“When Fear Floods Our Boat”
The Rev. Canon Elizabeth C. Knowlton
The Cathedral of St. Philip
June 25, 2006
Perhaps because my father is a college professor, or perhaps because I have always loved learning, there is something about the very act of walking on a campus that makes me feel peaceful. I love the green manicured lawns. I love the huge libraries filled with musty book smells. And I love the predictability of the semester system. No matter how crazy a particular term, there is always an end in sight.
By far my favorite ritual in any given semester is that trip to the book store. This was a school expense I never minded. I always bought all the recommended texts as well as the required ones. I feel safe in places of learning and surrounded by my books.
I love academics and it is my firm belief that God gives us that capacity to delight and revel in fields of knowledge. It can give us a sense of confidence and understanding as we grow. As Episcopalians we firmly treasure the intellect and the gifts that it offers to our faith development and journey with Christ.
But knowledge is never an end in itself, and it’s not a guarantee for a faithful life. There are no words more frightening to recently ordained priests like myself than “you went to seminary, let me ask you something.” For the record, I immediately become terrified that someone is going to ask me to quote scripture from an obscure book of the Bible. From now on, I invite you to please direct those questions to my colleague, Canon Wiggers.
Where I do have some sense of confidence is in my analytical abilities. I feel I can gather data well and make reasonable predictions. Most of the time. Except last week.
As several of you can witness, this past Sunday morning a few people asked me how I thought the election for Presiding Bishop would turn out. In what I thought was the safest of statements I responded, “Well I can tell you with 100% certainty they won’t elect that woman. If they do, I’ll dye my hair purple.”
Most of you have probably heard by now that despite my 100% certainty, I was 100% incorrect. We have indeed elected The Rt. Reverend Katherine Jefferts Schori to be our next Primate for the Episcopal Church USA. It was a surprise to many of us and we now have the opportunity to choose our response as we move into uncharted waters.
Luckily for me, I have discovered that this is in fact a community of grace and forgiveness. While I have been teased, no bottles of purple hair dye have yet to arrive on my desk.
But such an obvious miscalculation on my part has reminded me that while our knowledge is a gift, it is not a replacement for faith and trust. We learn from our teachers and then we go into the far less structured waters of real life.
“He did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples (Mark 4:34 ).” These were the last lines of our gospel lesson last week and the lead-in to today’s story. I read them again today because I think they are an important connection to this story of the tempest tossed disciples.
If we were just thinking analytically about this story, we would hope for a much better reaction from the faithful followers of Jesus. Because they should have everything going for them. They’ve just been given the private explanation. They don’t need to be perplexed about the strange parables the crowd just heard...they’re in the boat. They got the analysis of what was really meant about those seeds and the Kingdom of God .
So after a long day of lecturing, perhaps they thought they’d all just settle in for the night. Their minds buzzing with the new insights they’d been given. Thinking through how they might use that at the next teaching opportunity they have out in the field.
So I imagine they were a little surprised to find that their day wasn’t quite over. Instead, Jesus decides they need to go across to the other side of the sea. Well, why should they be worried. I mean they’re experienced fisherman. They’ve been out in a boat at night before. Even seen some pretty bad storms. If Jesus wants to cross the sea tonight, humph, why not? No big deal.
Until the storm breaks. And its a big one. Enough to move these seasoned seaman to a place of complete fear and terror. As the waves start pouring over them, everything they know goes immediately overboard. Forget insightful parables, the waters are rising. They lose any sense of composure and manners, and they literally scream Jesus awake.
Trust me, they weren’t politely asking for his help. Peter didn’t say, gently, “Teacher, would you mind please helping us out here? Your cushion seems to be covering up the extra buckets. And we could really use another pair of hands to help with the bailing.”
No, they are not in any place to be able to do that.
They are so frightened all they can do is scream out, “don’t you even care that we’re perishing?” All the niceties are stripped away and they are reduced to that primal place of survival. They can flee or fight. Their very lives are at stake. They are face to face with their mortality.
When I was in seventh grade I used to walk to my junior high. It was a pretty long walk and there were two basic ways to go. The much shorter way was to follow the railroad tracks. However, I was forbidden to go that way because there was an underpass that was not safe. So usually I went the way I was supposed to go.
There were some kids from my neighborhoods who regularly went the way of the tracks. One day, I ran into some of those kids and I decided to go with them. I wasn’t particularly nervous, it seemed like a fine idea in the split second I made my decision.
As we approached the underpass, I looked up under bridge and saw a man. He looked at us, and I was immediately terrified. He had a very strange look in his eyes and was starting to move down the steep embankment towards us. My friends kept urging me forward, but I completely lost it.
I screamed, “I don’t care what you say, I’m not going through this way. Don’t you care that I’m scared?” Frankly, I think they thought I was crazy and several of them went ahead. I turned tail and ran back around the long way. I was terrified and I had no confidence that they’d be OK or that I’d ever see them again.
Luckily they were fine, and of course I got over the incident. But I’ll never forget that sense of fear and abandonment. There was no time for thinking straight or making my case with my companions. I just wanted the fear to go away. And I was furious that my companions didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of the situation.
Jesus seems to understand this. Rather than rebuking the disciples, he first rebukes the wind. Calms the waters. And then turns to them. He seems to realize further conversation will first require a radical shift in the environment. Fear-based disciples are not going to be in any position to grow in their understanding.
As they sit, probably still shaking with left over adrenaline coursing through their veins he then turns back to them. “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Now from every rational perspective, I think they had some pretty good reasons to be afraid. The storm was terrible and the boat had been filling with water. Were they really to expect Jesus to have the power to still the wind and waters?
For them to believe that would be to know on the deepest level that Jesus is God and to trust that completely. Beyond their intellect, they need to be willing to stake their lives on it. But to be fair, we really can’t fault them too much. This whole story is pre-resurrection. They don’t fully appreciate who they are in relationship with yet. They have not seen the risen Christ.
But there is a deeper point. Because the challenge is not whether or not the disciples reacted with fear, but do we? How do we react, standing on this side of Easter? Are we free of fear? We do have the benefit of fuller knowledge than the disciples. We have witnesses that have modeled a fearless life. But fearlessness doesn’t seem to be something we can learn from a book. It is something we can only live into.
Most of us still find ourselves triggered into those places of fear. We encounter the issues, situations, and relationships that leave us quaking. We go from comfortable to feeling flooded and overwhelmed. What started out as a reasonable trip across the lake becomes the perfect storm.
Our knowledge and better sense flies out of our heads and we find ourselves screaming at the sleeping Jesus.
Or do we? Unfortunately, I don’t think we scream at Jesus often enough. Instead we scream at the nearest sleeping imitation. It might be the person closest by, or a far away target. A loved one or even a national leader we think should be powerful enough to alleviate our fear.
And that’s why the questioning of our faith is a fair one. Because the sign of faithfulness is not just that we don’t become afraid. A few of us may attain that, but many of us won’t.
But we can all learn to direct that fear in a more appropriate way. We can turn to Jesus Christ and through his power find a different way. Because what he offers us is not just the power of God to calm the wind and the waves. He also offers through the Holy Spirit the power to enact his example of sacrificial and perfect love.
The first letter of John says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts our fear...(1 John 4:18 ).” Jesus gives us a new way that responds in love instead of fear. If we allow ourselves access to that relationship, our faith with increase and gradually our fear will lessen.
That will be an important test of our faithfulness. If we’re feeling fearful, we can be fairly sure that our faith cannot coexist with it. It will be corroded and lessened. If we find ourselves trembling in fear and think that Jesus has abandoned us, maybe we need to pray for the waters to calm and the wind to cease. Then maybe we will see the face of Christ gazing upon us with love and compassion. And then we can grow in love.
Amen
Comments? Contact Beth Knowlton at: BKnowlton@stphilipscathedral.org