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You want
to know what I wish? I wish I could collect a dollar from
every woman who walked into the sanctuary, opened up her bulletin,
read this morning's title, and convinced herself that I was
going to preach a sermon about her husband.
Why is
it, I wonder, that the sins of sound sleeping are always associated
with men? Don't women ever sleep through things? Don't women
ever doze off in church? Don't women ever substitute taking
a nap for completing a chore? Did this idea of the napping
husband and the nagging wife originate with Dagwood and Blondie
Bumstead, or has it always been with us? Is it possible that
the Bible cleaned things up a bit and that when God came looking
for Adam in the cool of the day, he wasn't hiding behind a
tree outside, but snoozing on the couch inside?
If you
promise not to tell anyone, I will confess something to you.
Every so often in my adult life, I have pretended to be asleep
as a means of avoiding being the one who has to get up from
the marital bed and look into something. Early on, it was
the child who wanted to be changed. Then it was the cat who
wanted to go out. Now, since we have neither child nor cat,
it is the window that may need closing (as a result of the
wind that is blowing and the rain that is pelting). Truth
be told, sleep is an easy thing to fake. And even more truth
be told, I think that Kris occasionally does it, too.
I suppose
that sleep-related problems are no laughing matter. There
are people in this world who cannot sleep without the aid
of medication. And there are others who can't stay awake without
medication. A proper amount of sleep is pretty much a biological
necessity. But the experience of genuine rest has the character
of a spiritual blessing.
The subject
of sleep is properly before us this morning. A few moments
ago, we read Mark's familiar story about the boat in the storm.
This story, no doubt, takes place on the Sea of Galilee. It
is one of several "boat stories" told in the gospels.
It is quite likely that, at one time or another, all of the
"boat stories" existed as a group, and only later
became split up and placed by different writers in different
contexts. Whatever be the case, what we have before us is
probably one of the earliest of the "boat stories."
The details are simple. It has been a long day. Jesus has
done much teaching. He has felt the press of many people.
As evening comes, he seeks to extricate himself and his disciples.
"Let's leave by boat," he says.
While
crossing, the winds begin to blow up a gale. We are told that
waves are breaking into the boat, to the point where the craft
is all but swamped. We find Jesus asleep in the stern, his
head on a cushion. It's not surprising that Jesus can sleep
through a storm. Anybody who has ever tried to avoid shutting
the windows when it rains at three o'clock in the morning
knows how to do that. What is surprising is that the waves
breaking into the boat don't rouse Jesus from slumber, given
their sudden splashes of cold water. Even I have enough sense
to get up and shut the windows when rainwater starts pooling
on the blankets.
But the
purpose of this story is not dependent on the consistency
of such small details as these. The story clearly has another
purpose, and we shall come to it soon enough. In the meantime,
let's go back to the narrative. The storm is brewing ... the
boat is tossing ... the disciples are getting wet ... and
Jesus remains asleep. As things progress from bad to worse,
the disciples decide to wake their sleeping Lord. They address
him out of equal parts panic and anger. It is panic that cries:
"Master, we are going down." It is anger that cries:
"Don't you care?" And the story ends with a pair
of rebukes from the lips of Jesus. The first rebuke is delivered
to the waves: "Peace! Be still." The second rebuke
is delivered to the disciples: "What happened to your
faith?"
Like I
said, it's a relatively simple story. But not all that simple.
To really "get" this story, you have got to do several
things. And the first thing you have got to do is get in the
boat. You need to see yourself as being in the same fix as
the disciples. You need to see yourselves as friends of Jesus
... followers of Jesus ... faithful to the calling of Jesus
... in the very same boat with Jesus ... but still scared
to death.
In the
Gardiner Museum in Boston there is a painting by Rembrandt
entitled "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee." It is
Rembrandt's interpretation of this scene. It shows panic etched
on the faces of the disciples, as their small vessel is being
raised up on a high wave, about to be crashed down. Two of
the disciples are attempting to rouse Jesus who is asleep
in the stern of the boat. But if you look more closely, you
will discover that there is something that is not quite right.
There are too many people in the picture. So you count them.
There are fourteen. There should only be thirteen (twelve
disciples and Jesus). But instead there are fourteen. It is
then that you notice that one of the men in the boat is Rembrandt.
He has painted himself into the picture. He has placed himself
in the same boat.
Which
is precisely what we should do. It is the way that we are
supposed to interpret this passage. We are in the boat with
Jesus, faithful but frightened. There is no immunity for any
of us. We are caught up in the same fix. I suspect most of
us would rather be numbered with the exceptions. Either we
would like to believe that storms will never strike us or
that faith will never fail us.
But storms
will strike us ... because that's the way life is. On Thursday,
I spent one entire day with Hamilton Jordan of Georgia. He
is the guy who single-handedly got Jimmy Carter elected President
and then served as Carter's White House Chief of Staff. Today,
Hamilton Jordan doesn't even dabble a toe in politics. But
he has immersed body and soul in the promotion and funding
of cancer research. Part of the shift is because he, himself,
contracted cancer three separate times before the age of 50.
I heard him tell his story in a variety of settings on Thursday.
And each time he told it, one line stood out. Concerning what
it's like to hear bad news from somebody with a white coat
and a stethoscope, he said: "It's not that big a deal
anymore, given that (sooner or later) every one of us is gonna
get a bad report." Which pretty much puts us in the same
boat. That's life.
The late
Howard Thurman is one of my heroes. Formerly Dean of the Chapel
at Boston University, Howard had an amazing ability to retell
common incidents in utterly uncommon ways. Listen.
Some
years ago I had a doctor-friend who was, at that time, Dean
of the medical school. I went to him one day for a physical
examination. I was making a change in my plan of life and
I felt some need to know just what there was in my body
that was working for me, and what was working against me.
He gave me his part of the exam and then sent me to five
other people to do various things. About a week later, I
got a phone call from his nurse telling me that he wanted
to see me as soon as possible. Every one of you knows the
destiny that rides on that. At the appointed hour, I walked
into his office and sat in a chair. He sat at his desk.
He had one of those manila folders filled with several sheets
of paper, complete with typing and graphs and a lot of things
that are impossible to read upside down from across a desk.
He opens
the folder, looks at you and says, "Hmmm"...and
then "Hmmm"...and then "Uhmmm." Then
he hesitates on one page, looks at you with a longer look
this time, and finally, much to your relief, turns it over
and says, "Hmmm." And so it goes, all the way
through, until at last he closes the folder. Then he says,
"You are in fine shape. Your heart, your lungs, and
all those other things are in fine shape. But you are too
heavy." He talks with you rather learnedly about what
the carrying of those extra pounds means to your heart,
lungs and blood vessels. It all sounds rather scholarly.
It all sounds rather frightening. And then you look at him.
He isn't even as tall as you are and he weighs about 225
pounds. He thinks his body knows that he is a doctor. His
body doesn't know he's a doctor. His body doesn't know anything
more than my body knows. His body is in the same boat as
my body. It has no immunity. None of us do.
The point
is well taken. Immunity is hard to come by. We cannot exempt
ourselves from storms ... or fright. So paint yourself into
the boat.
Now there
is a second thing you have got to do if you want to "get"
this story. You have got to understand what the boat means.
The boat is a symbol for the church. It has been that way
from the beginning. The ship has always been a symbol for
the church. The logo for the ecumenical movement in our day
is the symbol of a ship upon the sea. The Roman Catholic Church
refers to itself as "the bark of Peter" which means
"the ship of Peter." Architecturally, that part
of the sanctuary in which all of you sit is called the "nave."
Up front we have the chancel. Out back we have the narthex.
That's "churchspeak." But where you are is the nave.
The word "nave" is obviously linked, linguistically,
to the word "naval." Literally, "nave"
is the Latin word for "ship." Even as we sit here
in church, we are in the boat with the disciples. And, as
Al Gurley is fond of pointing out, if you look up at the ceiling,
you can see the ship's prow, albeit upside down.
Which
leads you to a third thing you need to understand. You need
to understand what the storm means. You need to understand
that there is something significant going on when the writer
talks about Jesus sailing out into the sea. For in those days,
it was believed that the sea was the home of the demonic powers
... that all of the enemies of life had their headquarters
in the sea. So when Jesus sails into the sea, he is sailing
into the middle of enemy territory.
And don't
let this slip away without taking it seriously. Recall, if
you will, a bit of biblical history. In one early creation
account, creation is described as a struggle between God and
the sea, with the sea representing chaos and all that is evil
in the world. God separates the sea so that creation can come
out. And then, in this marvelous literary symmetry that Bible
stories sometimes have, God separates the sea one more time.
Only the second separation is done so that God's people can
come out. A stormy sea, you see, represents the demonic. The
sea is not just something the disciples have to battle. The
sea represents something God has to battle.
Which
sets up the fourth thing you need to understand about this
passage, and that concerns this business of the sleeping Jesus.
The purpose of having Jesus sleep during the storm is to demonstrate
the superiority of Jesus over the demonic powers of the sea.
It represents a form of mockery. It is as if Jesus is saying:
"Let the forces of evil blow all they want. Let them
hit me with their best shot. I'll sleep through it!"
It is
easy for me to poke fun at liberal biblical scholars, because
I am one of them. Over the years, we have tended to come at
scripture with the notion that, above all else, scripture
ought to make sense. So, in order to make the Bible make sense,
we have tried to rationalize everything in the Bible that
sounds irrational. Now I suppose the idea of a man standing
in boat and rebuking waves of that magnitude borders on the
irrational. Which is why we are fond of saying: "Ah!
Jesus was not talking to the waves at all. When Jesus said,
`Peace, be still,' Jesus was talking to the disciples. He
was calming his men. And once calmed, they could face the
storm without the need of any supernatural intervention."
Now that's
nifty. Except for one small fact. The story doesn't read that
way. In Mark's version, Jesus speaks to the waves. He does
not speak to his men. What's more, this is one of those stories
where the familiar translation utterly fails us. The familiar
translation is both deceptive and wrong. When Jesus calms
the storm, he is not overly gentle about it. He doesn't say:
"Peace, be still." It would be nice if he did. But
it would be far too mild. A better translation would have
Jesus saying to the waves: "Hush! Be silent." Better
still might be: "Shut up! Cease and desist. Down boys."
The entire
purpose of the story, you see, is not to show Jesus as some
heroic figure who gives us an example of how to be courageous
when waves start to swamp our boat. ("Now remember children,
if you are ever caught in a storm, try to be a little more
like Jesus.") The purpose of this story is altogether
different. The purpose is to identify Jesus as one who can
master the demonic and unruly forces of life and hold them
at bay. Mark says he'll be there. He will be right in the
boat with you. But you may not know it until the storm comes.
You may not know it until it looks, for all the world, as
if your boat is going under. And if you don't know Jesus ...
I mean if you really don't know Jesus ... maybe it is because
you have never really been caught in a storm.
Ultimately,
you see, this is a story that tells you three things:
1. Who
Jesus is ... one who even wind and sea obey.
2. Where
we meet him ... when the storms of life are raging.
3. How
much we ought to trust him ... a whole lot more than we
do.
I wonder
if any of you remember a rather old play, The Desperate
Hours. It concerns two escaped convicts who take over
a middle-class home in Columbus, Ohio. There, a mother, father
and two children are held hostage for several hours. In the
final scene, a 12-year-old boy is being used a body shield
by one of the convicts who has stuck a gun in the little boy's
back. But there is a vital truth about his situation that
the boy doesn't know. At some earlier time in this ordeal,
the father has managed to gain temporary possession of the
two guns of the convicts. He has unloaded one and kept the
other. Now, in the final scene, the father is on one side
of the room in secret possession of the loaded gun. The convict
is holding the boy captive, on the other side of the room,
with an unloaded gun. But neither the convict nor the boy
have any knowledge of that.
"Ralph,"
cries the father to his son. "Ralph, listen to me. Come
over to me. The man is not going to hurt you." To which
the convict says: "You try it, kid, and you'll find out."
"Ralph,"
the father says, "Have I ever lied to you? I tell you,
do exactly as I say, because that gun is not loaded."
In response, the convict simply sticks the gun more forcefully
into the boy's back.
"It
has no bullets, Ralph. You understand? Now do as I say."
Then, after a long pause, the father shouts: "Run."
And in a rush of faith, the boy plunges across the room in
the direction of his father, as the gun of the convict clicks
repeatedly and uselessly.
Point
of story? Point of text? Sooner or later, everybody's got
to trust somebody.
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Note:
For more on Hamilton Jordan's cancer story, read his memoir,
No Such Thing As a Bad Day.
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