Thomas J Parlette
“Asleep in the Back of the Boat”
Mark 4: 35-41
6/20/21
Good morning, and Happy Father’s Day to all our fathers and father figures here today or watching at home this morning. Thank you for all you do to shape our lives, and for the example you provide us in managing the ups and downs in life.
One of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan, posted on twitter, “My 4 yr old gave me a handmade card for Father’s day. It was very cute. Maybe for Christmas I’ll draw him a picture of some toys.” A man named Mike Primavera tweeted, “Get your dad what he really wants this Father’s Day by turning off the lights when you leave a room.” And then there’s a tweet from username Dad and Buried, who writes, “Called my dad to wish him a happy Father’s Day and we spent the whole time discussing back pain and ibuprofen. The circle is now complete.”(1)
Today we celebrate Fathers. And both of our biblical passages for today say something about not just fathers, but all good parents. Good parents have a natural impulse to step in and protect their children, serving as an example in tough times and guiding them to learn from the challenges and storms that are a part of life.
First, we hear the well-known story of David and Goliath. The giant Goliath is chosen by the Philistines to fight any warrior from Israel that would care to step forward. Of course, no one does. So David volunteers. Even though he is just a boy, probably half the size of Goliath, with no experience as a warrior at all. Yet David is confident, because the Lord is with him. With the Lord’s support, he has fought off wild animals to protect his flock. David has confidence that the Lord will be with him to fight Goliath. King Saul reluctantly agrees and sends David off to fight saying, “may the Lord be with you.”
And we all know how that turned out. The Lord was with David in the face of this enormous challenge, and David killed Goliath with a single smooth stone.
Our Gospel story from Mark begins at the end of a typical day for Jesus and his disciples. Jesus has been teaching huge crowds of people by the Sea of Galilee. But the crowds have finally gone home, and it’s time to pack up and head to their next ministry spot in the region of the Gerasenes, in modern day Jordan. It must have been a tiring day. Jesus went to back of the boat to catch a quick nap. And suddenly a storm swept in. “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, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
These guys were professional fisherman. They had been on these waters their whole lives. They had been through these kinds of storms before. They knew how to ride one of them out. So this must have been a really furious storm to make these guys think they were going to die. “Jesus… don’t you care?”
It’s a question that is familiar to anyone who faces an insurmountable foe – like David, or a ferocious storm that threatens death – like the disciples on the sea.
Why doesn’t Jesus intervene immediately?
Why is he asleep in the back of the boat?
Where is God in my distress?
Don’t do you care?
Reynolds Price, in his book Letter to a Man on Fire, tells of getting a letter from a young man named Jim who had just been diagnosed with cancer. Price had survived his own bout with cancer a few years earlier, and Jim was writing to him because he knew Price would understand his fear and his questions. Jim wrote, “I want to believe in a God who cares… because I mat meet him sooner than I had expected. I think I am at a point where I can accept the existence of God… but I can’t yet believe God cares about me.”(2)
“I want to believe in a God who cares…” That’s a question we all wrestle with sometime in our lives. And if God does care about us, why does God let storms happen? Why do we have to face giant foes like Goliath?
This story in Mark’s Gospel is an affirmation that, yes, God cares, as evidenced by Jesus’ actions. When the storms of life are raging, Jesus does care. When it seems you cannot hold on a moment longer, Jesus does care. When the waters threaten to engulf you. Jesus does care. Jesus cares because he knows what life is like. He became flesh and blood, just like us. He has already placed himself in the middle of the storms we face.
Author Glenn Scrivener says that a few years ago he prayed to God that he would get to know God better. Within a week of that prayer, Glenn’s employers deported him from England back to Australia, his long-time girlfriend broke up with him, and his parents announced they were getting a divorce.
In the midst of all these events, Glenn had a revelation: God was using these storms to answer Glenn’s prayer. He realized that following Jesus often leads us into challenging pathways. Jesus may very well lead us directly into a storm. But it’s not because he doesn’t love us. It’s not because he wasn’t prepared for it. It’s because we can’t understand the power and the peace of God unless we encounter it in the middle of a storm. The best way to get to know God is to be caught in a storm with God.(3)
And that’s a lesson the disciples needed to learn, and they couldn’t learn it any other way. David had already learned it as he fought off wild animals to protect his flock. Now it’s the disciples turn. So the disciples rouse Jesus from his sleep, and he speaks to the wind and the waves, “Peace1 Be still!” And the wind ceases and there is a great calm. Then he turns to the disciples and asks, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”
Notice that Jesus does not say “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” He says, “Why are you afraid?”
That’s because there are many things in life to be rightly afraid of. Isolation, pain, illness, meaninglessness, rejection, losing your job, money problems, failure and death – they are all fearsome things.
But our faith assures us that none of these things have the last word. Jesus shows here that he has power over all the forces that would threaten to undo us.
The novelist Emily Bronte lived and wrote in a rectory set in the bleak moors of Yorkshire. She lived a grim tragedy with her half-demented father and alcoholic brother. Nevertheless, she was able to write words like these: “No coward soul is mine, no trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere. I see Heaven’s glories shine, and faith shines equal, arming me from fear.”(4)
The deep truth is that even though there are real and fearsome things in this life, they need not paralyze us; they need not have power over us; they need not own us, because we are not alone in the boat.
A scene near the end of John Bunyan’s classic allegorical novel The Pilgrim’s Progress finds the chief character, Christian, the archetype of a person struggling to lead a life of faith, nearing the end of his symbolic journey. This journey requires him to cross a great and fearsome river. He is desperately afraid. Together with his friend Hopeful, they wade into the waters with trepidation. Bunyan has Christian cry out, “I sink in deep Waters; the Billows go over my head, all His waves go over me.” Hopeful replies with what may be among the most grace-filled words in all of literature; “Be of good cheer, my Brother, I feel the bottom, and it is good…”(5)
Or, in Jesus’ own words – “Peace, be still. Don’t be afraid.”
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, p39.
2. Ibid… p40.
3. Ibid… p41.
4. Michael Lindvall, Feasting on the Word, Westminster John Knox Press, 2009, p168.
5. Ibid… p168
