When God Seems to Go AWOL Mark 4:26-27; 35-41 First Presbyterian Church of Greenlawn The Rev. Frederick H. Woodward June 24, 2012 Mark 4:26-27; 35-41 (NIV) He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how... That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side." Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!" When God Seems to Go AWOL (NIV) One of the problems with faith that pretends to be sight, and which, sometimes, goes so as far as to even repress all doubt, is that it does not know what do about those times when God seems distant, silent, hidden, or asleep at the wheel. And yet if we are honest, we will acknowledge that such times come to all of us. The psalmist, whose voice was as honest as it was faithful, went through such times as well. Did God seem sometimes distant or unavailable? Yes: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?... Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? Do not be far from me, for trouble is near be not far off, O my Strength, come quickly to help me (Ps. 22:1, 11, 19). Did God appear at times to fall silent? Yes, that too: O God, do not keep silent, be not quiet, O God, be not still (Ps. 83:1). Did God seem at times to be hiding? Yes, also that: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Ps. 33:1). Did God at times seem to be asleep at the wheel? Yes, even that too: Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever (Ps. 44:23). Our Gospel reading this morning suggests that the early church also struggled with God s absence or unavailability. Mark tells of the occasion when Jesus and his disciples set out across the Sea of Galilee toward Gentile territory, a hint that from the very start, the Gospel s distribution list included not only those who were among the chosen people of Israel. En route to their dangerous destination a raging storm came up, and yet it did not disturb Jesus who was sleeping like a baby even as the boat was taking on water. Mark doesn t tell us why Jesus was sleeping. Perhaps being human, he simply needed a nap. Perhaps Jesus was at peace in the confidence of God s providential care. 1
But what is clear is that Jesus disciples were not at peace. They were not only worried but also put out. There is no suggestion in the text that the disciples woke Jesus up because they thought he could do anything about the storm; they woke him up not in faith but in fear and perhaps also in anger. The disciples did not want to undergo their experience alone. If in their view Jesus really couldn t have done anything about the storm, he could at least have said something, and if he couldn t have said something, he could at least have joined them in their fear and trembling. After all, it was Jesus who had gotten them into this mess: it was at his command that they were even trying to cross to the other side in the first place. So they nudged Jesus awake not only with a question, but also with an accusation: teacher, don t you care if we drown? (NIV). Don t you care that we are perishing? (NRSV) By the time Mark s Gospel was written, Jesus had been asleep for quite some time- that was the euphemistic way people spoke in those days about death: people who had died had fallen asleep. Many believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, of course, but that was a matter of faith, not sight. And because his return to judge the world in righteousness and mercy seemed inexplicably delayed, the early church was still trying to make sense of life without him. The church came to believe that Jesus was still present with them and in them through the power of the Holy Spirit, but that too was a matter of faith, not sight. And so I don t doubt that there were many days when the early Christians wondered if Jesus would ever wake up, and return to the earth in power and glory. To encourage them in their faith, Mark reminded them of Jesus mighty deeds by which his power over chaos and death could be remembered and, by God s grace, experienced again first hand. Jesus stilling of the storm was a central story for them, and not only because it told of the disciples rescue. Since people in Jesus day thought that nature was governed by powers with distinct wills and personalities, storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters were for them evidence of the demonic. And so, Mark reminded his community that not only does Jesus save them from drowning; he also snatches them from the clutches of the evil one. Last week we read the parable about the man who sowed the seed of the kingdom, went to sleep, and saw upon waking that the harvest was ready. Today we read about Jesus who fell asleep after sowing the Gospel seed, and then woke up. Is this a coincidence? I don t think so. Mark was telling the early church, I think, that although their Savior was physically absent, he would one day wake up, so to speak, and return to the earth to gather in his harvest of souls. And one indication that the harvest was ready was that Jesus exercised dominion even over the wind and the waves, proving his lordship over all the powers of chaos and evil. Jesus was proving himself mightier than all the demonic powers that his people believed lay behind every illness, every corrupt political system, and every natural calamity. And so, after waking up, and wiping the sleep from his eyes, Jesus rebuked the waves and commanded them to shut up and calm down. Nobody seems to rebuke anybody any more, but Mark s decision to use that verb suggests that Jesus had done nothing less than perform an exorcism on that stormy Galilean sea. 1 And, in fact, 1 The verb epitimao is Mark s verb of choice to describe the action of exorcising evil spirits (Mark 1:25; 9:25). 2
virtually everything that Jesus does in Mark s Gospel is an exorcism. 2 His sermons, his healings, and all his interventions in the natural world were exorcisms, actions by which he was dislodging evil s hold on the world. For Mark therefore, ministry was nothing less than mortal combat with everything demonic that stood opposed to God. And so, at Jesus word, the mighty storm became instead a mighty calm. But the really odd thing, I think, is that that was precisely when things started to get really scary for the disciples. Mark, in fact, doesn t say anything about the disciples being afraid until after Jesus rebuked the storm and calmed the sea, until, that is, they were completely out of danger. And that suggests that the disciples were perhaps even more afraid of this One who did things reserved to God alone than of the storm that had threatened their lives. And maybe the same is true for us as well. For when the power of the Gospel is unleashed, it is a power beyond our imagining. It changes lives; it changes the world. What is truly frightening is not when God seems to have gone AWOL, but when God shows up unexpected and unannounced, becoming powerfully present, overturning our settled ways, smashing our idols, and bringing unimaginable life out of the various kinds of death to which we sometimes cling because they are at least familiar. That s why I don t think it is quite enough to preach this passage as offering a simple message of assurance that Jesus calms life s storms and takes away all our fear. That may well be one of the messages of Psalm 107, where the psalmist says of the people, they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out of their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven (Ps. 107:28-30). That is indeed a wonderful message of assurance. But when we line up Ps. 107 against our passage this morning from Mark s Gospel, they don t quite tally. For the psalmist speaks of the gladness of the people when the Lord stilled the storm and guided them to safety. But Mark does not speak of a people glad to be saved, but of a people frightened out of their wits because they found themselves in the unexpected presence of God. They may have been frightened because of the storm, but they were terrified because God was revealing himself to them in this person who they regarded at this point only as a teacher, and not also the Christ, the very Son of God. As I suggested a few weeks back 3, we probably need to hear a bit more about the God before whom we fall on our faces in awe and wonder rather than about a domesticated God who lives to promote us, who wants nothing more than to make our dreams and desires come true, a God who, in other words, lives to serve us. 4 And we 2 This observation was made by Thomas Long in an unpublished sermon. According to Long, for Mark, doing ministry is not gently encouraging spirituality in a benign culture. For Mark, it is wholly apocalyptic combat between the Gospel and the demonic, and every single story in the Gospel of Mark reveals this combat. 3 Undone in the Presence of the Holy, June 3, 2012 4 June readers of Today s Word, with Joel and Victoria Osteen, hear God spoken of in this way: God has created you to be a victor not a victim. Jumpstart your day by celebrating the very best that God has for you He wants you to live without pressure He wants to empower you... He wants to do exceeding, abundantly above all you could ever ask, think or imagine. He wants to do things in your life that you ve never seen before He s working behind the scenes on your behalf your reward is coming He has promised you victory Your time is coming One touch of His favor can promote you You ll live in peace and victory all the days of your life. B (and even if not today, you ll still may be able to say tomorrow) My due season is coming. I will reap my harvest I m one day closer to seeing my dreams and desires come to pass (from meditations for 6/5/12; 6/7/12; 6/12/12; 6/13/12; /6/14/12; 6/18/12). 3
probably need to hear a bit more about Christians who discover themselves undone in the presence of our holy God, and who acknowledge that they don t really have a clue about how to save themselves, and a bit less about prosperous Christians who have achieved the pinnacle of success, and for whom Jesus has become a sort of Pez dispenser of material blessing. And in fact, the disciples in Mark s Gospel never pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, never put on their man-pants, so as to hold their fear in check. Because of who Jesus reveals himself to be, the Lord of the Universe, the disciples knew better than to believe that everything started with them; they knew that it wasn t their own faith in God that opened up the door to them or set their blessing in motion. 5 They knew that their only prayer was to turn toward the Lord of wind and rain, the only One in whose hands they would ever really be safe, the only One who knew and knows how to kick demon butt whether it presents itself in sickness or oppression, in corrupted political systems or in addiction, in institutions run amok or in personal relationships gone awry. There is a lot that provokes fear in our lives, a lot that contributes in us to a generalized sense of anxiety. There are days that seem to dole out to us nothing but frustration. Sometimes it feels as if we were trying to find our footing in an avalanche, and that we are being carried head over foot down a mountain, buried in life s gathering debris. Even on good days, the waves of chaos blow relentlessly against our boats and we sometimes begin to take in water. I might wish it were otherwise, but I don t see anywhere in Scripture where Jesus promises that we ll have smooth sailing if only we confess our faith in him. In fact, the fairly consistent message of the Gospels is that it is precisely when we get into the boat with Jesus that the real storms sometimes begin. And while Jesus promises to be with us and even in us, I know of nowhere in our Gospels where Jesus promises his disciples victory. 6 Jesus spoke instead about the necessity of taking up one s cross and following him. And he warned his disciples that if the powers of the empire hated him, they would also hate them. But Mark s Gospel does offer us the consolation that Jesus is in the boat with us, which is still the best news around. On most days, that is more than enough, but sometimes, frankly, it does not seem to be enough, and we do well to admit that rather than to pretend it away. When bad news comes our way, whether in the shape of one huge disaster, or a thousand little ones that suck the life out of us like leeches, it may seem that Jesus has dozed off on us or that that God has gone AWOL. But the witness of scripture is not that ours is a sleeping God; it is that we are a sleeping people. We are the ones, after all, whom Jesus found sleeping not once, but three times, in the Garden of Gethsemane while Jesus prayed for the world (Mark 14:37, 40, 41). We are the ones who sleep not only because we re tired, but also sometimes in order to dull the pain and sometimes even the awareness of human suffering. So if there are days when we, in our own vulnerability and weakness, ask, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? let us take consolation from the fact Jesus 5 Today s Word with Joel and Victoria for 6/7/12 promises that The key starts with us. Our faith in God is what opens the door for him to move and sets the blessing in motion. 6 Paul, of course, promises that we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Rom. 8:37), but conquerors in what sense? Victorious in what way? The victory of the cross is rather more nuanced than the victory in Christ that is generally promised to middle-class American Christians. Paul promised the community at Philippi that my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Jesus Christ (Phil. 4:19), but God was meeting all of Paul s needs while he was proclaiming the Gospel in prison, not in a 16,800-seat worship facility that cost 7.45 million dollars. 4
did too (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). And this Jesus, who was not only crucified for us, but was also raised for us, is in the boat with us even now. And whenever he acts, whenever he speaks, he calls into being a whole new world. And as for the power still held by our ancient foe, the prince of darkness grim, it is as Martin Luther famously put it: one little word shall fell him. It is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, our helper who prevails amid the flood of mortal ills, the one who says, Quiet! and even the wind and waves obey him. Therefore We will not fear for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us, not because of who we are, but because God s promise is true, that in Jesus Christ God s kingdom is forever. To God be the glory! 5