6/22/03
Baccalaureate Sunday
Have You Still No Faith? - Mark 4:35-41
(view lectionary notes for this text)
On this Sunday in the church calendar, we move into the liturgical season that used to be called 'ordinary time'. Now, the season was called ordinary because the Sundays were numbered with ordinals - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on, until the cycle returned to advent and a beginning of a new Christian year. However, most people heard that we were in the 'ordinary' season, and took it to mean ordinary is in plain, not special or set apart. The ordinary season started to get a bad rap, and so now we just call Sundays like today "2nd Sunday after Pentecost." I'm not sure that's much more exciting, but it's what we've got until we come up with something better! At any rate, in terms of our gospel lesson, this time in the church calendar means that we start to move away from the special events: Palm Sunday, Easter, Transfiguration, Pentecost, and so on, and we move back to the life and teachings of Jesus as the focus.
Today, we find Jesus and the disciples retreating from the crowds, boarding a boat, and heading across the sea. Jesus, fatigued from the healing and teaching he had been doing, fell asleep in the back. Soon, however, a great storm rose, knocking the boat around, and the disciples were frightened, and woke Jesus. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" They ask with accusations in their voices. He responds with equal accusation, after calming the storm wit a word of 'peace', "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" Our scene closes with the disciples marveling, "who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
I couldn't quite figure out who I 'sided with' in this story at first. Jesus' words ring loudly through the text, "Have you still no faith?" I questioned, "is Jesus fair in laying such a claim against them?" After all, this is just the beginning of Mark's account of Jesus' ministry. The disciples have not been with him long yet. They've not witnessed some of his most impressive miracles and healings, they've not heard the prophecies yet of what will happen to their teacher. They've only just abandoned their whole lives to follow this strange man. Why would they put their faith and trust in this man and his power? And yet here he is, accusing them of still having no faith, as if they've been with him for years already. Was Jesus being fair to them?
Yet, I had to reconsider, that maybe Jesus was more on target than I thought. Consider this. Before Jesus questions the faith of the disciples, they shout at him, "do you not care that we are perishing?" They want him to wake up and fix things, they want him to snap into action. Wait a minute then - it is not that the disciples do not have faith in Jesus' power that he must be questioning them on. They seem to have great confidence, actually, that Jesus will just wake up and stop the storm. What Jesus responds to is that the disciples accuse him of not caring for them. They do not have faith that Jesus cares for them: this is the true faith crisis. After all, why were the disciples so afraid of the storm anyway? Most of them were fishermen, who probably had much more experience than Jesus, a teacher and carpenter, anyway. They had undoubtedly weathered countless storms without needing someone to magically make the winds calm. Why did they suddenly act like that had no idea what to do? Why did they suddenly want Jesus to do everything for them? How could they believe that he had the power to calm the storm, and yet not still believe that Jesus would want to protect them and desire the best for them? Jesus' accusation, it seems, is right on target after all. "Have you still no faith?"
Our own faith lives are not so different, I think. God continually has to question us, "have you still no faith?" We, like the disciples, seem all too willing to believe that God is all-powerful, able to do anything, to fix any problems we might encounter. We always seem to have faith that God can do the miraculous. But somehow, faith of this kind works against us and against God instead of for us and for God. First, we put so much trust in God's supernatural powers, that we forget to use our own skills and gifts which God has given to us. We, like the fishermen who suddenly were floundering on the sea, act like we don't know what to do or how to help our selves with what God has already given us. What we don't realize it that God's power and miraculous abilities are revealed as much in our gifts and talents as they are in multiplying fish and loaves, parting of seas, or bread from heaven. Some of us are gifted with music and drama. Some of us are gifted with a listening ear. Some of us are gifted with organization and management abilities. These gifts are miracles, God's love and power manifest in us. When we face faith crises, these gifts are God's way of already providing us with help in times of need. Instead of looking for a quick defying-the-laws-of-the-universe fix, God asks us to look inward to our own resources.
Second, we, like the disciples, see God as all powerful, but somehow, after all God has done for us, we don't believe that God will act for good in our lives. We always suspect that God is out to get us. We want to blame God's far-reaching power whenever something goes wrong in our lives. When things go bad, we fully believe that God is causing our pain. We, like the disciples, cry, "God, do you not care that we are perishing?" How, after all God has done for us, can we still believe that God does not care for us? How can we believe that God does not look out for us, or that God in fact wants to work against us, to cause us pain? Why is it easier to believe that God will act against us or not act at all that to believe that God loves us and cares for us completely?
I have a sort-of love hate relationship with running. Part of me hates it, and I often have to drag myself out against my own will, and play mental games with myself to trick myself into a run. Other times I just love it - I would never give it up for some other exercise. I can add other things on, but it always has to start with running. At Drew, right across the street from my apartment, was a big three mile loop that I would usually run around in the mornings. On the back side of this loop was a large hill that I always dreaded going up. The last couple weeks of seminary, I have to confess that I let my running slide a little bit, and didn't make it out to the loop as often at my usual routine. Now that I'm home, I've been trying to get back on course, so to speak. Now, I usually run at the track at the School for the Deaf. There are no big hills there to drag me down, so I can usually at least get myself over to the track. But there's another dilemma I've found. Unlike the course at school that was just one time around, to run three miles at the track, I have to go around the circle 12 times! Not only is it hard to keep track of the progress I'm making, since it seems that I'm getting nowhere, but it's also difficult because there's always the temptation to quit before I hit my goal: the exit from the track comes up each and every lap, offering me the chance to give up and walk home. At Drew, if I stopped part way around the loop, I still had to at least walk the rest of the way home. Here, I can short change myself as easy as can be.
By now, you might be wondering what any of this has to do with our gospel lesson, with our faith, with you, with anything, and you might be feeling like you know more about my running routine than really necessary! But hang on, - I assure you there's a great connection coming up! I think we like to think of our lives and our faith journeys more like the great big loop I run at Drew - one big loop, certainly has hills to climb, but new ground is always being covered, there is clear progress toward the goal, and once you see the finish line, that's it, you're finished! There's no where to get on or off except the beginning and the end. But actually, I think our lives and our faith walks are much more like the track I run at the School for the Deaf. We often have to cover the same ground more than once to really make any progress. And yes, like on a track, we are offered chance after chance to give up and get out. We have many chances to stumble, to get off course, to lose our way, every time we think we're making some progress. The journey can be quite frustrating, and it's easy to feel like God has trapped us on this path, and left us to struggle there. "God, do you not care that we are perishing?"
But God calls us, "Have you still no faith?" Instead of one long path, beginning to end, we have chances in life to try again, to go around one more time, to enjoy our gifts and graces in different contexts and settings. We have chance to measure our progress, even within the safety of the course, and we have the task of confronting our temptations too. Imagine if the disciples' time and journeys with Jesus had only been on one long path, beginning to end. There would have been no opportunities to learn from their mistakes, no chances to try again to share the good news with communities, no second chances when they let Jesus down. Fortunately, Christ seemed to know that he would have to cover the same ground with the disciples and the crowds over and over again. Parable after parable seem to cover the same material, they seem to convey the same messages to them and to us. Jesus told them again and again about God's love and about what Jesus would have to do in order to show God's love. Jesus would go around the lessons with them again and again, helping them to become faithful servants. Have you still no faith? Fear not, God is a patient teacher, who will stay the course with us. Let us put our trust in our parent, our creator, our teacher. God will not leave us alone on the stormy waters.
Let us pray: God, we believe, help our unbelief. We have faith - help us put our faith in you and in ourselves, in the gifts and intelligence and creativity and hearts with which you have blessed us. Be with these graduates today, as they have a time of endings and beginnings. Help them and all of us to know how much you love us, and how closely you journey with us on this course of life. In the name of Christ who calms the storms, we pray, Amen.