Sunday, June 24, 2018

Sermon: Faith and Daring Speech

Mark 4:35-41
Faith and Daring Speech
James Sledge                                                                                       June 24, 2008

I imagine that many of you have heard some version of this story before. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell of Jesus stilling the storm. I’m partial to Mark’s version. Somewhat atypically for the shortest gospel, Mark has the longest and fullest depiction.
Jesus directs the disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee at night, not necessarily a great idea. But the disciples do as Jesus says, apparently without question or objection. But out on the water, in the dark, a terrific storm arises. It whips up waves that begin to break over the sides of the boat. The disciples are no doubt bailing water out as fast as they can, but it is a losing battle. The boat is being swamped.
Meanwhile, Jesus is asleep. He has been teaching and healing at a breakneck pace, and the crowds won’t leave him alone. Perhaps he is so exhausted that he could sleep through anything. But as the situation grows more and more dire, the disciples wake him up.
I don’t know if they expect Jesus to do anything or not. Maybe they just feel like he should be worried and frightened, too. They are all about to drown, after all. But Jesus rebukes the wind and tells the sea to quiet down, and all is calm.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. That’s from Psalm 107, and it’s speaking about God.
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” the disciples ask, as they quake in awe and fear. 
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The story of Jesus stilling the storm shows up every three years in the lectionary, paired with the story of David and Goliath. Typically I’ve seen it focusing on two things. One is Jesus’ identity, and the other is faith. Here faith is about more than believing in God or Jesus. It is about trusting in the power of God to save, the sort of trust that allows the boy David to face the mighty warrior Goliath with only his sling.
But for some reason that didn’t quite work for me this time, at least not the faith part. Jesus accuses the disciples of having no faith. But they have turned to Jesus in their distress. They cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out…” to quote the psalm. Does being afraid mean having no faith? That’s troubling. I’ve got fears a plenty.
If the disciples had come to Jesus cool as cucumbers and said, “Hey Jesus, would you mind fixing this?” would Jesus had done the same miracle but not chastised them about their faith? Or is the faith problem about something else.
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Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann helped me notice parallels between our gospel reading and psalms where those oppressed and in peril cry out to God. In these psalms God is described as inattentive, having turned away, asleep, while everything is falling apart. Psalm 44 cries out, Why do you sleep, O Lord? Not so different from the disciples’ complaint to a sleeping Jesus. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
But despite similar complaints, the psalmists sound very different from the disciples. The psalmists’ speech is bold, demanding, brazen, insistent. It is not meek or deferential, but filled with imperatives. Psalm 44 complains to God that Israel has become a disgrace, a laughingstock, and then demands, Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord. Why do you hide your face? …For we sink down in the dust; our bodies cling to the ground. Rise up, come to our help. Redeem us for the sake of  your steadfast love.
 Dr. Brueggemann insists than faith must engage in such speech, and he laments how rare it is in the church, especially in Mainline and progressive churches. Speaking on Psalm 44 he says, “The prayer is too violent, too daring, too bold, too insistent, too much of an affront. And as long as this kind of prayer is too much of an affront, God will never be summoned back to the justice struggle. This is the compelling work of intercessory prayer. It is to file grievance (That’s what intercession means.) to file grievance on behalf of another, a grievance about the miscarriage of justice, a grievance against predatory neighbors, or against the God who doesn’t seem to care. Thus, ‘Rouse yourself! Pay attention! Awake, you sleepy head! Rise up, you Easter God and get us out of hock; redeem us.’”[1]
I wonder if Jesus says his disciples have no faith because they are incapable of such bold speech. And what of me? Can someone raised in a polite, deferential, Mainline church steeped in the reasonableness of the Enlightenment, dare engage in such speech?
We live in a moment when, despite pretensions of being a Christian nation, our society routinely operates in ways opposed to God’s. That is largely so because no one seriously believes that God will do anything about it. The greedy and the haves can act with impunity against the poor, the weak and the have nots, growing the gap between them ever wider. The powers that be can rip children from their parents and even claim to be supported by Scripture. And the system can constantly be rigged in favor of those who already have the most, because the rich and powerful are beholding to no one, least of all to God.
We progressive Christians like to think we’re a bit more in tune with God’s ways, with God’s priorities. We often lament and condemn the sorry state of the world, as we should. But we no more expect God to act than those who injure the poor, the vulnerable, or the immigrant, than those who worship at the altar of consumerism. We despair, we shake our heads, we try to help by our charity or political action. At times we may even wonder to God how it can be this way. But when we offer our polite, deferential, prayers for the poor, for peace in the world, for the sick, for victims of disaster, we don’t really expect God to do a damn thing.
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In Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells a parable about the need to pray unceasingly without losing heart. In the parable there is an unjust judge who, like many of us, is sure God will not intervene, and so he feels no need to abide by God’s rules. Presumably he uses his position to line his own pockets rather than to give justice to the poor and needy. Sound familiar?
There’s also a widow who desperately needs justice from this judge. Fat chance. But she badgers and nags him so incessantly that he finally helps her to get rid of her. And Jesus says our prayer is supposed to be like this. We pray to a God who is a God of justice, yet Jesus tells his followers to badger and harangue and complain and demand justice until God acts.
But then Jesus ends the parable with an unanswered question. “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Will he find people who do not lose heart, who engage in bold, daring, brazen, insistent speech to God because they know that when roused God has acted and will act on behalf of those for  whom God has special concern: the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, the prisoner, and those who cry out for justice.
“Have you still no faith?” Jesus asks his disciples when the storm subsides. Do you not yet realize that the Creator has entered into history in the Son of Man? Do you not understand that the one the psalmists cried out to is now with you? Will you not call to this God saying, Rise up! Awake! Redeem your creation that is in such disrepair. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!


[1] Walter Brueggemann, "The Joker amid Class Warfare," a lecture delivered at the Festival of Homiletics, May 22, 2018.

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