Why Are You Afraid?

“Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?’” 

Mark 4:40

The Reverend Luther Zeigler
June 24, 2012

Emmanuel Church

            My wife, Pat, and I have never lived near the sea before.  What an extraordinary difference the presence of the ocean can make to the daily rhythms of life.  We have been making a habit of sitting out by the shore early in the mornings, before the crowds arrive, sipping our coffee and sharing conversation about the day to come.  The ebb and flow of the tides, the salty smell of sea air, and the sheer vastness of the ocean deep has a way of connecting us to the natural order of things.  There is a reassuring serenity to the lapping of the waves upon the shore.

            There is the visual beauty too.  Two Friday evenings ago, we ventured north to Rockport and took in our first concert at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.  What an architectural and acoustical treasure it is.  And most stunning of all is the way in which the design of the concert hall makes the majesty of the sea a part of the performance, not merely as a visually compelling backdrop to the musicians, but almost as a musical descant to the melodies of their instruments.  We listened to hauntingly beautiful string quartets by Mozart and Schumann as we watched the sun set over the Cape as the boats came into Rockport harbor after a day’s work at sea.

            But the beauty and peacefulness of the sea is, of course, only one aspect of its complex reality.  The sea can also be a profoundly destructive force, benignly calm one moment and then raging with furious and uncontrollable power the next.  Fishermen understand and respect this dimension of the sea’s nature.  I was reminded of this fact during another recent trip up the Cape, this time to Gloucester to visit the Fisherman’s Memorial on Stacy Esplanade.  I’m sure you know it.  Commissioned in 1923 to celebrate Gloucester’s 300^th anniversary, the Fisherman’s Memorial is an eight-foot tall, bronze statue of a fisherman dressed in oilskins standing braced at the wheel on the sloping deck of his ship.  The statue is positioned so that the fisherman is looking out over Gloucester Harbor.  The memorial is dedicated to the thousands of fishermen lost to the raging and unpredictable fury of sea in the first three centuries of Gloucester's history.  The statue has become a symbol of the city, commemorating Gloucester's link to both the breathtaking beauty and the life-threatening power of the sea.

            Even if you know the statue, what you may not know is that there is a small plaque on the front, harbor-facing side of the base with an excerpt from today’s Psalm, Psalm 107.  Only verses 23 and 24 of the psalm appear on the plaque, presumably because of space considerations, but I wish there had been room for the whole of verses 23-30, for they are a poignant prayer for the fates of the fishermen:

Some went down to the sea in ships,
   doing business on the mighty waters; 


they saw the deeds of the Lord,
   his wondrous works in the deep. 


For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
   which lifted up the waves of the sea. 


They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths;
   their courage melted away in their calamity; 


they reeled and staggered like drunkards,
   and were at their wits’ end. 


Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
   and he brought them out from their distress; 


he made the storm be still,
   and the waves of the sea were hushed. 


Then they were glad because they had quiet,
   and he brought them to their desired haven.

            The ancient near Eastern peoples, who were much more at the mercy of their natural surroundings than are we, understood just how apt a metaphor the sea is for life.  In its calmer moments, it enchants with a mysterious beauty and inviting and hypnotic rhythms; its energy can be exhilarating and awe-inspiring; but in the blink of an eye, the sea can turn on us, tossing us about like paper-mache dolls on its surface, battering us with the force of its waves, overwhelming us with one swell after another, drowning us in a seemingly inexhaustible supply of water, its sheer immensity reminding us of our place in the universe.  For these reasons, in biblical literature, the sea tends to be a symbol of chaos, something to be feared.  Think of Genesis and the primordial chaos of the deep over which God breathes his creative and ordering spirit.  Think of the plight of Pharaoh’s army in the Exodus narrative as the walls of the Red Sea collapse in on them.  Think of the story of Jonah, tossed into the depths of the sea for his refusal to heed God’s prophetic call.  And then, of course, there is today’s gospel text about the sudden storm that threatens to overcome the disciples in their small boat as they make their way across the Sea of Galilee with Jesus.

            The story is one of fear and faith.  It opens as the shadows of evening signal the end to another long day of teaching.  Jesus gathers his disciples and says to them:  “Let us go across to the other side.”  And leaving the crowd behind, they board their boat and drift out across the Galilean sea.  But just then a great windstorm suddenly kicks up, winds gusting, with huge waves rocking the small boat from side to side.  As the boat begins to take on water, the disciples fear for their lives.  They turn to Jesus, only to find him in the stern, asleep on the cushion.  They wake him up:  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus wakes up, rebukes the wind, and says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” The wind subsides, the waves stop, and there is a dead calm.  Jesus then asks, “Why are you afraid?”

            Why are we afraid?  The answer seems obvious enough.  We are afraid because we might die.  The storms of life threaten to do us in.  A debilitating disease; a business venture gone awry; a child lost to addiction; a broken marriage; the vicissitudes of mental illness and emotional problems; the grief that comes with the loss of a loved one, not to mention the ensuing loneliness.  These are the storms of life, and each of us, sooner or later, is battered by one or more of them.  To fear such storms, to fear the rage of life’s sea, seems entirely human.

            And yet, by posing the question – “why are you afraid?” – Jesus is inviting us to look our fears in the face, to recognize that they ultimately do not have to control us, and to consider embracing a deeper reality that promises to overcome not just our fears but even death itself.  Jesus lies asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat not because he is unconcerned about the disciple’s plight.  His sleep reflects his relationship with a power that lies beneath the surface of life’s storms, and that gives him a peace that, in the words of one of our most ancient blessings, passes all understanding.  He is at one with the God who is the Creator of life itself and the tamer of its storms.  And by rebuking the wind, and calming the seas, Jesus is revealing his identity as the Son who shares the Father’s power over all of creation.  His invitation to the disciples is to place their faith in him, and to see past the turmoil of the moment.  Jesus is not denying the reality of life’s storms, and of the pain and fear they can cause; rather, he is calling us to trust in a more enduring reality that will redeem that suffering and assuage those fears.

            But there is yet another layer to the story if we look more closely at its context.  Remember how it begins.  Jesus says to those who would follow him:  “Let us go across to the other side.”  What does he mean by “the other side”?  He is referring, of course, to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  Up to this point in Mark’s gospel, Jesus and his disciples have been teaching and healing on the west side of the Sea of Galilee, in the Judean countryside, in the land of their fellow Jews.  The “other side” of the Galilean Sea, to the east, is the TransJordan, Gentile country, a land of strangers.  So, if we want to follow Jesus, it seems as if we must be willing to board the boat that travels to “the other side.”  We have to be prepared to leave the comforts of home, and the safety of our own neighborhoods, to meet “the other” on his or her own terms, on his or her own land.  Jesus acknowledges that such a journey will be a rough one – as trips out of our comfort zones always are – but it is an essential element of discipleship.

            The story of the calming of the sea, it turns out, is not merely a Christological testament about Jesus’ identity as God’s Son and of his authority over the earth’s power; it is also a “border crossing” story.  It is a story of how authentic faithfulness requires an openness to the other, a hospitality to the stranger, and a willingness to risk relationship with those different than ourselves.  And in the chapters to come in Mark we will see how Jesus expands his ministry beyond his own people to include not only Gentiles, but especially those forgotten and neglected by their own people:  the lepers, the widows and orphans, the prostitutes, the tax collectors.

            Thus, when Jesus asks us why we are afraid, an honest response is that we are afraid not only because of the normal range of life’s storms and travails; we are also afraid because we realize that he is inviting us into a boat headed to “the other side.”  What we will discover soon enough is that Jesus is on a mission to break down all the social and political and cultural barriers that we erect to keep us safe and to close us off from difference.  And more than that, he is asking – indeed, he is demanding – that we make the journey with him to encounter and embrace all those who are not like us for the purpose of building up God’s Kingdom. 

            In the end, the really hard question is not so much “why are we afraid?”; but rather, “do we trust Jesus enough to get into the boat knowing where it is headed”?  It can be a frightening choice to make.  But Jesus’ promise – the promise of faith – is that if we are willing to take those risks, we will discover that our salvation lies precisely in that community of expansive welcome and care on the other side.  To be sure, at times the passage will be rough, but at journey’s end we are assured a joy and a peace that surpasses all understanding.   And if you still find yourself a bit scared as you take that first wobbly step into the boat, just remember this simple truth:  Jesus will be in the boat with us.  Amen.