6/24/18 “Is Jesus Sleeping Through Our Storm?” by Nancy Petty
Text: Mark 4:35-41
It is one of the oldest and most theologically formidable questions uttered throughout human history: Does God care about our suffering? The biblical narrative does not shy away from this question. From the cries of Hagar as she watched the life of her first-born son fade as she placed him under that bush in the desert preparing for him a place to die; to Job who laments: “Why did I not perish at my birth…”; to the prophet Jeremiah who cries out, “Why is my pain continuous, my wound incurable…?”; to Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, who shouts out: “Jesus, have mercy on me.”; all the way to Jesus himself who cries out on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” the question of whether God cares about our suffering shapes, in large part, the biblical story and one of the enduring questions of humanity. And for people of faith today, it is still a theologically daunting question.
Surely those parents whose children have been taken from them at the border wonder, “Does God care about their suffering?” I can only imagine how the children who are old enough to wonder about such things are asking in their child-like way, “Does God care that I am scared and that I miss my parents?” Don’t you imagine that poor people all across this nation who are physically sick and don’t have access to healthcare wonder if God cares about their suffering? And for those struggling with mental illness or opioid addiction or homelessness or loneliness, well I imagine they, too, somewhere in the depths of their soul wonder if God cares.
But you know what? It’s not just parents who are being separated from their children at the border who wonder if God cares about their suffering. It’s not just poor people who can’t get healthcare that question God’s care for them; or those struggling with addiction or homelessness or loneliness or those living along the Palestinian/Israeli border, a world we can’t imagine. No, I would venture to guess that some of us sitting right here in this sanctuary often wonder if God cares about our suffering. And not just about the suffering of others in this world; but our own individual suffering. I know that our teenagers, struggling with the anxieties of growing up in this unsettled world, are wondering if God cares about their worries, or if anybody cares. We might not want to admit it—us adults—that this question lingers in our own minds and hearts. Our intellectual elitism often holds us back from acknowledging that we are susceptible to asking such questions about God and of our faith. We’ve so intellectualized God, and our relationship with God, and God’s activity in the world to the point that we no longer know how to cry out in suffering, much less raise the question of whether or not God still cares. Especially Christian liberals, we have abandoned such intimate and vulnerable questions of faith because we can’t abide the shallow answers that other Christians would have us believe. In our reaction, sadly we have left such questions to for other people of faith to work through.
Not too long ago, as I was going through a very difficult time personally, I can remember feeling guilty and somewhat embarrassed for wondering if God cared about my suffering and the suffering of one for whom I care deeply. It was in the darkness of that time—when the waves of fear seem to pound me daily—that I, like the disciples, wanted to shout out to God or Jesus or somebody/anybody, “Do you not care that those I love are perishing? Do you not care that my heart is breaking?” But I would wonder, do I have the right to even ask that question of God? And furthermore, did I want to know the answer? What if God doesn’t care about the suffering of the world? What if God doesn’t care about my suffering or the suffering of those I love? Surely, if God cared, we wouldn’t be perishing, we would be suffering, our hearts wouldn’t be breaking for those we love.
It must have been the way the disciples felt in the boat that evening while Jesus lay asleep on a cushion as the waves beat into the boat as the water began filling the hull. There is nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of a crisis and having those around you act as if nothing is wrong. You can just feel the disciples’ frustration when they woke Jesus and asked one of the oldest and most theologically complex questions of faith: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Do you not care that we are afraid? Do you not care that we are in trouble? Do you not care that the waves of life are beating up against? Do you not care that I can’t make the rent and pay my college debt and have enough to live off of this month? Do you not care that my family disowned me? Do you not care that my spouse can’t remember my name or that my own memory is failing me? Do you not care that my child is struggling in school? Do you not care that I am lonely? Do you not care that…?
“We are like the disciples. We want God to calm the wind and seas. We want to shout at God and Jesus and anybody else we can shout at, “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see we are perishing? Don’t you see so many of us — children, even! — have already perished? Wake up, God! [Wake up, Jesus!] Stop sleeping when we need you most!” (David Henson, When God Sleeps through Storms)
One theologian, reflecting on this story of Jesus sleeping through the storm writes:
Like the disciples, we believe the power — the divine — is in the ability to control things. We assume, like the disciples, that the miracle is in Jesus rebuking and calming the storm. But if you notice, Jesus only reluctantly uses his power. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything. He wants to keep sleeping! He goes so far as to rebuke his disciples for even asking for his help. He calls them faithless. This storm-calming power isn’t the kind of power Jesus came to demonstrate. Rather, it is the exact kind of power Jesus came in order to give up, to empty himself of. It is the same power he rejects when he refuses to throw himself from the pinnacle when he is tempted in the desert, the same power he turns down when he refuses to kneel before the Adversary, that same superficial power that controls earthly things.
Though we might like it to be, this isn’t a story…about Jesus’ ability to control the weather…This is a story, rather, about how little we believe God to be with us in the midst of an overwhelming storm. It’s about how, deep down, maybe we don’t really believe that a God-with-us is actually enough. It’s about how what we really want is a God who is in control. And it is an indictment of the disciples and of us [and of the faith and God that we have come to expect and want].
…the miracle in this story is [not] about Jesus calming the storm and taking control. The miracle in this story is that Jesus was with the disciples in the water-logged and weatherbeaten boat, experiencing the same terrible storm, the same terrible waves, the same terrible danger.
And that alone should have been enough.
God’s power isn’t in the control of creation or of people, but in being in covenant and relationship with them…God’s power is not in miraculous interventions, pre-emptive strikes in the cosmic war against suffering and evil, but in inviting us to build a kingdom out of love, peace and justice with God. God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world, but in empowering us to build something good in this world.
And isn’t this true power? Instead of enforcing control and solutions onto the world, God’s power is revealed in coming alongside us, journeying with us, suffering with us, and even staying with us in the boat when the storms come. (David Henson, When God Sleeps Through Storms)
I was reminded of this truth yesterday in a Shabbat service Imam Antepli and I attended at the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. We were at the Shabbat service to support our friend and colleague, Rabbi Lucy Dinner. It was a beautiful worship service under a big white tent with mud from the weeks’ rain gushing underneath our feet. For a brief moment I forgot I was on the national mall and started thinking that I might just be under that big white tent out in the middle of a cow pasture somewhere along the road between West Jefferson and Boone. The only difference I could feel is that I wasn’t looking for the snake handlers. In song and story and sacred readings the worship leaders took us on a journey that lifted up both the suffering of our world—the suffering of the poor and the oppressed living among us in this country—and the hope that comes when we wake up to love, to God’s love, that is among us.
At one point in the worship, we sang these words:
I will build this world with love
And you must build this world with love
And if we build this world from love
Then God will build this world from love
God’s power is not in the obliterating of what is bad in the world,–the storms that beat up against our lives, the waves that threaten to pull us under, the shameful and immoral policies of lawmakers that target the poorest and the most vulnerable—but God’s power is in empowering us to wake up and to build something good in this world.
And so, here is my takeaway from the gospel today. If we feel like God or Jesus or whomever we call the Holy One is sleeping through our storm it may very well be that we are the ones that need to wake up. If we feel like Jesus is asleep then we might need to wake up because it is through us, our faith tells us, that Jesus can care about the suffering in our world—our suffering and the suffering of others. We are the hands and feet and voices and hearts of Jesus in this world. And the gospel is asking us: Are we asleep or awake? Who is suffering that is coming to us in their fear and panic asking us to wake up? Could it be the person sitting beside you, or in front of you, or behind you, or down the street from you, or in another state from our, or across the globe from you?
On the ride home yesterday from D.C. Imam asked me another of the more difficult theological questions of the Christian faith. He asked if I believed in the divinity of Jesus. I said yes, I do. But, I also said to him, the reason that I am a Christian and the reason I choose to be a follower of Jesus is the way he allowed his divinity—that divine spark from which he was created—to shape his humanity. It’s not his divinity that changed the world. It is not his divinity that inspires me. It was the way he allowed his divinity to shape his humanity and thus how he lived his life as a fully enfleshed human being. I believe we are all created with that divine spark in us and we, too, have the opportunity to allow that divinity to shape our humanity. I believe that is the way God’s power enters the world. It is the way we calm the storms of life and of this world. And when we do so, we wake up to God’s love that is within us and among us. And when we wake up to God’s love we build this world from love and for love. God is right with us as the storm tosses the boat, waiting, just waiting, for us to wake up and build this world from love.
