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.

Put Down the Duckie

Mark 2:23-3:6

One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence,

which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

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The hardest assignment I ever had in seminary was to put down the duckie. To explain what that means, I’ll need a little help from Ernie and Hoots the Owl.

In seminary I took a class called Soil and Sabbath with Nate Stucky, professor of Old Testament and director of the Farminary, this magical place that combined small scale agriculture and theological education. At the first class, Nate had us pick up a duck and as I remember it, the duck, much like Ernie and his duck, represented the thing we clung to so tightly.

And for a bunch of young people at seminary, we held fervently to our identities as students, achievers, who wrote impressive papers, read lots of books, and would become great pastors and professors because of all that. The assignment that was so hard was this: put down your duck for at least six consecutive hours each week and during these six hours write down, tell someone, or otherwise recall a story of God’s saving action or provision. And while six hours may not sound like much, it was surprisingly difficult. After a few hours I would get antsy knowing there were always more pages to read, a study group to attend, or papers to work on. And it didn’t just affect me.

This practice of sabbath, of putting down the duck, was Katelyn’s favorite assignment. She loved the rhythm it enforced in our newly minted marriage and the fact that for six hours she didn’t have to hear about some boring book or theologian. I didn’t always keep my Sabbath. At midterms and finals, I carried my duck 24/7. And after the class, our sabbath [my sabbath] was never as intentional as it was that first semester.

This assignment, more than any other, showed me how my worth, how good of a pastor I would be, how I saw and understood myself, was wrapped up in what I produced, by how busy I was, and how well I did in my classes.Stopping, even for six hours, disrupted all of that. But that’s exactly what sabbath is supposed to do.

The commandment to observe the sabbath is listed in two places in the Bible. In Exodus, God spoke to Moses and said “Remember the sabbath, keep it holy” and gave this explanation as to why: “for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, but rested the 7th day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it”. In short, do as God did. God rested from work so you should rest from work.

Deuteronomy, however, is a bit different. It’s the same commandment, but a different explanation. “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” Here, the Israelites are invited to rest not to imitate God but to see what God has done for them and see who they truly are.

For 400 years, the Israelites were enslaved, forced to make bricks each and every day with no rest. Their life was consumed by their work, their worth was only found in how much they produced. Then after leaving Egypt, God says one day you won’t work or make anything. It was a radical reorientation reminding Israel that they are no longer slaves, their worth did not come from how many bricks they made, and their identity did not come from their work.

God had made them free and would provide for them, even when they didn’t work because they were God’s people, chosen and loved. Rest made them see this. And look how inclusive, how far reaching the sabbath invitation was: animals, servants, immigrants among them, all were extended the same rest, because no one and no thing should be forced to work their life away. Rest is a gift for all of creation.

Maybe like the Israelites, your identity is wrapped up in work, feeling like your worth comes from what you produce, how much money you make, or the title you carry. Maybe you're wrapped up in being the perfect parent or spouse, or weighing the right number on a scale. Who are you when the children move out, or you get divorced, or you retire, or your body can no longer do what it once could? What’s the duckie you can’t put down? Sabbath is a rhythm to help you see and grasp the identity you have as a beloved child of God made in the image of God.

This one day of rest shows us our value as a person is not found in what we do or how busy we are but in whose we are. It is a form of grace; and like all grace, it disrupts our lives and causes us to change how we see ourselves. And not only are we changed by sabbath but so too are our days, our families, even our communities.

It is a hard grace for us to receive, but there are practical ways to help establish a sabbath. Dorothy Bass advises avoiding three things: work, commerce, and worry. Working nonstop makes us our own God, thinking all we have is by what we’ve done. And how prideful to think the world rotates because of our work. Stopping, just for one day, gives space for us to reflect on all that God has done and all the ways God provides for us.

And we’ll find that when we have balance with work, we’ll encourage others to have that too.

As for commerce, buying and spending are wrapped up in work. As Bass notes, “commerce creates the conditions for work and often more work. When we pause buying and spending, we pause work for others also.”

And likely the hardest thing to not do is worry. If you aren’t working, then you are worrying about work, or what needs done around the house, or the family problem that needs to be addressed, or the upcoming election and latest headlines. While it is undoubtedly hard to cast away our worries completely, we can refrain from things that induce worry, radical things like having your phone by your side, reading the news, checking Facebook or your email, or pausing the house project.

This may sound restricting, oppressive even. But the intent is the opposite. Sabbath is a day made for you, as Jesus tells us, a day to be life giving and rejuvenating. A day where you are free to rest, celebrate, and feast. Walk, play, and pray. Love and be loved. Serve, study, and sing. And most importantly, free to worship and give thanks for the grace of God that is ours through Jesus. Every sabbath is a little easter celebrating that we need not work ourselves to death in order to save ourselves. Christ has done that for you. No matter how well you keep the sabbath, it does not get you to heaven. And neither does any amount of work you do or money you make.

So put down the duckie and remember the sabbath. If a whole day seems too much at first, try it for six hours. You might be surprised at how hard this is and how it changes not only your day, but your family’s day too.

Which is why sabbath isn’t meant to be done alone. Sabbath is done best in a community, a group of people willing to go against the culture of ceaseless consumption and production.

Sabbath is the grace of rest, helping us see that who we are cannot be reduced to the work we can or cannot do, and tells us that we are loved, you are loved simply because you are a child of God. Sabbath truly is grace with no strings attached.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.