josephholubsermons


 

June 21, 2009
Pentecost 3
Mark 4:35-41

The Antidote to Fear

"Let us go across to the other side." (Mark 4:35b)   "Why are you afraid?" (Mark 4:40) 

What makes you afraid?  More importantly, how do you respond when you are afraid?  I have a fear of lightening - a phobia actually.  I go nuts when it begins to lightening.  I get irrational and lose all perspective. It’s probably rooted in the experience when I was nearly struck when I was ten years old.  Sitting on the back porch during a thunderstorm, lightening hit the cherry tree about 50 feet away, splitting it down the middle and knocking me out of my chair. I could feel the electricity. 

Friends of mine when learning that fact have sometimes commented, "Ah ha! That explains a lot!"  I remember a time, in a previous congregation, trying to conduct a wedding in the church building when a severe thunderstorm was raging outside.  Every few seconds another bolt hit accompanied by a deafening crash of thunder.  Flinching with every strike, rattled, fearful, losing my concentration, unable to  focus, as hard as I tried I had to call a time-out until the worst passed.

 Victor Hugo, author of the well known novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, also wrote a story called "Ninety-Three," a story of a ship caught in a dangerous storm on the high seas. At the height of the storm, the frightened sailors heard a terrible crashing noise below the deck. It turned out to be a cannon that that had broken loose from its moorings. It was sliding back and forth with the swaying of the ship, crashing from one side to the other with a terrible impact.  Knowing that it could split open the sides of the ship, two brave sailors volunteered to make the dangerous attempt to secure the loose cannon. Metaphorically, the story raises the question about which fears are the most potent: those triggered by internal forces or by external circumstances.  

The summer I was ordained,1976, a group of high school youth and myself got caught in a small boat in a vicious and merciless squall on Lake Superior.  The thing I vividly remember most is the sense of sheer terror I felt. The outer storm was dangerous and life-threatening.  However, the inner fear I felt was equally as dangerous because it clouded and distorted my thinking, and if it wasn’t for a very wise and seasoned guide who was in the boat with us, I would have made the wrong choices – choices that could have led to our demise. 

We all know about the power of fear.  Fear is a most powerful force that shapes our lives - everyday - in little ways and big ways.  We all have experienced the impact fear can have - how fear can shape and distort our thinking, our attitudes, our living and being.  This gospel story I read a few moments ago is all about the power of fear, but it is also about more - much more! 

Mark, in his gospel, tells of two traumatic boat experiences on the Sea of Galilee: the one I just read  and a second one in Mark, chapter 6.  Both boat stories have common elements.  In both stories the disciples were crossing to "the other side" of the lake.  Both stories describe the "fear" that overwhelmed the disciples as they were crossing; and in both stories Jesus addresses the disciples' fear.

There are a couple of ways to see and understand these gospel stories and stories similar to them.  One way is to take them strictly literally, as historical narratives; to see and understand them as actual literal history that we could have taken a photograph of or a video of had we been there with our modern technology.  If we employ the literal approach we can get hung up on whether or not it "really happened" the way Mark describes it - and never really get to the meaning of the story.   

Another way to see and understand the stories is not as literal historical narratives, but as, what many biblical scholars call, metaphorical narratives.  Metaphorical narrative recognizes that many of the gospel stories went through a process of shaping and development in the early Christian communities.  In this understanding, the stories are seen as having a profoundly metaphorical aspect to them that reflect the early Christian community's ongoing experience of Jesus decades after he was gone.  The metaphorical approach takes seriously what Jesus meant for those early communities that sprang up around him; communities that followed him; communities who shaped their lives around him; communities who named him Lord. This approach says that the deepest meanings of the stories are found in their metaphorical nature rather than in a strictly literal sense.  For me, this metaphorical approach opens up vistas of understanding and new dimensions of meaning in these amazing stories about Jesus and the impact Jesus had on the early communities that followed him, and how he continued to shape their community life and their individual lives long after he was gone. 

The two boat experiences in Mark's gospel both have to do with crossing to "the other side."  Even though it was sometimes referred to as the Sea of Galilee, it is only 13 miles long and 7.5 miles at its widest point. 

The story begins with Jesus saying to his disciples, "Let us go across to the other side."  The "other side" was not merely a destination a few miles away, but culturally, socially, ethnically, politically and religiously it could have been 10,000 miles away or a million miles away.  The Sea of Galilee was not merely a body of water that provided the means for first century fishing commerce, but it also served as a kind of boundary/border.  It was a border that separated two regions: a Jewish region and a Gentile region.  When Jesus said, "Let us go to the other side," he was transporting his disciples across a significant boundary/border from a Jewish region to an area referred to as the Decapolis.  The Decapolis, a word meaning "ten towns," was a region of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire located in what is today Jordan and Syria.  The Decapolis cities were centers of Greek and Roman culture - a Gentile region. 

For me, what this story is ultimately about is a boundary/border crossing.  In fact, if we read these chapters of Mark's gospel closely we see that Jesus passed back and forth across boundaries and borders between Jewish and Gentile regions as if the boundaries didn't even exist.  This was a primary characteristic of Jesus' life and ministry - boundary and border crossing.  The gospels reveal that on a regular basis Jesus crossed strict and formidable religious and cultural boundaries that no one else dared cross.  The gospels show that, in contrast to us, Jesus' life was not defined by boundaries and borders, but defined by an apparent  lack of boundary recognition.

So here we have Jesus taking the initiative with his disciples, climbing into their little boat and crossing a border/boundary - and as they were crossing they encounter a storm and were engulfed in fear.  If we read the story strictly literally, as an historical narrative, it is only about a raging wind-storm, the disciples fearful response and Jesus miraculously calming the winds and waves.  But if we can consider it metaphorically, it opens up vast new dimensions.   

I believe one of the hardest things to do is to cross borders and boundaries, especially the almost impenetrable ones we have drawn in our hearts and minds.  Those inner boundaries are the most formidable.   A part of what makes it hard is the anxiety and fear that often accompany boundary crossing.  Many of our boundaries are drawn with the tools of fear.  And of course, when we are challenged to cross a boundary that we have drawn with fear, we meet our own fear head-on when we attempt to cross.  Metaphorically that's what this story is about.  The disciples encountered the resistance of the wind and waves of their own fear in crossing a boundary they would not have crossed had it not been for Jesus.  And like them, so do we meet the head-wind of our own fear and anxiety when we attempt to cross the strict boundaries we have drawn in our hearts and minds.

To further accentuate the point, Mark injects a measure of dry humor smack in the middle of the story.  Jesus is asleep in the boat in the midst of the maelstrom of storm and fear, and the disciples become thoroughly agitated.  You can hear it, feel and perceive in their words, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"  Don't miss the dry and ironic humor.  Marks says, "a great windstorm arose" and "waves were beating in the boat so that the boat was being swamped," and Jesus was "asleep on a cushion."  It is positively absurd!   But you see that's the metaphorical point.  A life not defined by fear always looks absurd to those whose lives are defined by fear.

The boundaries and borders that we draw in our hearts and minds that are fear-based Jesus invites us to cross.  That's the journey Jesus leads us upon: to cross boundaries drawn by overt or subtle prejudice; to cross boundaries of bias; to cross boundaries of narrow-mindedness; to cross boundaries of elitism and arrogance; to cross boundaries that prevent the fostering and nurturing of community; to cross boundaries that marginalize, minimize, dehumanize and categorize people; boundaries that we even legitimize using religion and scripture. 

But then along comes Jesus, and he climbs into a boat and invites his disciples (including us) to come along. And he sets sail for "the other side."  It's an invitation to discover the wonder and miracle of the other side of our carefully drawn boundaries.  It's an invitation to discover the people and the life from which our fear-drawn-boundaries have isolated us.

And somewhere along the journey we will run smack into the head-wind and waves of our own fear that  would stop us or swamp us.  We turn to him for help, and when we do, we will find him asleep in the stern of the boat, and we will be agitated and perhaps even sternly admonish him saying, "Don't you care that we are perishing?  This crossing to the other side was a bad idea - too risky - too dangerous!"   

And then forthrightly with love he responds and says, "The problem lies not in what's on the other side.  The problem is your fear."  And then he will simply say, "Do not be afraid." 

I don't know if it's possible for me to not be afraid; especially when challenged to cross one of my fear drawn boundaries.  But what is possible is to continue the journey "to the other side" being led and empowered by the one who's life is not defined by fear - Jesus my Lord and my mentor.   I can follow him through my fear.  I can be empowered and given courage by his absence of fear.  You see, that's what the stilling of the wind and waves represents - absence of fear.

The problem with these boundaries we draw is that they blind us.  They blind us to really seeing who and what is on the other side.  From my side of my carefully drawn boundary I cannot see close up.  I cannot see the detail.  I cannot look into anyone's eyes or listen to their voice.  I cannot feel their pathos and their pain.  In my boundary induced blindness I can arrive at all sorts of erroneous and distorted conclusions about "the other side."  I can generalize and stick on all sorts of labels.

Theologian Sallie McFague writes, "People all look alike when you cannot be bothered to look at them closely."

Jesus pushed across borders and boundaries to move from the general to the specific; to see and experience the detail of "the other side."  He crossed boundaries and borders not to change those he encountered, but to know them - to listen to them - to affirm them - to love them with the inclusive love of God - to heal their infirmities - to serve them - to behold them - to lock eyes with them - to set them free in love - to establish their equal status in the kingdom of God.

"Let us go across to the other side. And leaving the crowd behind..." says Mark, they went.    

Oh yes, one last thing.  Anyone who follows Jesus across fear-drawn-boundaries and borders will leave the crowd behind, and likely will even have to bear the scorn and rejection of the crowd.  But, you know, the world desperately needs courageous and bold people who are willing to not let fear define and rule; people who will step across boundaries and borders that are tearing the world apart - to be the connecting links - to be the bridges that connect those on different sides.

"Let us go across to the other side."   It is the first bold step of discipleship.