The Stilling of the Storms -- FPC sermon excerpt

My family and I got off a cruise ship yesterday, after taking a trip to Alaska to celebrate my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary. We had a terrific time, and I am thankful that our trip was much smoother than the cruise taken by Jesus and his disciples.

Mark tells us that Jesus is teaching at the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and when evening comes he says to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side” (4:35). As they are making their way across the water, a great windstorm arises, causing waves to crash into the boat and swamp it. Jesus is sleeping soundly at the back of the boat, but the disciples panic and wake him, saying, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (vv. 36-38).

What a question. The disciples are scared to death, and they simply have to know if Jesus is with them, or against them. “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

As early as the first century, this dramatic story became a symbol for the Christian church. In Christian artwork, the church began to be pictured as a ship — a ship with a cross for a mast, sailing through the storm of life. Presbyterian pastor and medical doctor Richard Deibert writes that Mark paints this scene “to typify the mighty challenges confronting [the] Christian community throughout the centuries.”

But this story is more than a symbol of the church — it is also a statement about the identity of Jesus. Mark tells us that Jesus gets up from his nap in the stern, probably feeling a little cranky, rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” (v. 39). He rebukes the wind in the same way that he rebuked an unclean spirit in a man earlier in the Gospel of Mark (1:25). Jesus has power over the wild, dark, chaotic side of life, both in the hearts of human beings and out in the natural world. In this case, his words cause the wind to cease and the water to fall into a dead calm.

Then Jesus turns to his disciples and says, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” They are filled with great awe and say to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (vv. 40-41). The story reveals that Jesus is one who has within himself the awesome and unlimited power of Almighty God — power that can overcome both evil and chaos.

Eddie Rickenbacker, the American aviator, was in a plane during the Second World War that accidentally went off course, ran out of fuel and crashed into the Pacific. He and six other men floated in a raft for 24 days.

Food was gone after three days — although at one point a seagull landed on Rickenbacker’s head. Eddie slowly reached up and caught it, and the bird turned into both dinner and fishing bait. It seemed as if the men were facing certain death, but their faith in God grew — in the midst of a storm, in the darkness of night, in a time of hunger and thirst.

Soon after their rescue, Rickenbacker visited some airmen in a military hospital. They had just been sent back from the front, and many of them thought they could not go on. Some had arms or legs missing, and most were broken in spirit as well as in body. Rickenbacker spoke to these airmen and told them that they must not give in to depression and defeat. Having experienced the power and goodness of God personally, he said, “If you haven’t had an experience of God in your life, you get yourself one mighty quick, because with that you will have power over all your problems.”

The disciples are given “an experience of God” when Jesus stills the storm. They discover that even the wind and the sea obey this one who has within himself the power of Almighty God. With a word he can drive out a demon, calm a sea, or strengthen the faith of airmen floating without food in the Pacific.

But this is only the first of four “storms” that Jesus confronts in chapters 4 and 5 of Mark — he goes on to show us his power in three additional dramas. First, we join him in sailing on the Sea of Galilee as the powers of the watery abyss crash against our boat. Then, writes Richard Deibert, we “make it to the eastern shore, to the eerie country of the Gerasenes, where a soul fouled by evil lunges at our faith. We are forced back to the western shore, where a street woman stalks us. Finally, the death of a twelve-year-old child threatens to steal the last breath of our discipleship. Miraculously, we survive.” And Jesus is made known to us as the one who is Lord over chaos.

In all of these stories, Jesus teaches us to trust his power over all that can hurt or destroy us. The “experience of God” we have with Jesus can give us strength — strength to face and overcome our problems. As we cross the Sea of Galilee with the disciples, we do not need to fear the water that was a symbol of chaos, death and disorder to the ancient Israelites. We can trust that the Lord will answer when we cry out, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck” (Psalm 69:1). We know what that feels like, don’t we? In fact, we still use the expressions, “I’m swamped,” or “I’m in over my head.”

As we encounter the Gerasene demoniac (5:1-20), we can trust Jesus to calm the chaos of the past. As we encounter chronic illness in the untouchable woman (5:25-34), we can trust Jesus to calm the chaos of the present. As we encounter death in Jairus’ daughter (5:21-24, 35-43), we can trust Jesus to calm the chaos of the future. “In every sphere of human existence,” concludes Richard Deibert, “Jesus reigns over disorder.”

We can be thankful that Jesus stilled a variety of storms during his ministry, saving people from death, illness, and demonic possession. But what kind of victory can we expect today? What kind of victory can we expect right now, when Jesus is not physically by our side — in the stern of a boat, or next to the bed of a dying child? Not all of the storms we encounter in our lives will be miraculously calmed, nor will all the diseases we face be instantly cured. And so we need to answer for ourselves the questions that Jesus asks the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” (4:40) — and we have to answer these questions in a way that focuses on faith, instead of on miracles.

Our challenge is to have faith that Jesus loves us and is working for an ultimate good, even when waves beat around us and our boat is being swamped. To have faith that God has created the world and is in control of it, even when chaos seems to reign and evil seems to triumph. To have faith that the Holy Spirit is giving us strength and inner peace, even when we’re feeling stressed and exhausted and at the end of our ropes.

Automatic Growth -- FPC sermon excerpt

Next to food and drink, our most basic human need is story. Yes, that’s right: Story.

That’s what the novelist Reynolds Price says, and I think Jesus would agree with him.

Jesus used stories called parables throughout his ministry — he used them to satisfy the spiritual hunger of the people who crowded around him, aching for insight and inspiration. He used parables to illustrate the coming of the kingdom of God.

In Mark 4, Jesus tells two stories about growth — the parable of the growing seed and the parable of the mustard seed — and in both cases he gives God the credit for the development of the seeds into fully grown plants. This insight runs counter to our American work ethic, which tends to link growth to hard work. In today’s economy, we fear job loss through downsizing, mergers, or competition, so our natural inclination is to put in longer hours and more intense effort.

But Jesus has another idea. In the parable of the growing seed, “the kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how” (Mark 4:26-27).

With a sense of humor, Jesus reminds the disciples that God is waiting to grow what they sow, and God “is so capable that all they need to do after they throw the gospel on the ground is to go to bed!” It is as if Jesus is saying “Stop calculating, stop worrying about design and strategy, stop trying to crunch results,” writes biblical scholar Richard Deibert. “Scatter what you have and hit the sack.”

Clearly, human effort is not the key to the successful growth of the kingdom of God. But we humans do have a role to play, by acting in faith and holding on to a vision of what God is doing in the world. In the parable of the growing seed, it is significant that the farmer gets out of bed and puts effort into scattering seed on the ground — he has faith that good seeds in good soil will bear fruit, and he embraces a vision of what the field will look like once it is full of stalks, with “the full grain in the head” (v. 28). The farmer trusts that God will give the growth, until the time for the harvest comes.

As we celebrate our annual Service of Confirmation at Fairfax Presbyterian Church, it seems to me that the teachers and mentors of our confirmands have acted a lot like the farmer in this parable. They have been faithful to members of the confirmation class, meeting frequently with them. They have scattered good seeds, sharing God’s Word and their personal insights into the Christian faith. They have trusted that God will cause growth in the lives of these confirmands, and will bear good fruit.

A mustard seed of faith has been planted in each member of our confirmation class. That’s not a bad thing, because the second of Jesus' parables teaches us that mustard seeds grow into the largest of all shrubs. This happens not because of human effort, but because that is God’s intention for mustard seeds. The human role in this process is simply sowing the seeds upon the ground (v. 31), a process that is defined in the parable of the sower as sowing “the word” — sowing the Word of God (v. 14).

“Taken together, the parables teach that it is not the work of the disciples to create the kingdom,” writes Robert Stephen Reid; “theirs is only to act on what they have been told to do.” It is the work of God’s Word to create the kingdom.

These parables illustrate the growth of the kingdom of God, but they illuminate important aspects of our personal spiritual growth as well. For us to develop a fully formed Christian faith, it is important for us to focus less on human striving, and more on faith and vision.

To drive this point home, Jesus emphasizes the autonomy of the growing process — Richard Deibert points out that in verse 28, Jesus describes the process as effortless, “the earth produces of itself,” he says, actually using the Greek word automatos, from which we get our English word “automatic.” In striking contrast to our American work ethic, Jesus makes the point that it is while we sleep — absolutely independent of us — that the seed of God’s kingdom germinates and grows to maturity.

When it comes to the kingdom of God, growth is automatic. What an amazing insight this is, especially in a world in which we feel like we need to work hard in order to get anything worth having. But Jesus isn’t encouraging us to loaf around. He isn’t saying that we are not involved in the process at all. No, this automatic growth leaves us with the challenge of developing our faith and our vision, in particular the visualization of good growth and good harvests.

Message in the Munchies -- FPC sermon excerpt

Are you crazy for cheese curls? Passionate about popcorn? Nuts about nuts?

What you snack on says a lot about who you are.

In a recent research study, 800 volunteers took personality tests, and then they named their favorite snack. The results surprised me: People who have the same personality type choose the same snack 95 percent of the time.

Lovers of cheese curls have a high sense of morals and ethics. People with a passion for popcorn are the take-charge type. Folks who are nuts about nuts are even-tempered, easy to get along with, and highly empathetic.

This link might sound like a stretch, but it makes perfect sense — biologically. Food preferences reside in the same part of the brain as the personality (Alternative Medicine, May 2007).

It seems that you are … what you munch.

Jesus encounters some serious snack-lovers in the sixth chapter of John. As the story begins, a large crowd is following him, because of the signs that he is doing for the sick (John 6:2). He feeds this crowd of five thousand with five barley loaves and two fish, and then withdraws to a mountain, because “they were about to come and take him by force to make him king” (v. 15).

That evening, the disciples set out for the town of Capernaum by boat, and Jesus catches up with them by walking on the water. The next day, the crowd follows him to Capernaum, and Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” (v. 26).

In other words, says Jesus: “you got the munchies.”

So what does this particular craving say about the people of the crowd? I think it reveals that they are enthusiasts — people whose basic desire is to be satisfied and content, to have their needs met. Afraid of being deprived, they want more than anything to maintain their happiness, avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, and keep themselves excited and occupied.

Enthusiasts look for Jesus. Why? Because they ate their fill of the loaves.

Now I am all for people being enthusiastic about Jesus, but there is a problem with this personality type. “Do not work for the food that perishes,” warns Jesus, “but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you” (v. 27). The barley loaves that Jesus used to feed the five thousand is “food that perishes,” and he tells the people that they should not focus their enthusiasm on this kind of bread. Instead, they should work for the food that endures for eternal life.