the people who are in your boat, yourself included.

At first, Jesus doesn’t seem to be the person you want in your boat when the storm hits. He’s been preaching and teaching all day, using the same boat as a pulpit. So I’m not surprised at all that he’s sleeping on a cushion at the front of the boat.When the wind kicks up and the waves start crashing, the disciples seem more than a little frustrated that Jesus isn’t acting like a concerned friend, let alone a messiah.

But I don’t blame them for being scared and perhaps angry. It must have been a pretty bad storm if at least four, maybe more, professional fishermen who had spent a lifetime fishing and sailing on that lake were scared to death. They knew the dangers of the sea of galilee, especially at night. I imagine they warned Jesus of such things before they left the shore. No wonder they yelled at Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing?

Do you not care that we are perishing? Is there anyone who hasn’t yelled that question at Jesus? If there was ever a shared sentiment between us and the disciples, it's that question.

It’s a sense of abandonment. It’s feeling like you are drowning and God is nowhere to be found, panicking that your boat of life is taking on water and Jesus is asleep at the stern and for whatever reason you can’t rouse him no matter how hard you cry or pray. You are not alone in feeling that way.

We all have a storm story: the doctor giving a diagnosis you never wanted to hear, the day after a beloved’s funeral, your child telling you her marriage is over, the accident you never saw coming. Like the fishermen, we know the damage they can do. So don’t feel bad for yelling at Jesus. So much in the Hebrew Bible is the Psalmist or a prophet lamenting over the same thing.

As Nadia Bolz Weber puts it, it’s no sin to hold God’s feet to the fire and ask, “Why have you abandoned me?”

To the disciple’s great relief, Jesus wakes from his nap and, with three words, he makes the wind stop and a great calm come over the waters. He turns to the disciples and has the audacity to ask, “why are you afraid?” As if taking on water in a shambly first century boat wasn’t reason enough. But then Jesus asks a harder question, “Have you still no faith…”

In other words, don’t you trust me yet? I think the fear Jesus can get over. It’s human, innate to fear. But to show no measure of trust, that’s what Jesus seems disappointed at. Because by this time in Mark’s story, the disciples have spent some good time with Jesus. They have witnessed him doing some pretty miraculous things: casting out unclean spirits, restoring a withered hand, healing a leper, and mending the health of one of their own mothers. They’ve heard his teaching; heard others call him the Son of God, yet how quickly they seem to forget all of that.

In the Psalms, the psalmist writes about how God commands the sea to storm and to cease.

The disciples, or at least the first hearers of Mark’s gospel, would have known that only God has power over the waters. In controlling the winds and the waves, Jesus shows them once again who he is, he is the Son of God, the savior, fully divine living among them.

It took a storm for them to see again who Jesus was. And really the disciples still don’t see it or really get it. All throughout Mark, they constantly get it wrong about who Jesus is and what he’s there to do. But could we not say the same thing about ourselves? Have we not been witnesses to some pretty miraculous things? Have we not been in a boat taking on water and yet somehow arrived safely to the other side?

Faith is having trust in the savior who is right there, in the boat with you. We will be fearful of the storms that come up in life, but faith is choosing to trust Jesus in the moment in spite of the storm.

Notice that disciples didn’t have glass waters to sail across. Even though Jesus was in the boat with them, the storm still came. Bad, hard, even terrible things happen in this life. And people will try to say that if you just prayed enough, or had enough faith, or had the right kind of faith, then these things wouldn’t happen. That, friends, is a lie. Having faith is no guarantee or promise that storms won’t arise. The promise is that Jesus is in there with you.

And look I get that there are still all sorts of questions: why doesn’t Jesus stop the storms from happening in the first place? Why are some storms just so bad? And if God controls the waters, who's responsible for the storm? We could try to answer all these, and many have, but that gives no comfort or relief to someone who feels like they're perishing. Instead, sit beside them when the wind kicks up and the waves crash and let Jesus show you who he is once again.

Because there’s nothing like a storm to teach you about the people who are in your boat, Jesus included.

Amen.

Between Two Kings

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

“And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people Israel.” ’

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.’

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.

Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

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Today we celebrate Epiphany, the day when the magi find the Christ child by way of a star and offer him gifts. But this day is about much more than gifts. It’s about a choice between two kings. And to understand the choice it puts before us, we have to know a little bit more about King Herod.

We don’t hear much about this Herod in the New Testament. But there is much known about him outside of biblical literature. He ruled for nearly 40 years before Jesus came along, being crowned King of the Jews by Rome in 37 BCE. He was liked by Rome because he did what they said and he kept the Jewish people happy. That was his job: to make the occupation seem not so bad. He was pretty good at this, that’s why he was known as Herod the Great.

He led huge building campaigns throughout the cities in his area, constructing fortresses, building aqueducts, theaters, and most importantly rebuilding the temple in all its glory.

But none of this work was free and the burden to pay for it all fell on the jewish people in the form of taxes.

Yet worse than his taxes was Herod’s own insecurity. He was constantly plagued with paranoia that someone would oust him. It was so bad, that he divorced his first wife and exiled both her and his son. Then by the end of his life, he had killed his mother, another wife and at least three out of his four sons. Now maybe we aren’t so surprised that when three strangers ride into town asking where the new “king of Jews” had been born, he didn’t hesitate to kill all the infants in Bethlehem.

Everyone loved what King Herod could do, but everyone hated what he cost them. Herod appeared to have the people’s interest in mind, yet ultimately his concern was to appease Rome and remain in power and he would do just enough to maintain this image.

We see the true Herod when these wisemen show up from the east, likely from modern day Iran. They arrive in Jerusalem and unknowingly ask a question that could have gotten them killed: “where is the child who has been born king of the Jews”?

The very question frightened Herod and because he was frightened, so too was all of Jerusalem. They knew the damage he could do.

Herod called for the magi and in this meeting we see the paranoia take over because he lies at that meeting. We know the end of the story; Herod did not want the magi to find the baby Jesus so that he could go and pay him homage also. Herod lies to gain trust, loyalty, to get what he wanted.

The magi go on to complete their journey. They find Mary and the baby in a house, not a stable, with Joseph nowhere to be found. Great timing from the new dad. And it’s here that the magi have a choice. They had already met with Herod likely in his palace. He looked like a king, acted like a king, and had the title of a king. But now they stood in the home of a palestinian peasant family, looking at an impoverished young mother with a baby. They could have said, the star must have been wrong, surely this baby is no king. Let’s take our tribute and treasures to Herod, the real king.

But they didn’t. Instead, they knelt as in worship to this baby and offered him their gifts, but not just any gifts. Gifts that say these wisemen from another country, who practiced another religion, really understood who this baby Jesus was: they gave gold as for a king, frankincense to be burned as to a God, and myrrh for the embalming of a mortal. And since no angel visited Mary telling her all about this baby Jesus, just Joseph in Matthew’s gospel (and we all know how well husbands communicate to their wives), these gifts told Mary for the first time who her son truly was.

With gifts given, the magi must decide what to do next: ignore the dream, tell Herod where the baby is, and hope he was authentic? Or disregard and disobey the king and go home by another road, one that was likely longer or more difficult or unknown all together?

Fortunately, they chose to go another way.

We all have a Herod in our lives. It’s that thing, that person, that political party that lies to you in order to gain some sort of power over you. You call it great because for some time now its been around, its made you feel secure, it’s done some good things for you, but at a cost you can’t afford. It is that thing that makes you think you have the same interest at heart, but in reality it’s hurting you more than helping you.

Perhaps your Herod is sports, whether you play them, watch them, or bet on them. The lie being told is that life is only good when you win, that it should be the most important thing in your life, that your identity is intertwined with this game or team, and that your value as a person depends on how many points you score, records you break, or how much money you win. So you put all your gifts toward this, but it comes at cost.

Or perhaps your Herod is your job. It gives you enough to keep you satisfied, you’ve been at a while so it feels secure. But it tells you that you can always earn more, that you’re just a few steps away from that promotion, and that your interests really are the same at heart. They want from you all your gifts; yet, who benefits the most and at what cost?

Or perhaps your Herod is a political party or politician. And in our heightened political times,

especially with it being a presidential election year, there are and will be many Herods pinning for our loyalty. They will lie to you to gain your trust. But in reality they will do whatever it takes to gain or remain in power. And if you feel secure or at home with a party or a politician, that is your Herod. Yet, as followers of Jesus we are politically homeless, constantly working to make God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, which means critiquing and challenging always the powers that be and doing all we can to protect the most vulnerable. If we fail to do that, it comes at cost.

And the cost of any Herod is always more than we can bear: it’s relationships, it’s our identity, it’s time, it’s the wellbeing of ourselves, our neighbors, and it’s sin.

Jesus comes to liberate us from our herods and give another kingdom for you to offer your gifts.

He might not look like a king or act like a king, but he bears the title Emmanuel, God with Us,

and his only interest is forgiveness, and reconciliation, and salvation for you and all creation.

And he was willing to pay the cost of our sin, all our herods, on a cross, so that you can have all the gifts he offers: grace, love, and life eternal; here and now and forevermore.

So like the magi, we too have a choice between two kings. Choosing to follow Jesus is choosing where to place your loyalty and to whom you offer your gifts. It means frustrating those who are in power. It means taking another road, one that is likely longer, or more difficult for you, or unknown all together. It means bowing down to the one you’d least expect, like a peasant infant from Palestine.

The choice is yours. May the Spirit guide. Amen.