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Why Are We Afraid?
The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
21 June 2009
Third Sunday after Pentecost – Year B
Why are we afraid?
It had been a long day. Things had not gone as planned. He needed to get away. When evening finally comes, he gets into a boat and seeks to put it all behind him.
As he sleeps, a great storm arises. The winds blow the boat off course, and the waves threaten to sink it.
Finally, the captain wakes Jonah and accuses him of not caring about the ship.
“Arise, call upon your god! Perhaps the god will give a thought to us, that we do not perish.” (1:6)
Fearing for their lives, the sailors assume that someone among them is responsible for the storm. So, they cast lots.
The lot falls on Jonah, and he immediately confesses. (1:7) He really is to blame.
He had been ordered by God to go to the city of Nineveh and call upon his enemies there to repent. Instead, Jonah boarded this boat going to the most distant point he could find in the opposite direction.
“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he says, “for I know that it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.” (1:12)
Hoping to avoid such a final solution, the sailors try again to row to shore. But, the storm just keeps getting worse. Finally, they convince themselves that Jonah’s presence is endangering them all and they throw him overboard.
The sea calms and the crisis is averted.
Why are we afraid?
The scene is all too familiar. A storm arises that threatens the sailors. They are losing control of their own fate. It comes as no surprise that they are afraid. It comes as no surprise that they are anxious.
But, as their anxiety grows, something frightening happens. Their fears seem to take over. They are no longer just afraid. They are fear-full. Fear is all that they can see, all that they can hear, all that they can taste, touch and smell.
And, as their fears take over, they lose their sense of purpose. They stop struggling against the storm and start looking at each other. They are looking for someone to blame. They start asking new questions. “Who is at fault?” “Who should be punished?”
Is it the one who was in charge when the storm started? Is it the one who is in charge now? Is it the one who took out a loan he couldn’t repay? Is it the one who made the bad loan, or the one who sold it to somebody else?
In the end, they find what they were looking for. They determine that it is Jonah who is causing the storm. It is Jonah who is putting them all in danger. And, so, it is Jonah who must go.
I imagine they felt like they had the right thing. Once he is gone, everything returns to normal. It’s a time-honored strategy. All will be well if we can just find the guilty one in our midst.
So, why are we afraid?
The Gospel of Mark gives us a clue. The story starts out the same. A passenger gets into a boat looking for a break at the end of a long day. He falls asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat.
A great storm arises. The winds began to blow the boat off course, and the waves threaten to sink it. Just as in the story of Jonah, the sailors wake their sleeping passenger with an accusation.
“Don’t you care about us?” they ask.
But, then, the story turns in a different direction. Jesus gets up and speaks directly to the wind and the waves.
“Peace! Be still!” The seas calm and the crisis is averted.
There is no casting of lots. There is no suggestion that God is out to punish someone. There is no sacrifice.
Here is the difference. Jesus never loses his sense of purpose. He never lets his anxiety or his fear take him over. He never lets himself be drawn into questions of who is to blame or who should be punished.
The disciples are surprised. “Who then is this,” they ask, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
They never expected him to still the storm. They just wanted him to share in their suffering. They just wanted him to join them in their anxiety, and to become just as full of fear as they had become.
Why are we afraid?
It may be that we are beginning to question our time-honored strategies. It may be that we are beginning to realize that we don’t need what we think we want.
We live in a storm-tossed world.
Many of our personal lives have been blown off course by the winds of economic insecurity. Our social systems seem so often to have lost their bearings. Our political systems look suspiciously like they have run aground. We can’t completely protect ourselves from the violent threats of our enemies. Even The Anglican Communion is listing after being battered by disagreements over why we even exist.
There is a reason so many of us are finding comfort reading the psalms these days!
I have to confess that I recently found myself standing in the shoes of the sailors on the boat carrying Jonah. I knew right away what I wanted. I wanted the lawyers who wrote those memos. I wanted the CEOs who paid those bonuses. I wanted the bankers who made those trades and the politicians who let it all happen—how ever many administrations ago that was!
When I looked at Fox News or CSNBC, or I picked up the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, I realized that I was not alone. The candidates for blame were different, but the strategy for dealing with them was always the same. If we just throw the right people overboard, then the storm will die down.
I, however, am coming to the conclusion that what I need to do is something different. We are a nation of laws and it may be that people who have broken those laws need to be prosecuted. But, they did not cause the storms.
I am coming to the conclusion that the most effective thing I can do about the storms is to deal with me. It starts with owning my part in all of this. How have I been complicit in what happened? I know I’m not going to be able to change others. Only they can do that. I need to focus on changing myself. I need to resist the seductive call of my own anxieties and my own fears.
Why are we afraid?
We might be afraid because we realize that we really can’t protect ourselves from getting hurt. Sometimes our questions just don’t have answers. Sometimes justice doesn’t win out in the end. Sometimes there really isn’t anybody waiting in the wings to come rushing in to save us.
It’s reasonable to be afraid. The trick is to resist becoming fearful. The trick is to resist the temptation to let our anxieties and our fears detract us from our sense of purpose.
In the end, only Jesus can make the wind and the waves obey him. It would be nice, though, if we made sure that there was room for him in the boat!
AMEN
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org