Mark 4:35 - 41
I must have been about four or five when my parents took my sister and I to a cabin on Swan Lake in Montana. We had the use of an old rowboat and Dad took us out on the lake a couple of times. The last time the sky became dark and the wind started picking up and waves were lashing the boat. I didn’t get too concerned until I saw dad straining to row the boat back to shore and telling us to hang on to the boat railing. You could tell he was truly frightened. When you grow up in Montana, as I later learned, you learn that you shouldn’t be out on a Mountain lake during a storm and every year there was some report of someone who had drowned in such a storm. Of course in those days we didn’t have to have life jackets on or in the boat, so maybe things aren’t as bad now.
I suspect it must have been much the same in Jesus’ time; it’s a peculiarity of lakes that are surrounded by barriers to wind whether in the hill country of Galilee or the mountains of Montana. And our disciples, being skilled at operating their fishing boats, were also experienced enough to know they were in trouble.
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” they call out. That’s an accusation, you know, not a question. After all, it was Jesus who told them to launch out onto the lake, and they had put all their trust in him. And their world was coming apart. Has that ever happened to you? It’s happened to me, and I suspect most of us who have lived in this world for a while. Lord, do you not care that my loved one is dying? Lord, do you not care that I have been diagnosed with cancer? Lord, do you not care that I’ve lost my job? And I pray, and try to live a good life, and really make an effort to live the way you’ve taught us to live. And despite this, you seem not to care that my life has been turned upside down.
That’s one of the several reasons atheists give for not believing in God. If God is totally good, totally powerful, knows everything, why does he let bad things happen to good people? Why do prayers go unanswered? Why do innocent children suffer? Our world gives little evidence for a benevolent, loving, all powerful God.
Jesus wakes up, stands in the boat and tells the storm to quiet down. He uses the same statement that he used when he told the demons to be silent about who he was -- “Be muzzled” is the Greek phrase, or we might say, “Shut your mouth”. Our translation has Jesus saying “Quiet, be still!”. The original readers of the gospel would see the Lord using the same exact phrase whether dealing with demons or with nature itself.
And Jesus turns to his apostles and says, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” Saint Maximillian Kolbe had faith. IN Auschwitz he told to Nazi guard to take him rather than the man who had been randomly selected to be put to death by starvation. Kolbe said, “Take me instead of him. I’m a Catholic priest”. His faith was so strong that he was free and did not fear those who can kill the body, but never touch the soul. And according to witnesses, Kolbe spent his last days ministering to those who were dying with him. And Jesus asks us, “Why are you terrified?” He is not criticizing us, it’s a genuine question. In the gospel for this morning, Jesus told his apostles, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink...Look at the birds in the sky who do not sow or reap … and your heavenly father feeds them … Are you not worth more than they? … And learn from the wild flowers … even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these…”.
Faith for Jesus is another term for trust in God’s providence, trust that God will see to it that things will turn out in keeping with his plan, even if it takes the next life to do it. And if you are someone of little faith, you trust a little, but not enough. And when you have little faith, when something happens your tendency is to withdraw into yourself, trusting nothing. On the other hand, faith is associated with inner peace knowing that you are loved by God, and that God’s plan will be fulfilled.
The apostles feared for their lives when the storm came up, and they lost their fear when Jesus calmed the storm. But before, during and after the storm, there was one certainty -- Jesus was in the boat, Jesus was with them.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal spoke about throwing herself into God like a drop of water falling into the ocean. She was happily married with four children when her husband died in a hunting accident, killed by a friend. Saint Jane went into deep depression, but gradually worked her way out of this with the help of Saint Frances de Sales, her bishop. She even forgave her husband’s killer. She eventually founded the Visitation Sisters. She wrote extensively on “abandonment to divine providence”, learning to trust God in all things.
The answer to atheism is not that God is real, because God is more real than you and I; The answer to atheism is recognizing that whatever the circumstances of life, Jesus is there in our boat.
