Already Being Swamped

So, how have you been?  Had a good day, week, life?  I’ll bet if you look back there will be that moment, you know what I mean, the moment when it seemed like you were going under, when the waves were high, when the winds were fierce, when the clouds were dark and ominous.  We’ve all had them.  And if you haven’t ... really?  You haven’t?  If you haven’t then just wait.  Sorry to rain on your parade, but just wait.

Over the past week I had heard from three different care-givers at the facility where my Dad is. Three different shifts, the day person, the night person and the weekend person.  They all called me.  Just to say they’ve noticed a difference.  In Dad.  They all loved him.  My Dad is a charmer, always was.  A stubborn pain in the ... family, but a charmer.  One of them told me she really liked my Dad, but didn’t want to marry him.  Because he asked.  Her husband wasn’t in favor.  That’s my Dad.  But they noticed that he wasn’t himself, a decrease, a decline.  I had noticed it too.  It’s hard to describe.  He seemed transparent, as if he was fading away before our eyes.  Dad filled the room, his presence was often overwhelming, loud and friendly, a charmer as I said.  But this person was smaller, indistinct somehow.  Still Dad, in there somewhere.  But then again not.

The doctor came and changed medications, and made some recommendations, one of which, I was told, less than an hour before worship began on Thursday night, was that he was recommending hospice care.  They were to come do an evaluation and see if he meets their criteria for the care they provide.  I love hospice care, the whole idea is a wonderful addition to the medical world, and in my experience the women and men who work for hospice are an amazing group of people whose hearts are large and hands are available, for the patient, for the family for any who need their support.  So, I’m in favor, no, in awe of hospice.  But to hear it prescribed for a member of my family was a different feeling.  A different sound in my ears.  I said, ok, I understand, and went to help lead worship.

Sometimes the storms are on the horizon, far away and while they cause us concern, they don’t really change what we’re doing day by day.  Winds are whipping on the Korean peninsula, clouds are gathering in Charlottesville Virginia.  And we are concerned, maybe even afraid.  We pray for those caught out in those storms.  And when they hit we rise up to help.  But when the storm rages close to home our response is more visceral.  More personal.  We’re rocked to the core by the storms that rage.  And we wonder, as did the disciple of Jesus, whether anyone cares about us and the threats we face.

Mark 4:35-41 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

On that day.  What an inauspicious beginning.  Just a day, a day of teaching and healing, a day like many other days in the life of those who said yes to Jesus.  But this was a particularly exhausting day. A tiring day, Jesus wanted to get away.  No elaborate farewells, no ritual good-byes.  He turns to His disciples and says, “let’s blow this pop-stand!”  And off they go.  Get in a boat and they set off. Across the sea.  The lake, not that big really, not like an ocean crossing.  But the geography surrounding this lake make is susceptible to pop up storms.  Out of no where, nothing on the horizon, then - bam - there it is.  You’re in the midst of the storm.

That’s the nature of storms, they just happen.  Sometimes we can look back and see it coming, but most of the time they just come.  Almost as if someone, something was out to get us.  There is a feeling about the storm in this story, that it isn’t just a storm, a natural occurrence, a common happenstance.  There is something bigger here, something malevolent.  When Jesus tells the storm to calm down, he shouts “Peace!  Be Still.”  These are the same words Mark tells us He used to cast out demons.  There translated as “Be quiet!  Come out of her!”  Same words.  This storm, Mark implies, is demonic, evil, needing the hand of a savior.  

We’ve been visited by evil in our town recently.  That evil exists is beyond debate.  It’s not always easy to name it, to identify it in a messy world, a world broken by sin and fear.  But sometimes it is the responsibility of those who claim the name of Christ to identify evil, whether it be in a culture and country so foreign to us as to be almost incomprehensible, or one that is all too familiar and even claiming to be the true face of patriotism and nation.  Like Christ, we sometimes need to stand in the face of the demonic and tell it to be quiet and get out.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  The story isn’t really about the storm.  The storm demands our attention.  It seems the major character, the biggest threat, the loudest voice.  But this isn’t a story about storms.  It’s a story about Jesus.  And a story about faith.  It’s easy to miss it.  We are distracted when we are afraid, we lose hope.  And often one of the first things to go is faith.  Belief in a loving God.  Hope in tomorrow and today.  

That’s why Jesus jumps down the throats of the disciples.  They let go.  “Have you still no faith?” Still?  Just the paragraph before this passage, Mark tells us that Jesus always spoke in parables, in riddles and stories.  People often wandered off confused, uncertain.  It was almost as if Jesus didn’t want to spoon feed people, like he wanted them to come and meet Him halfway.  Take a risk and say I believe, even when I don’t fully understand.  I believe, even as I doubt.  Jesus was ok with doubts. Doubters get a pass from Jesus.  But those who are afraid got a reprimand.  Anyway, the paragraph before the storm starts says that Jesus always spoke in parables, except for the disciples.  To them He explained everything.  Everything?  Everything.  He told them who He was.  He told them what He was about.  He told them what it meant.  Everything.  Have you still no faith?  What else can I do, says Jesus?  What else can I give you?  What other cheat sheets, what other cliff notes?  For heaven’s sake!  

At the end of the story they are in awe.  “Who is this?” they said.  Even the winds and waves obey Him!  Who is this.  They’d never seen anything like this before.  Jesus had never stilled a storm before.  Never stopped a wind gust, never smoothed out a wave.  It’s no wonder that it never occurred to them to ask Jesus to do such a thing.  They had no idea that this was in His tool box.  And frankly, if they had gently awakened Jesus and said, “Um, it’s pretty wild out here, anything you can do?” He probably would have smiled and then given them that “watch this” look and brought them to safety.

The problem is they don’t ask Him to do anything.  Did you notice that?  They don’t say, in Mark’s version of the story anyway, we need help here.  No, what they say is infinitely more offensive to Him.  It is evidence that they have been dozing through disciple class, minds wandering as Jesus patiently walked them through His history and His mission.  Worse than that, they miss the class motto, the mission statement, the center of everything.  They forgot the most famous verse in all of the Gospels: For God so loved the world ....  So loved.  Don’t you care?  They shouted that in their fear.  They lost their grip on the main truth about Christ.  Don’t you care?  You might as well shout at the birds in the air – Don’t you fly?  Or shout at the rain drops passing by their noses – Don’t you fall?  Or shake their fists at the sun and ask – Don’t you shine?  Don’t you care?  Of course He cares. That’s why He’s there sleeping on a cushion because He is exhausted from caring for everyone and everywhere.  Of course He cares.  

But in their panic, in their fear, they forgot.  They lost their grip on Him and thought only of their own lives.  Their boat was already swamped, and they gave up.  On life, on hope, on Him.  They gave up.  Have you still no faith? It’s easy to forget in the midst of the storm.  Forget to hold on to Him. Not because He’ll still every storm, but that He’ll stand with you in the swamped boat, in the crashing waves.  He cares, and that is everything in the midst of the storm.

I got the call from the hospice agency on Friday, to say they had evaluated Dad and he does meet their criteria.  Once I sign some forms they’ll get to work.  They will care.  I got that call in the ER of Community South where I had taken La Donna for severe pain in the abdomen.  Turns out her gall bladder will need to be removed.  The boat was already swamped.  But we’ll persevere.  Because He cares.  And we’ll learn to not ask what’s next!

Shalom, 

Derek