Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
I share with you this morning that after our Sunday morning services I usually go straight home just like many you and begin cooking my Sunday lunch. Now over the past couple of weeks I’ve been watching Nigel Slaters ‘Eating together’ programme on a Monday evening on the BBC where he travels around the country tasting,cooking and sharing meals with people from many different back grounds and cultures.
A couple of weeks ago he made something which I’d not had for many years but whati really like and find very comforting, because he made dumplings, so the following Sunday after the programme after church I made a dumpling mix,from a packet you understand. Now the packet said that you should roll the dumpling mix in to 6-8 small balls before putting them in the pan of stew, but because of course I live alone I thought it would be better and more economical just to roll two big balls using all of the dumpling mix and I then dropped them in the pan, now it became very obvious very quickly that the dumplings I had made were enormous, filling when they had finished finally swelling the entire pan, and when I served them both out almost half the plate, when I eventually sat down for lunch.
Not surpringly it took me quite a long time to finish my lunch that Sunday but afterwards I went and sat down in the downstairs lounge at the vicarage and began to listen to one of my HerculePoirot audio cd’s, the next thing I did was to wake up, it felt like I’d been asleep for hours and hours and I felt sure I must have slept through choral evensong. Although it had felt I had slept for hours my afternoon snooze only had in fact lasted a matter of 20minutes.I shouldn’t have feared my internal liturgical body clock had woken me up and I had plenty of time to get to church.
When the disciple’s wake Jesus up in their fear that they might sink the first thing they said to him was to ask him a question;
Do you not care that we are perishing?
Now when Jesus wakes up you can almost hear the exasperation in his voice as he speak to the disciples;
Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
Now to understand why Jesus reacts the way he does we must be aware of what had been happening in his and the disciples life just before this incident on the boat because Jesus had been attempting to explain an understanding of what the kingdom might be like through the use of various parables including the one about the mustard seed and the non-anxious farmer, and just a few verses before, Jesus had told them the parable about the sower who, upon scattering his seeds, finds that some had fallen on good soil, some on rocks, and others on hard soil. The disciples still hadn’t really connected the clues and didn’t yet understand the full nature of Christ.
A couple of weeks ago now as some of you know I went to the diocesan conference and one enjoyable aspect of the conference was to hear the reflections of the biblical scholar Paula Gooder and part of her reflections was on the passage we’ve heard in our gospel reading.
Because for her this incident of Jesus in the boat and the two other boat stories in Marks Gospel in chapter 6 and chapter 8, are very significant when we reflect upon our Christiandiscipleship today.
Because all three boat stories in Marks Gospel with Jesus are transformative in nature, because when Mark says in our gospel reading that Jesus tell the disciples “Let us go across to the other side.” Meaning let us go across to the other side of the sea of Gallille. Those who would have heard those words being read out would have then be expecting some transformative teaching from Jesus to take place. And yet what we get is Jesus having a nap.
But of course there is significant and I would say fundamental teaching about Christian discipleship taking place in that boat on the sea of Galillee,in the words that Jesus speaks when he wakes up;
Why are you afraid?
Now the normal word for human fear used in the new testament is phobos but Jesus actually doesn’t use this word here, what Paula Gooder pointed out was that the actual word that Mark uses to describe what Jesus says is in fact the word Deilos, which when translated means not just fear but broadens it out to mean ‘why are you the kind of people who are always getting frightened’. Now this might resonate with us as Christian disciples, because what Jesus says to the disciples in the boat could just be as easily as if Jesus is speaking directly in the boat of the church today to Christian disciples today.
Why are you the kind of people who are always getting frightened?
I’ve been reflecting upon this a great deal since the conference and I certainly believe that it resonatesin the reality of Christian discipleship today. There is almost a fear factor running not just in the church but also because the church reflects the society it is alive in, also a fear factor running through our culture and society today. You only have to look at the stories that have hit the headlines in the past week to see the elements of fear that appear to permeate.
But of course Jesus doesn’t end what he says to his disciples and us there he goes on to say something else, he says;
Have you still no faith?
What should this faith be based upon, well Jesus has already of course given us the clues in what he had already done and what he had already said to the disciples earlier in Marks gospel, because as Paula Gooder also highlighted at the diocesan conference –discipleship for Jesus should be more about lateral growing movement in our lives, of seeing God in something or someone because of what we have learnt from ours or someone we know, previous encounters with God.
So when Jesus calms the storm on the sea of Galillee, and asks Have you still no faith? He in effect is asking where lies your trust and it’s I would suggest a question which individually,collectively as a church family as the church as the body of Christ,and as a society would I suggest do well to ponder; where does our trust lie?
You might be pleased to know that I’m not having dumplings this afternoon. But in case I nod off again after lunch, which is probable, I will put my trust this time in setting the alarm on my mobile phone just in case.