A brief sermon
Last week's sermon was particularly interesting to me, so I wanted to write down a few of the preacher's thoughts, along with a few of my own. We're unpacking the story of Jesus calming the storm, Matthew 8:23-27.
The first thing to note here is that this story commences immediately following a chapter in which Jesus articulates the cost of following him: the loss of home, the loss of family, essentially a complete death to one's old life. And the next verse (8:23) shows Jesus climbing onto the boat and the disciples following him -- using the same verb, 'to follow,' as in the previous verse, suggesting that getting into that boat was an act of discipleship. The metaphor here is pretty direct: Jesus, presumably, knows that a storm is coming, and is essentially setting his disciples up for an interesting ride. The disciples don't know what's coming, but have just been warned of the cost involved in following Jesus and choose to do so anyway.
So then the storm arrives, a storm which is (according to the preacher) described in the Greek by the word for earthquake -- seismos. It's a big storm. This can also be gleaned from the realization that among the disciples who are freaked out by it are several professional fisherman, who sailed this same body of water every day as a matter of course. It's one thing for a landlubber to be disturbed by a little wave-action; but when the professional captains start freaking out, things may be concluded to have reached a high stage of intensity.
And Jesus, rather famously, is asleep. This is actually quite an accomplishment in its own right. It is extraordinarily difficult to sleep on a boat in any kind of heavy swell, and sleeping through the kind of gale we're talking about reflects a monumental degree of relaxation. Which, also famously, is somewhat disturbing to the disciples. So they wake the man up, screaming that the boat's going down and they're all about to die. And Jesus' response is: "Why are you afraid, Little Faith?" In the midst of this chaos, he's so calm that he can still use his affectionate nick-name for his people -- and he completely fails to directly address their concern.
He doesn't wake up and calm the storm He doesn't wake up and say, "no you're not, we'll be fine." They're screaming about death, and his response is essentially to say, "What's your point?" Jesus isn't relaxed because he knows they aren't going to die; he's relaxed because he knows it doesn't matter if they die or not. There is, literally, nothing to be afraid of. But then, because his disciples are freaking out, and because he does have such a keen sense of the dramatic moment, he goes out and he calms the storm. And it stops. Completely.
And then I like to think that the disciples have a moment of realization, because you have to figure that a storm like that has propelled them a goodly distance -- and in a flat calm, they can't sail anywhere. Verse 28 simply notes that they arrived on the far shore, but my hunch is that getting there involved a lot of fairly grim rowing action. In a very strange way, then, it's implied that the storms of our lives may actually be a necessary source of motive drive getting us to where we need to go.
But I keep going back to Jesus' question: "Why are you afraid, Little Faith?" So your life is coming apart; so the boat is being smashed; so the water's coming in. What's your point? Why are we afraid?
The first thing to note here is that this story commences immediately following a chapter in which Jesus articulates the cost of following him: the loss of home, the loss of family, essentially a complete death to one's old life. And the next verse (8:23) shows Jesus climbing onto the boat and the disciples following him -- using the same verb, 'to follow,' as in the previous verse, suggesting that getting into that boat was an act of discipleship. The metaphor here is pretty direct: Jesus, presumably, knows that a storm is coming, and is essentially setting his disciples up for an interesting ride. The disciples don't know what's coming, but have just been warned of the cost involved in following Jesus and choose to do so anyway.
So then the storm arrives, a storm which is (according to the preacher) described in the Greek by the word for earthquake -- seismos. It's a big storm. This can also be gleaned from the realization that among the disciples who are freaked out by it are several professional fisherman, who sailed this same body of water every day as a matter of course. It's one thing for a landlubber to be disturbed by a little wave-action; but when the professional captains start freaking out, things may be concluded to have reached a high stage of intensity.
And Jesus, rather famously, is asleep. This is actually quite an accomplishment in its own right. It is extraordinarily difficult to sleep on a boat in any kind of heavy swell, and sleeping through the kind of gale we're talking about reflects a monumental degree of relaxation. Which, also famously, is somewhat disturbing to the disciples. So they wake the man up, screaming that the boat's going down and they're all about to die. And Jesus' response is: "Why are you afraid, Little Faith?" In the midst of this chaos, he's so calm that he can still use his affectionate nick-name for his people -- and he completely fails to directly address their concern.
He doesn't wake up and calm the storm He doesn't wake up and say, "no you're not, we'll be fine." They're screaming about death, and his response is essentially to say, "What's your point?" Jesus isn't relaxed because he knows they aren't going to die; he's relaxed because he knows it doesn't matter if they die or not. There is, literally, nothing to be afraid of. But then, because his disciples are freaking out, and because he does have such a keen sense of the dramatic moment, he goes out and he calms the storm. And it stops. Completely.
And then I like to think that the disciples have a moment of realization, because you have to figure that a storm like that has propelled them a goodly distance -- and in a flat calm, they can't sail anywhere. Verse 28 simply notes that they arrived on the far shore, but my hunch is that getting there involved a lot of fairly grim rowing action. In a very strange way, then, it's implied that the storms of our lives may actually be a necessary source of motive drive getting us to where we need to go.
But I keep going back to Jesus' question: "Why are you afraid, Little Faith?" So your life is coming apart; so the boat is being smashed; so the water's coming in. What's your point? Why are we afraid?