Is It Time For a Nap?
Read the Sermon
IS IT TIME FOR A NAP?
The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
June 23, 2024
He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? And they were filled with great awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?” (Mark 4:40-41)
When I was growing up, my mother was always at the ready with her Kodak Instamatic camera. The rotating flash cube that gave you four pictures would explode with blinding light, capturing forever moments you might want to forget in later life. Take, for example, the greatest temper tantrum I ever threw. One day, in August of 1965, when I was three years old, my parents took my older brother and me on a short trip to New Hope, PA. New Hope is an historic town along the Delaware River that boasts shops, restaurants, and a canal connecting all the nearby communities. In days gone by, horse-drawn barges on the canal would have hauled timber and other such heavy goods. But by the 1960s the barges were merely tourist boats to ride. What child wouldn’t want to climb aboard, you ask? What could possibly go wrong, you wonder?
Apparently, according to family lore, we waited our turn in line, watching people ahead of us getting onto the barge. A huge horse, harnessed to the barge by a long rope, would walk on a path alongside the canal, and pull the tourists away out of sight. Then the horse would bring the barge back for another group. When the moment came for us to ride the barge, fear and panic seized me. No way was I going to get on that boat. I proceeded to pitch a fit that only a three-year old could. Perhaps it was the horses. Perhaps it was the water. Perhaps it was the fact that no one seemed ever to return from the barge ride. It kept coming back empty for more unsuspecting tourists. No thanks, not for me! I screamed, I kicked, I pleaded. My father eventually carried me aboard. My mother took pictures, and into the family photo album they went, complete with dates. Mind you now, I’m not sure how much of this I actually remember, and how much I remember remembering. But the pictures do not lie. The boat and the water terrified me, and the temper tantrum was one for the ages.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we’ve heard how Jesus announced to his disciples that it was time to board a boat and head across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Honestly, you’d think that the disciples would have caught on by now. Every time Jesus told them to start rowing, they were in for trouble. It was almost like a practical joke that he kept playing on them. “Come on, boys, get on the boat. No harm will befall you. I promise.” So there they went – the twelve disciples and Jesus in the middle of the night – the whole future of Christendom packed like a bunch of sardines in a rickety little fishing boat. What a sight. As luck would have it, they were headed into a storm – a big one. It hit them fast and furious, and before they knew it the boat was filling with water and ready to capsize.
But seriously, how big of a storm can blow upon a relatively small, inland, freshwater lake? That’s right, the Sea of Galilee was and is a lake: not a sea like the Mediterranean, not even a lake like Superior, where the gales of November swamped the Edmund Fitzgerald. Who’s afraid of a lake? The fact is, after my tantrum at New Hope, to took to the water like a fish. We belonged to a pool where I learned how to swim. We rented a lake house where I water skied and fished. We managed a few days on the Jersey Shore, where I developed a healthy respect for the ocean. It’s true that on some level the ocean, with it rip tides and sharks, is always out to get you. But lakes have no such thing. Lakes are tame. Lakes are mild. So how frightened should the disciples have been of a storm on the Sea of Galilee? It’s a lake. Well, by comparison, you may recall six years ago, when a sudden storm blew across Table Rock Lake in Missouri, and caught a tour boat full of sightseers by surprise. Rain, waves, and 80-mph winds hit the craft until it capsized and sank. Seventeen people lost their lives in a storm on an inland lake smaller than the Sea of Galilee.
Thus, the storm on the Sea of Galilee. It would take all hands working together if they were to survive. The disciples called out to Jesus, who was oddly enough, asleep in the stern. “Teacher”, they said, “do you not care that we are perishing?” Yes, he did care. Jesus awoke, rebuked the wind and commanded the turbulent, angry sea to settle into a still, quiet calm. It was a miracle that left such an impression on the disciples that they told and retold the story. Obviously, they had no photographic record, but they remembered and remembered it. For them it was the epitome of what it was like to be in the presence of Jesus. Jesus was and is able to calm the storms of life. Fear not. Have faith.
Now then, it’s all well and good to say that Jesus calmed a storm on the Sea of Galilee, long ago and far away. But the fact remains that the storms around us still rage and swell. We see dark and ominous clouds gathering over Ukraine, North Korea, and Gaza. Here in New York City we fear increasing violence on the streets and in the subway. Unsuspecting people are being shoved, slashed, and shot. Come November we face a worrisome presidential election, the results of which will have ripple effects for good or ill across the world. What can be done to control the storms? Shall we take to the streets to rant and rave? Shall we double down, strain at the oars, and count on our own efforts. Ultimately, can we say about the message of human might and potential to bring order out of chaos?
Let’s ask Job, the main character of our Old Testament reading today. The story goes that Job was a pious and prosperous man. He had a large and content family and wealth beyond anyone’s imagination. Life was good, and he gave thanks to God every day. Then the storm hit, furiously and relentlessly. Invading armies attacked, killing his family and plundering his wealth. In the midst of it all Job fell ill to a painful debilitating disease. He had no more control over his fate than the disciples had over their sinking boat. But Job had friends who thought he could still manage to be the captain of his ship. Friend after friend explained to him that bad things only happened to bad people. They counseled Job that somehow he had offended God, and as punishment God brought the storms upon him. They advised Job to repent. Then God would restore his life to him. Job could control the storm by repenting.
Job disagreed. He knew that he had no control over the storm. He had done nothing to bring the storm upon him, and in like manner he could do nothing to send it away. He couldn’t wish or explain it away. He couldn’t repent or hope it away. He couldn’t even pray it away. The notion that he could do anything about it was magical thinking. Therefore, instead of repenting, he threw what might be called the Bible’s greatest temper tantrum. He ranted and raged at God. He cursed the day he was born. Nothing could explain, tidy up, or control the situation.
This past week, as I read through Job, I recalled the late author, Joan Didion, and her famous book, The Year of Magical Thinking. Until December of 2003, Didion had led a life that many would find enviable. She was a successful novelist and writer, who enjoyed a long and loving marriage to fellow author John Gregory Dunne. The two would collaborate on writing assignments, and adopt a daughter, Quintana, who was the light of their lives. Then the storm hit. Quintana fell suddenly, mysteriously and dangerously ill. On December 30th, as Joan and John sat down to dinner in their apartment, John slumped over and died from a massive heart attack. Didion wrote, “You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.”
In the months to come, as Didion faced Quintana’s illness alone, without the company of her husband, supportive friends surrounded her, in the way that Job’s friends surrounded him. She wrote of how these well-meaning, highly successful people thought they could bring the situation under control. They “believed absolutely in their own management skills. They believed absolutely in the power of the telephone numbers they had at their fingertips, the right doctor, the major donor, the person who could facilitate a favor.” Their initial instinct was that Quintana’s illness “could be managed. In order to manage it, they needed only information. They needed to know only how this had happened. They needed answers. They needed ‘the prognosis.’ I had no answers. I had no prognosis. I did not know how this had happened.” The gist of the book seems to be that any notion of ultimate control we might harbor is magical thinking.
Is that it, then: the storms rage and swell and we have no control? What is the word of the Lord for us today? What is the word of the Lord for Job, and for the disciples in the midst of their storms? The word of the Lord is trust in God. Have faith in Jesus. The storms rage and swell, but the God of Jacob is our stronghold (Ps. 46). In today’s Old Testament reading, God finally answers Job (38:1-11) out of the whirlwind, and declares who, in fact, is in control. I might summarize God’s message to Job with a crude paraphrase: Job, this existence that I’ve chosen to share with you as a gift is a far bigger thing than you can either understand or imagine. You just have to trust me. I’ve got this, and you don’t. I’m God, and you aren’t.
Essentially, it’s the same message that Jesus delivered to the disciples in the little storm-tossed boat. Trust in God. Keep your eyes on Jesus. We get so distracted by the obvious miracle of Jesus’ stilling the storm that I think we miss a miracle that is perhaps more meaningful, more accessible, and even more redemptive than the grand intervention. What was Jesus doing in the midst of the storm that had everyone else utterly and completely terrified? Jesus was sleeping. Today I want to preach not so much Christ crucified, not so much Christ risen from the dead, but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ asleep. Apparently, he even managed to find himself a little pillow. Jesus was taking a nap, something neither church nor society wants you to do. The world seems to have a vendetta against sleeping. We get up at the crack of dawn. Why? Why does anything begin before 8 am? Then, we work, study, or celebrate until late at night, and to stay awake we drink all manner of caffeinated beverages in between. In some circles it is a badge of honor to make it on four or five hours of sleep every night, or even better, to pull an all-nighter.
The church has it in for sleeping, too. We associate sleeping with unfaithfulness and spiritual sloth. We have midnight masses, all-night vigils, sunrise services, and youth group sleep-overs. We even have an entire liturgical season devoted to the virtue of staying awake: Advent. Apparently, you’re not a true follower of Jesus unless your eyelids are propped open with toothpicks. Who can take a nap and not feel guilty about it? I’ll tell you who: Jesus. Today Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat. So today – perhaps just today – Jesus is not requiring us to still any storms, or save any worlds, or champion any cause. It’s time for a nap. Perhaps just today – Jesus is daring us to trust, and leave the saving to him, according to his own timetable.
Jesus’ sleeping says to me that he simply was not then, and is not now worried. He is not afraid of any storm’s power. Indeed, he gave the storm a big yawn. Jesus’ sleeping says to me that he has a perspective on the storms of life that the others do not – that I do not – perhaps that you do not. The storms that we cannot control, but think we should, will never in the end be able to separate us from the love of God, or terminate any one of us. We belong to Jesus forever. He holds our souls in life.
Jesus asked the disciples: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Faith is this: trust in God, and keep your eyes on Jesus, who by the power of the Spirit moved over the waters at the beginning of creation, and has the authority to say to any storm, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.” (Job 38:11)