Why Are You Afraid?

Sermon for Sunday, June 20, 2021
Job 38:1-11; Mark 4:35-41

This may be a little heavy for Father’s Day morning, but I want to ask you:  What’s your greatest fear?  Now, there are the phobia-type fears that many of us have – fears of snakes, or heights, or enclosed places, or airline travel, that kind of thing.  There are also the fears that fill a given chapter of our lives – fears related to health problems, employment challenges, eroding relationships, financial security.  Those are all real, serious fears, things that keep us up at night.  But how about going even deeper than that?  What’s the fear that underlies the others?  Maybe this is an occupational hazard, but I think our greatest fear is about whether God is really there – the fear that maybe, at the end of the day and at the end of our lives, maybe we’re ultimately alone.

At least for me, the few memories I have of being truly afraid are about being alone.  The most vivid example came when I was about 6.  My parents, my sisters, and I went to California to visit my grandparents, as we did nearly every summer.  But this time, we kids hit the jackpot: We got to go to Disneyland. At that age, I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than getting to spend a day at Disneyland – it was heaven on earth. 

We had a great time riding rides and eating bad food, but finally the time came to leave.  We took a streetcar back toward the entrance.  I was exhausted and not paying as close attention as I should have; and when we got off the streetcar, my family turned left and I turned right.  That’s all it took.  I was lost in Disneyland. 

            Now, this was before cell phones or child-location devices, so my parents had been careful to make a plan with us: If anyone got lost, we would meet at Cinderella’s castle. It was the one landmark you could see from anywhere in the park.  So, I dutifully went to Cinderella’s castle; and I waited, sitting on a bench, crying.  As I sat there, someone came up to me, an Asian man, older and with kind eyes.  He began speaking to me, I’m sure trying to find out what was wrong.  Unfortunately, he didn’t speak English, and I didn’t speak whatever he was speaking.  But he stayed there, standing nearby.  I don’t know how much time passed – probably only a few minutes, but it seemed like an hour.  Finally, my father and mother came into sight, walking fast, with my sisters trailing behind. 

Of course, I hadn’t really been at risk.  The good people at Disneyland would not have locked up the park that night leaving a 6-year-old boy crying outside Cinderella’s castle, never to see his family again.  But in the moment, that was precisely my fear, and it felt real.  It’s one thing to choose your meeting place at Disneyland – to understand, intellectually, there’s a chance you might find yourself lost and alone.  It’s something else entirely to feel that you truly are.

I think that’s where the disciples find themselves in today’s Gospel reading – lost and alone.  Mark’s Gospel doesn’t give us much detail, and the narrator doesn’t illuminate Jesus’ state of mind.  All we know is that, after spending the day teaching what the reign and rule of God is like, in one parable after another, Jesus gets in a boat on the Sea of Galilee to sail with the disciples to the villages on the other side.  As they make their way, a storm rises and starts to swamp the boat.  The storm must have been truly awful if it was enough to make professional fishermen fear for their lives.  But Jesus is asleep, napping after a long day; and they wake him up, crying out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (4:38).  What are you doing, Lord?  Get up; we’re afraid!

I think some of our most truly frightening times are when God seems to sleep.  I remember feeling that way as my father was dying.  The doctors had discovered advanced cancer, and it was time to start hospice care.  I felt good about that, knowing from working with many of you just how healing a hospice experience can be.  Or, not, as it turns out.  It all depends on the people involved.  We ended up with the antithesis of who you’d want as a hospice care coordinator, a woman who spent her time with us warning about everything that could possibly go wrong in the experience.  One of my sisters started calling her “Ms. Hair on Fire.”  But eventually, we got my father settled, and the waiting began. 

I waited through the first night, sleeping a little and staring at the TV.  I know this process can take a while, but it’s different when it’s your parent lying there.  That night led into the next day, with family members coming and going throughout it.  Then the day gave way to night.  Everyone else left, and the waiting began again.  

The only interruptions through that night were the episodes when my father got restless and moved uncomfortably, followed by the nurse coming in to ease the pain.  That seemed to go on forever, though it was only several hours.  But I wondered, where is God in all this?  I found myself praying, “Come on, God.  Let’s get this done.  Do you not care that he seems so uncomfortable?  Do you not care that I’m definitely uncomfortable?  Where are you?” 

The long night dragged on, and finally, as the sun was rising, he died.  That storm was stilled, but I felt like I hadn’t faced the situation very faithfully.  I’d had no deep experience of the presence of God through that night.  Instead, I’d had a little spiritual temper tantrum, and I felt bad for doubting whether God had been with me.  Well, the nurse came in to deal with the body, and I stepped into the hall.  When she came out, she asked how I was doing; I said I was fine, though clearly I wasn’t.  And she said something to the effect of, “It’s OK.  And it’s going to be OK.  You were just where you needed to be,” she said, “doing just what you needed to do.  Your father would be grateful and proud; and before long, you’ll be together again.”

I think I was in good company in wondering where God had been.  In the Old Testament reading today, Job has been suffering dreadfully, and he demands answers from the God he’s served faithfully all his life.  In the reading from Mark, as the disciples fear for their lives, they demand to know why Jesus is napping while water fills the boat.  Now, in both these stories, God does indeed show up, making a dramatic entrance to affirm not just God’s power but God’s investment in the lives of these seemingly insignificant humans.  But it’s important to note that God’s dramatic arrival on the scene happens not as a problem-solving strategy but as a teaching moment.  At the end of Job’s story, God grants Job a great reversal of fortune – but not before upbraiding him, in today’s reading, for daring to question God’s fairness.  And in the Gospel reading, Jesus does still the storm and save the disciples’ lives – but then he upbraids them for their failure to trust. 

Despite occasional dramatic moments of divine intervention, I think God works differently most of the time.  You know this: Through our lives, hard stuff happens; and the truth is, God typically doesn’t prevent it.  But God is there nonetheless, never absent from us, never leaving us alone, far more powerful than we’d imagine.  Ironically, our Lord and Savior shows up in the bit characters of our dramas.  Lost at Disneyland, I experienced the presence of a stranger, someone completely other, someone with whom I couldn’t even communicate; but he cared enough to check on me, and he didn’t walk away.  As my father lay dying, he and I were blessed with the presence of Love to ease his journey – the nurse who tended to his pain and who blessed me at the end for having hung in there with him. 

Acting through bit characters like these, God brings us through the hard stuff.  And if we look for it, God blesses us with the eyes to see the truth that, even in the times of our deepest fears, we’ve never been alone.  That’s pretty wonderful, really – pretty empowering.  And – it’s just the start, setting the stage for act 2 of eternal life, when God moves out of these earthly bit-character roles to begin a cosmic one-person show.  The disciples got a glimpse of it out there, on the water, as their friend and teacher suddenly became the One whom “even the wind and the sea obey” (Mark 4:41).  They’re filled with great awe, witnessing the power of the creator of the universe.  And then, Jesus looks them in the eye – just as he looks us in the eye – and asks the teaching question: “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?” (4:40).  You’ve never faced your fears alone, and you never will.