“Fasten Your Seatbelts for The Perfect Storm” + 3 ...

1 Page 1 of 4 Fasten your Seatbelts for The Perfect storm + 3 Pentecost B + Job 38:1-11; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41 June 21, 2009 Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. The texts for this morning s message are the lessons for this day. Perhaps the best performance ever given by Bette Davis was in 1950 s All About Eve. As fading stage star Margo Channing things seem to be unraveling all around her. One evening she enters a party and utters this famous line, Fasten your Seatbelts . It s going to be a bumpy night! Now one would hardly think of that as the Perfect call to discipleship but when you think of it the disciples had to have learned early on in their journey with Jesus that it wasn t all going to be attending weddings and having water turned into wine (though that was His first miracle).

2 It was certainly a bumpy night when Jesus fell asleep in the boat and the storm began to rage but even if the crossing had been uneventful and the storm had never arisen, Jesus was taking them to a place where they did not want to go. Let me explain by filling you in on a little geography. The story that Mark is telling began in Capernaum of Galilee, a fishing village, the home of Peter, Andrew, James and John. A lot of things tell us that, including a recent discovery of what are thought to be the ruins of Peter s house. Jesus spent a lot of time in Capernaum; leaving there periodically but, always returning even after the resurrection. In Mark s telling of the events of Easter the angel at the tomb promised Jesus would reunite with His disciples in Galilee most likely friendly and familiar Capernaum where they could feast on fresh fish.

3 Capernaum is on the west side of the Sea of Galilee so going across would take them somewhat south and east. Big deal! Well, it was a big deal. Southeast of Capernaum on the other shore of Galilee was a region called the Decapolis, a Greek word that means 10 Cities, kind of a confederation of Gentile communities and a place where no self-respecting, god-fearing Jew would go. Gentiles were heathen, promiscuous, idol-worshipping pagans in their opinion. were pig farmers. Mark, chapter 5 tells us that. Gentiles were unclean by race, by religion, by occupation and that was enough to make any Jew want to run the other way. But not Jesus! He is the one who suggested (no, commanded) they go there. What happened there is what we ll talk about next week. Today is all about the trip; a trip interrupted and nearly obliterated by a freakish albeit frequent fracas of a formidable front (as Dave Dahl a fine Lutheran forecaster might call it) in other words a typical storm for that region though each storm of this sort is unique and terrifying.

4 You see, the Sea of Galilee sits in a bowl, surrounded by hills, occasionally cut through by valleys and even to this day, cold currents of air pass from west to east, swirling through those valleys and rapidly churning up the waters as they descend and disperse over the sea, creating what echoes another famous movie descriptively titled The Perfect storm . Listen up - because there is a connection here between the Gospel s Perfect storm and today s first lesson where God speaks to Job. Page 2 of 4 At any rate, all those whirlwinds created a windstorm. I m not a sailor but I believe that one is supposed to head into the waves. That is your best chance to cut through the welling waters with the bow rather than take the water into the boat as it breaches you broadside. But you can t head into waves that come at you from all directions.

5 All you can do is bail and pray, both of which the disciples were doing while trying not to use the kind of salty language even freshwater sailors are known for I mean, after all Jesus was right there in the boat with them! Yes, Jesus was asleep in the stern, a not so minor detail because the pillow he was resting his head on was actually a ballast bag that should have been up in the bow to help keep the boat stabilized and cutting through those waves. However, it would seem that Jesus could move that bag wherever He wanted to I am certain that Jesus, asleep on the ballast bag rested within the confidence one would expect of the Son of God. Not so the disciples who finally shout out, Teacher, don t you care that we are perishing? We ve heard that question a million times (or as often as we ve read the story, anyway) so it could be that nothing jumps out at us from that phrase.

6 But something should. Not the swamping. Not the sleeping. Not the threat of perishing. But the question Don t you Don t you care demands an explanation. But when the waves are crashing and the boat is sinking and the sailors are bailing and the landlubbers are either sobbing or puking over the sides, you don t want an explanation. You want help. Isn t that interesting? I thought as I got ready for this morning. Jesus took His disciples where they didn t want to go, to a dangerous place filled with disgusting people and smelly swine and when The Perfect storm comes swirling out of the whirlwind, it is not help, but the need for an explanation (a don t you care? ) that comes out of the mouths of His soggy disciples. So I asked that most Lutheran of questions, what does this mean? Let s see: it is out of a whirlwind that God speaks to Job after Job is impoverished, bereaved, covered with blistering boils and his friends only comfort is that he must have really made God mad and his wife s advice is to curse God and die, and it is within that whirlwind of distress that God speaks.

7 And God doesn t just say, Come here, Job, let me explain. No, God says, Brace yourself! (And from God that is the ultimate, Fasten your seatbelt. It s going to be a bumpy night! God silences Job by reminding him that God is God God alone who was there when the world was made. Remember who you are and who made you, Job! The psalm we sang this morning is almost eerie in its poetic telling of another Perfect storm when God silenced the waves with a whisper. Are you catching where I m going with this? Even today s reading from 2 Corinthians gets into the act because it comes from the pen of St. Paul as he is caught in the storm of criticism and accused of being an inadequate apostle. Don t you care is the question human beings hurl at God when the skies are darkest and the waves are highest. I ve asked it myself a few times.)

8 So have you. It is in our nature to accuse Page 3 of 4 God of neglect, of not caring when we are perishing. It is in God s nature to take us into dangerous places because God is confident of our survival. God knows we will make it has set his Spirit as a seal upon us to assure us. How does God know? God knows because our God is not a God who is far away our God is near. Had Jesus been, as many say of Him, only a wise teacher He would have scanned his store of wisdom and told the disciples to abandon ship and swim for it. He would have grabbed some kind of flotation device and gotten out of the boat. Had Jesus been less involved than becoming flesh and dwelling among us and more concerned with how the disciples responded to all the miracles He d done and how they measured up in the faith department He could well have said, I ll see you feckless followers later when you ve managed to acquire a little faith in me.

9 And then walked to shore on the water. But He didn t do any of those things. Jesus stayed in the boat. Jesus stilled the storm and that created a storm in the souls of those who exchanged their fear of the sea for fear of Him. But stilling the storm is not what this is all about. Not stilling, but staying. Not sleeping, but speaking; speaking through the whirling winds and the crashing waves. And always in the boat with us! Don t ever think Jesus came just to let us sleep on a cushion in the back of the boat of belief while He smoothes out the seas ahead of us. No, He takes us to dangerous waters, to valleys overcast with the shadows of death, where whirlwinds blow, because that is where faith trust is born. Jesus leads with confidence because He knows where He s leading us. He knows we will get there even when we can t see the way and can only follow and even then with some reluctance and even anger.

10 Fathers day was always a little strained when I was growing up. I think Dad liked the Old Spice I got him every year but he seemed a little pensive on this Hallmark Holiday. As I ve grown older it has occurred to me that it was probably because it was about this time in June of 1915 that his father died in a storm on a lake struck by lightening suddenly and tragically gone from the little boy who couldn t go fishing that day because he d played hooky from school. That storm changed so many lives and brought great chaos to the future of Otto Benke s widow, only son and three little daughters. Dad was forced to leave home and go to work when he was 14 to send money for the care of his sisters. He had just been confirmed in his faith but in the next years became so angry at God he stayed away from church for 20 years until he married a pastor s daughter.