The 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Just Get in the Boat
By The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer -
“And leaving the crowd behind, they took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.”
So writes St. Mark in our Gospel lesson for today.
Sometimes you just need to have faith and get into the boat.
Or the elevator.
Before moving to Santa Monica, Kris and I lived four years in New York City, first on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a wonderful place to live. Our first apartment was in a fairly new highrise building on the back corner of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The apartment building was located at 110th Street & Morningside Avenue right next to Morningside Park. Our apartment was on the 8th floor, high enough to block most of the street noise. We really enjoyed living there. I could easily walk to my office which was just about 15 blocks away.
One morning I was waiting on the 8th floor for the elevator. When the elevator door opened I was faced with an alarming site. In the elevator to my left were three young women, one visibly near the end of her pregnancy. And, in the elevator to my right was a young man, shoeless and naked except for his underwear. He was holding a screaming baby, a baby only loosely clothed in a cloth diaper.
“Get in the elevator,” the man snarled at me.
Now, my first reaction, my fear reaction was understandably NOT to get into that elevator. The man looked very dangerous and the women appeared to be in fear of him. And I had only seconds to make a decision, before the elevator door would close.
Quickly, I saw the fear in the eyes of the women to my left. And a panicked look in the man’s eyes.
I jumped onto the elevator and the door closed.
As soon as we reached the first floor, the man with the baby, the man with no shoes and only dressed in his underwear briefs, this man ran out the door of the building, heading around the block with the child.
The women and I quickly exited. The pregnant woman looked at me with fear and worry. Quickly the full story poured out. The man had jumped into the elevator with his sick baby. He had tried to call an ambulance, but his telephone had not worked in the elevator. Without thinking, the pregnant woman had given him her phone and taken his. And now the man and the baby had run from the elevator, with her telephone, the telephone with her husband’s and all of her emergency numbers. And her due date was that week.
“What can I do?” she asked.
I was pretty sure that he went running to the emergency room at St. Luke/Roosevelt Hospital, since St. Luke/Roosevelt Hospital was just 3 blocks away.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I will go with you to get your telephone back.”
So, off we went. Now, I was not dressed in my clerical collar, but, somehow, I convinced the guard to let us in and even to let us into the emergency room bay where the young man’s child was already receiving life-saving care. The young man was terribly embarrassed by all that had happened and greatly relieved to exchange telephones with the pregnant woman.
The woman and I headed off to our respective offices. I never learned the names of any of the folks I met that day, but I did hear that the baby fully recovered.
Sometimes, you just need to get into the boat. Or the elevator.
“And leaving the crowd behind, they took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.”
What moves us from fear to faith?
Think about it. Both fear and faith make sense only in relation to something that is unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening. I mean, it is just those kinds of things that make us afraid. And, when you stop to think about it, it is also just those same kinds of things that summon faith to face our fears. Indeed, in the face of things that are unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening, it almost seems like there is a clear choice in front of us – and that choice is fear or faith.
At least, that’s the way Jesus seems to characterize things in today’s story from St. Mark’s Gospel about Jesus’ stilling of the storm, calling out the disciples’ fear and asking why they do not have faith.
I do not usually make such a hard distinction – either faith or fear. I tend to believe that faith does not so much banish fear as it does make it possible to cope with fear. At the same time, it does feel like responding in fear or responding in faith are two very different responses to the same situation. And maybe that is the issue, not whether you are afraid, but how you respond to your fear.
Which brings me back to the question: what moves us from fear to faith? Or at least, what enables us – even if we are afraid of something that is unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening – what moves us, enables us, to act in faith rather than be paralyzed by fear?
What struck me while reading this passage from Mark is that, interestingly, it is not the miracle Jesus performs that makes the difference. Indeed, after Jesus has calmed the storm the disciples seem almost more afraid than they were before Jesus calmed the storm. The disciples appear to have moved from a terror of dying – “do you not care that we are perishing?!” – to more of a holy awe – “who is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?!” But, their actual level of fear does not seem to have changed.
I think this is interesting because we tend to think that faith would be easier to find if we just had a miracle or two to summon and bolster it. But that is not the case here. Indeed, it is not the case through all of Mark’s story to this point and even beyond. The disciples have witnessed many, many miracles so far, yet they still do not know what to expect from Jesus or even who Jesus is.
Faith is not believing certain ways about when or how God created the earth, or whether or not Jonah lived in the belly of a whale, or the nature of Scripture’s authority, or even Mary’s marital status when Jesus was born. Rather, faith is about a relationship, a relationship with the God revealed by the ministry and words and actions of Jesus.
And in Mark’s Gospel, the Jesus we meet is relentless in his pursuit of caring for all of God’s children. This very crossing of a rough sea is prompted by Jesus’ determination to get to the other side, to the land of the Gerasenes, a fearsome place few rabbis would venture. There Jesus will meet and heal a man possessed by a demon and return him to the community from which he has been ostracized. And then Jesus will come back to more familiar haunts to heal again, this time restoring life to a young girl and healing a woman who has been suffering for more than a decade.
These early chapters of Mark describe again and again Jesus’ determination to free people from all the things that keep them from the abundant life God promises: to free them from demon possession, disease, social exclusion, hunger, even death itself.
Jesus reveals a God who cares passionately for the wellbeing of all God’s people. This is the One we invite people to trust.
And trust, in the end, is the only thing that overcomes fear. Ultimately, you see, the question is not what moves us from fear to faith, but who moves us from fear to faith.
And the answer is Jesus, the one who will not rest until we see and hear and experience and trust God’s passionate love for us and all the world.
There is a second “who” involved as well. Whenever we have a hard time believing that God still loves us and is always present in our lives, despite our shortcomings or loneliness or struggles, those are the times when this gathered worshiping community is especially important, where we have a place to read again these stories and remind each other of God’s promises.
Whenever we gather for worship and remind each other of God’s steadfast love, whenever we do that we are stepping into the biblical story to play one of the great roles assigned throughout Scripture. For at critical junctures across the biblical drama, apostles, angels, and prophets will be sent to the people of God to say the four powerful yet simple words that constitute the most frequently repeated command and promise in the Bible: Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid. Each time we say and hear these words we join with all those saints before us who, caught up in the Spirit of God, found the courage not just to survive, but to flourish; not just to live, but to live with abundance; and not just to get by, but knowing the favor we enjoy in and through Christ, people who were able to dare great things, expect great things, ask for great things, and share great things.
Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes writes these words:
““They took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.”
“Not the holy, jewel-encrusted Jesus, not the Son of God believe-it-or-else Jesus, but the teacher from Galilee, plain, just as he is.
“No emblems, no gesture, no crown. No doctrine, no special powers. Just Jesus’ presence, his open heart, his willing flesh.
Let Jesus go with you. Take him as he is. Jesus will change your journey. You may still be frightened, but just get in the boat.”
Not fear, but trust and faith. Just get in the boat.
Not fear, but trust and faith. Just get in the elevator.
Amen.
(With thanks to the Rev. Dr. David Lose and Pastors Steve Garnaas-Holmes and Peg Schultz-Akerson).
The Rev. Eric Christopher Shafer
Senior Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sunday, June 23 & 24, 2018
