One day Jesus got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they put out, and while they were sailing, he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22–25 NRSV)
We find a progression in this story. First, Jesus and the disciples are in the same boat. They are on the same mission together, a team. Second, Jesus was very calm, so calm that he actually fell asleep, taking himself out of the action and leaving the boat in the disciples’ hands. Next, a terrible windstorm arises. This furious squall of outside forces brings real peril: The waves are not imaginary. They fill the precarious boat with real water. The boat and its passengers are in genuine danger of sinking.
So what happens among these disciples, literally in over their heads in peril? They panic. “We’re perishing!” they shout to slumbering Jesus over the very real howl of the very deadly wind. “We’re gonna die out here on this lake!”
However, the disciples had missed something: Jesus was yet in control. Calmly and quickly, without panic or what appeared to be major effort, Jesus calmed the storm. Just like that, the raging waves ceased, and calm prevailed.
Jesus turned to the disciples and asked, “Where is your faith?” They were acting as if he wasn’t present and in control all along, as if the whole situation on that lake depended solely on their wits and their strength and their actions, not on their faith, not on their confidence in Jesus doing what he is so capable of doing.
And then the disciples exchanged one form of fear for another. Where at first they were afraid of death in the storm, now they were afraid of Jesus and amazed: “What kind of force is this that we have in Jesus in our little boat on the lake? This doesn’t conform to our human expectations and experience!”
Our Leaky Little Boat
It just so happens that we Presbyterians concerned with denominational issues are likewise in a leaky little boat with Jesus, just trying to get to the other side of a rather perilous lake. We want to arrive safely, with the boat intact and the faith secure. I suspect that, unlike us, Jesus is calm about this situation, too, with a calm only one who knows the final chapter of the story can have. Jesus, inexplicably to us, has put the boat in our hands, despite our inexperience and shortcomings.
Of course, the windstorm assails us, too. Various forms of real peril blast our little boat and threaten to swamp us, destroying our boat and keeping us from delivering it intact on the far side: grossly inadequate and even blasphemous theology tries to swamp us, the winds of a thoroughly secular society blow fiercely to take us off course, and even our own oarsmen squabble over which way to pull the oars. We feel that we, too, are sinking in the midst of a terrible tragedy.
So, do we panic like the disciples? Every man for himself! Save yourselves! All is lost! Abandon ship! I certainly pray that we don’t. That’s foolish. Jesus is yet in control. He can and will lead us, calmly and without panic. He remains perfectly capable of stilling the storm, and he will do so at the time and in the circumstances that he wills. The outcome of our journey is not in doubt, not with Jesus aboard. Jesus’s boat will get to the proper destination, having carried us and its cargo there safely. Do we want Jesus to turn and ask us, “Where is your faith?”
Jesus is yet present and active in our midst, yes, even in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Thus, we can relax our death grip on the oars and calm our pounding, anxious hearts. We can rely on him more and on ourselves less. It’s his boat. He’ll get us there.
I wonder, when we see what Jesus accomplishes through us—and sometimes in spite of us—in the PC(USA), will we, too, be afraid of Jesus, amazed? Or will we by then have sufficient experience with Jesus to know that this is how he operates, and we just hang on for the exciting ride?
Another Story
You know the story of David and Goliath. It’s the classic case of the heretofore invincible enemy versus a little boy with five smooth stones and God. They meet on the battlefield, and this is the exchange that takes place.
When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand” (1 Samuel 17:42–47).
David faced a fierce enemy with woefully inadequate weapons—except for one thing: the Lord was with him. And the battle is the Lord’s, who does not save by sword and spear but instead, gives the enemy into the hand of the faithful.
Indeed, the Lord saves the PC(USA) not with brilliant evangelical strategy and dazzling evangelical footwork, not with our sweating and worrying and caucusing and scheming. Why? For the battle is the Lord’s. Ultimate victory comes only because he gives the PC(USA) into the hands of those who remain faithful to him and to his will.
Lord God, give us perspective. Teach us that this is not an equal battle, not with your power on our side. Help us to row the boat and bail out the water appropriately during our stint on the crew—without panic, without discouragement, without impatience, without weariness. Remind us that you always win, and you always will. Cause us to row and bail when that’s your desire, and to sit back in awe and watch you work, when that’s your plan. Please keep us working together and headed in the direction you have charted. Lord, we pray that you would get us to the other side as faithful disciples accompanying you. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This meditation first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2004).
