Pentecost+5/Proper 7B (Job 38:1-11; Ps 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Cor 6:1-13; Mk 4:35-41)

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus sounds a bit harsh, if not judgmental of his disciples. We can easily imagine him correcting, if not scolding, his disciples of their fear and lack of faith in him. So he says to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” As I reflect on this saying of Jesus, my rebellious side comes out. It seems quite unfair for him to say such things if we seriously consider what kind of context the disciples were in as they showed their fear and lack of faith. They were in the boat with Jesus. And a great windstorm arose. The waves beat into the boat so that the boat was already being swamped. 

We can very well picture how the disciples would’ve felt. Some of them like Peter, John, and James knew the sea. They were fishermen. They very well knew what to fear. Especially having their boat being trembled by the waves and being swamped, their lives were threatened to death. They were frustrated and upset, looking at Jesus their teacher sleeping as if nothing was happening. They were probably thinking, “What does a carpenter know about the sea?” 

Now, I want us to use our imagination to dig deeper into the gospel. Let’s imagine that the disciples did have faith just as Jesus urged! They are in the boat with Jesus. A great windstorm is haunting them with the violent waves. It’s rocking and swamping their boat. But the disciples aren’t afraid at all. They don’t care too much whether the boat is being swamped, their feet getting wet with water, their bodies being moved by the waves. With their great faith, they stay still, not anxious, not scared. With their great faith, they don’t even wake up Jesus who is sound asleep. Eventually, the storm simply passes by. Jesus has no idea about the storm or waves. He simply is very satisfied with one sweet nap, finally getting some rest from the crowd. It’s just that his clothes are wet here and there. The end of the story. 

I seriously doubt and wonder if this is what Jesus expected from the disciples. First of all, there’s no fun in this imagined scenario that we created. There’s no teaching lesson for the disciples. It’s almost like they have not much to learn from Jesus. They already know who he is and how they ought to behave. If this is what Jesus intended his disciples and all his followers to do, we wouldn’t even have this story in the gospels. We should instead be grateful to the disciples that they were terrified by the storm and woke up Jesus from his sleep. They are actually becoming a model for us not to be afraid to show our own fear and lack of faith. 

The Bible is not a rulebook. We don’t look for answers in this collection of ancient texts. We learn to ask better questions to wrestle with the difficulties of our difficult reality. In so doing, the Bible opens our hearts to speak, imagine and explore. It becomes the voice of our hearts. We learn how to ask God, complain to God, how to grieve, how to lament. We learn how to pray to God, how to love God and our neighbor, how to be forgiven and forgive, how to see ourselves and others in light of God’s love shown in Jesus. We don’t use it to justify our behaviors, which we end up abusing it. 

So, today’s gospel lesson encourages us to show before God our lack of faith, express our fear and anxiety, and share our experience of God’s absence in our suffering. Say what the disciples say. Ask what they ask! Wake him up! Jesus, do you not care that we’re perishing? Find and discover yourself saying the same as the disciples in the boat. And where you experience what the disciples experienced in the gospel, where you ask what the disciples asked, you face fear, anxiety, and most importantly the absence of God’s presence in that very moment of darkness. This moment you might want to call the dark night of the soul. 

In this dark night of your soul, God seems to be gone. God’s presence is nowhere to be found. It’s like Jesus in deep sleep while the boat is being shaken and swamped. God doesn’t seem to care so much about what I’m going through. We might just give up on God. But faith, which is the gift of God, enables us to ask that very question of the disciples, “Jesus, do you not care that we’re perishing?” Do you not care that I’m suffering? Do you not care that I feel so alone, that I don’t feel your hands reaching out to me? This question of God’s presence in suffering leads us once again to the very existential question. Why am I here suffering? Why do I do what I do? Who am I? 

When we start asking this question like the disciples, we are shaken and break open. The disciples in their terror of the great storm asked this question, ‘Do you not care that we’re perishing?’ in order to wake up Jesus from his sleep. But what really happened was their spiritual awakening to see the very presence of Jesus. Their questioning of Jesus’ inattention to their desperate need of rescue from the storm is nothing but their confession that they can’t rescue themselves. This question needs to be asked not simply to wake up Jesus from his sleep but really wake up and shake up our hearts not to lose sight of Jesus’ presence in the storm of suffering in our lives. Our question to wake up Jesus wakes up ourselves from sloth, acedia, apathy, ignorance, and indifference. 

Without seriously asking this question, we can’t see Jesus who is present everywhere, especially in the lives of suffering people. As the Body of Christ, it is our Christian duty to ask this question on behalf of those who are suffering, those whose voices are unheard. We first ask ourselves, “Do we not care that these people are perishing?” We wake up our hearts, our souls, and our spirits from our own indifference and apathy. We then ask the world around us, “Do you not care that these people are perishing?” The church’s role in this world is rather simple. Let’s amplify and intensify this question. Do we not care that there are some who are perishing because of the evil power in this world? Do you not care that innocent children are cut off and separated from their parents, damaging their most precious childhood? As Christians, we have to ask difficult and uncomfortable questions. We must feel uneasy and far from peaceful about how the world takes its own course. 

Jesus isn’t asleep from our suffering. Jesus isn’t far apart. Jesus never turns his eyes away from the suffering of his neighbors, his people. Because he doesn’t, we don’t. We want to see Jesus who says, “Peace! Be Still” as he rebukes the evil power and ceases it. Today Jesus asks all of us, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? Ask me to wake up. Ask me if I care that you’re perishing?” “Oh yes, I do. I do,” says Jesus. “That’s why I died on the cross. That’s why I was raised from the dead.” With this truth that Jesus shows in his death and resurrection, my friends, we are going out to the world to tell that we care about those who are perishing in our eyes. We will rebuke the evil power, We will call it out. We will conquer fear. And we will do everything in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.