Living in the Calm

Meditation on Mark 4:35–41

First Presbyterian Church of Smithtown

Pastor Karen Crawford

June 30, 2024

What are you afraid of?

What started out as a lighthearted conversation stirred some more serious thoughts later.

Jim was picking up a bug with a napkin under the kitchen table yesterday—a bug that our cat, Liam, happened to be playing with. “What’s that?” he asked, with a disgusted look on his face.  “Oh, it’s just a bug,” I said. “Let me know if you find a tarantula, and then I will be sure to move away.”

Jim said we probably won’t see too many tarantulas on Long Island. I hope not!  “You just don’t like spiders,” he said. That’s true. I don’t like snakes, either. Who remembers that old Jim Stafford song from the 70s, “Spiders and Snakes?” They are good for the environment, but I don’t want to be sitting next to them. Or touching them.

So, what are you afraid of? Have you ever shared your deepest fears?

Psychologists on the web claim they can cure us of all our fears—taking away anything that holds us back from success, anything that makes us depressed. From the UK, psychotherapist Maggie Morrow at Klearminds.com promises same day appointments to help us with all our phobias. She says, “Around 10 million people in the UK suffer from some type of phobia.” (And we thought it was just an American thing.) But what exactly are people so afraid of? she asks. The 5 most common phobias in the world, she says, are:

1. Arachnophobia (fear of spiders) (See? I am not alone!)
2. Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes)
3. Acrophobia (fear of heights)
4. Agoraphobia (fear of crowded or open spaces)
5. Cynophobia (fear of dogs).

I am thinking that, instead of calling Maggie Morrow, we would save money and have more fun talking to our neighborhood psychiatrist from one of my favorite movies, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Charlie says, “I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming but I’m not happy. I don’t feel how you’re supposed to feel.”

He goes to see Lucy, who tries to get to the root of his problem. “Are you afraid of responsibility?” she asks. “If you are, then you have hypengyophobia. How about cats? If you’re afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia.

Charlie says, “Well, sort of. But I’m not sure.”

Lucy asks, “Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean…Or gephyrophobia… fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?

Charlie Brown: What’s pantophobia?

Lucy: The fear of everything!

Charlie Brown: THAT’S IT!

Lucy: That’ll be 5 cents please.

In today’s passage in the gospel of Mark, the disciples, a number of them fishermen, are faced with one of their greatest fears. Anyone here a fisherman? Like to fish? Do you go out in a boat? What’s your greatest fear, other than not catching any fish and getting sunburned?

Imagine yourself in the wooden boat with the disciples. Everyone is tired from a day of ministry—outside in the elements. It’s nighttime! It’s dark. They have no lights. Jesus has been preaching and teaching the crowds all day. They probably didn’t stop to eat or rest. And now they are getting ready to cross the Sea of Galilee, which is actually a freshwater lake, to bring Jesus’ message to the Gentiles.

Let me tell you about your boat.  The Ancient Galilee boat from the First Century A.D., also known as the “Jesus Boat,” was discovered on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel in 1986. Anyone heard of the Jesus Boat before? There’s no proof that the boat actually belonged to Jesus and his disciples or that they ever stepped inside, but it’s a good example of boats in that time. “The remains of the boat—27 feet long, 7.5 feet wide and with a maximum preserved height of 4.3 feet—first appeared during a drought, when the waters of the Sea receded.” [1]

There would have been a small mast and sail in fair weather. The men would have used oars to guide and power the boat.

Here’s the situation. Verse 37. ^“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.” Their greatest fear? Capsizing or sinking—and drowning.

This isn’t the only story of Jesus and his disciples being afraid on the water. I am beginning to wonder if the disciples weren’t the strongest swimmers, either. In Matthew 14, the disciples are in their boat on the lake shortly before dawn (so, in the dark again), and Jesus goes out to them, walking on the water.  They see him and are terrified, thinking he is a ghost. Jesus says: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”  

        “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replies, possibly showing off a little, “tell me to come to you on the water.”  “Come,” Jesus says.

Then Peter gets down out of the boat, walks a few steps on the water and comes toward Jesus.  But when he sees the wind, he is afraid, and begins to sink. He cries out, “Lord, save me!”

     In Matthew 14, like it is in today’s passage in Mark, the lesson is about faith verses fear and doubt. Jesus reaches out his hand and catches him. “You of little faith,” he says, “why did you doubt?” 

         It’s also about our human response when something scary or tragic is happening; we wonder if God is still with us. We wonder if God really cares. In today’s reading in Mark 4, after Jesus is awakened from his sleep in the stern, the disciples are all asking, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus doesn’t answer that question. The one who was sent by a God who loves the world rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Be silent! Be still!”

 The wind ceases in your little wooden boat, dear friends. Just a word from your Lord, and the wind ceases. Don’t worry if you can’t swim through the troubles in your world. There is a “dead calm,” in the wake of Jesus’s words. I wonder at the writer’s use of the word “dead” before calm in this situation—if maybe they are trying to make a stark contrast between what could have happened, and what really did happen.

       A miracle—a powerful story, indeed, for those who live and work on the water, as many did in Jesus’s time and place.  “Who then is this,” they ask each other later, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

      Even though they have spent all this time with him, they still don’t know who he is. He continues to surprise them with his works of wonder.  No one ever asks him again, “Don’t you care? Don’t you care that we are perishing?”

       So, let me ask you again, more seriously this time. What are you afraid of? Have you ever spoken your deepest fears aloud?

        Honestly, I don’t think any of the phobias that our neighborhood psychiatrist Lucy talks about with Charlie Brown are what keeps us awake at night. It’s not the five greatest fears in the UK, according to Maggie Morrow at Klearminds.com. That’s not what keeps us from “living in the calm” and trusting the Lord, every day, every moment, with all our hearts.

 It seems that you and I, we are often responding to stormy weather—storms that we see coming, storms that catch us by surprise. We are often leaning into prayer, encouraging one another, asking our faithful, loving Lord to help us in our time of need.

After worship today, we are gathering for a special time of fellowship. I’m calling it a picnic because we are serving picnic foods, including icees and juice boxes for the kids and young at heart. Every time we gather for fellowship after worship, is a special time. It isn’t just about eating together, although something wonderful always happens when two or more are gathered in Christ’s name, when we break bread. It’s about listening and telling our stories—sharing about the storms in our lives—and where Jesus was in the midst of our storms. So don’t rush off right after worship. Stay a little while longer. The Spirit wants to use you to help someone else. You have been equipped by the Word and Spirit in worship. The fellowship time is an opportunity to reach out to our guests, make them feel at home, and to minister to one another. We are all ministers, in the Body of Christ, empowered by the Spirit of peace!

What are we afraid of? What are our deepest fears? For me, something happening to the ones we love. That is the worst, for me. Is it for you, too?

Jesus says to us now, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? Don’t you know that I care?”

No matter what happens, what storms we face tomorrow, we won’t be alone in the little wooden boat. We will be there for each other, taking turns being the peaceful presence of Christ for one another, not afraid to be vulnerable with one another. And the God who never sleeps will be with us, always in control.

The One who rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Be silent! Be still!”

Will you pray with me? Let us pray. God of the wind and waves, land and seas, we worship you and give you thanks for always being with us. Thank you for your Spirit that strengthens us in the most difficult moments. Help us to recognize your presence in the midst of our storms. Thank you for caring for us, always, when we are fearful and full of doubt and when we are faithful and full of certainty. Teach us how to live in the calm, dear Lord, to trust you, every day, every moment, with all our hearts. In the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, we pray. Amen.

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      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee_Boat