Where is your faith?

Preached at St John the Divine on 24 February 2019

Stories

I’m going to start by telling you two stories from my past, then I will reflect on them based on the passage in Luke. I have horrible boat journey stories, but they didn’t come to mind when I was preparing, so I’ll stick with the ones that came to mind during prayer.

Mum & Dad

My first story comes from 1984. My mother is in Hospital, her second round of chemotherapy has just been confirmed to have failed to fix her leukaemia, there are no more treatment options available. Then we hear that my father has had a heart attack, while visiting my mother. I suppose if its going to happen then a hospital ward is the best place to be when it does. It is his third, or fourth heart attack, few survive their first, but we are told he is in intensive care. When we visit he looks as though he is dead, but he is just conscious enough to say a few words. Recovery is by no means guaranteed. I was devastated, and remember praying “Please Lord, not both at the same time.” It was all I could manage.

I wrote an article for the Pilgrim about the experience sometime later.

God answered that prayer, my father recovered and lived about another 10 years.

Sought Out

My second story does not involve me directly and comes from an even earlier time. Where I worked then the Data Processing programming teams were split into two. I worked for the sales team, the other was the manufacturing team. Each team had it’s own manager. The work was very different and although we were in the same office there was very little interaction. One lunchtime I was on my own in the canteen- an unusual event in itself, when the manager of the manufacturing team asked if he could join me. He talked about various things, mostly his recent holiday. He had been on some sort of trek, I don’t remember the details, and had reached the top of a mountain. The weather had changed suddenly, from being a pleasant day it became cold, foggy and stormy all at the same time. They could no longer see their path, where they had come from, or where they intended to go. They were cold and very wet. They felt stranded and were fearful that they would not make it safely off the mountain. Then they prayed. I’m not sure if they knew who exactly they were praying to or cared at that point. The weather eased enough for them to make some progress and eventually they made it down the mountain and no lasting harm had occurred. As the one and only Christian in the office, I’m guessing that I had been sought out and that this was a report of God’s good work and possible some sort of thanks.

It was an interesting conversation to have when you have been a Christian for only a couple of years.

The lake

Those are my two stories, try to keep them in mind while I do a little scene setting for the bible passage.

The sea of Galilee is 13 miles long, 8 miles wide and 33 miles in circumference, at its deepest it is 143 feet deep. It’s surface is between 705 and 686 feet below sea level, and is the lowest freshwater lake on earth. It is surrounded by hills, which leads to some unpredictable weather at times and squalls are not uncommon.

Peter – not prepared

Peter, though, had previously made his living as a fisherman on this lake so he should have been aware of the weather and mostly been able to see it coming. It is therefore one of the common threads that runs through all the stories. That none of us were prepared for what happened, nor was there a way that we could have been prepared. Life is like that. Things happen that you cannot prepare for or have any inkling that they were about to happen.

Two ways

It is Jesus though that plays the central role in the story, and we can understand the story in two ways depending on what we think was happening with Jesus.

Hard Day

In the first approach Jesus has had a hard day, and perhaps a bad night the night before. He gets in the boat, and knows that the disciples will do all the sailing, so he relaxes and the gentle rocking of the boat sends him to sleep. Being tired, and absolutely confident in His father in heaven nothing needs to disturb his sleep – he knows they will get to the other side whatever happens.

Be Still (1)

So when the disciples wake him up and he sees what’s happening he calms the storm for their sake – to bring them comfort, and to show a little more of his power.

What were the disciples expecting?

Just as an aside here for a minute, let’s ask the question “What were the disciples expecting him to do?” In the Matthew version of this story they are recorded as saying “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”

That would imply that somewhere deep down they expected Jesus to calm the storm.

Just one of those unpredictable things

If we assume that the storm was just one of those unpredictable things that happens, and that God can overcome them when we ask him, then we will think like I did as a young Christian, when God took the horror of losing both me parents at the same time away from me. It will lead to questions though – why doesn’t God answer prayer for everyone like this? Why didn’t the storm that the programming manager experienced clear up completely so they could get down the mountain easily?

Another way

There is another way of looking at it though. Jesus plays an even more central role in this view than He did in the last one.

In the second approach, it doesn’t matter so much whether Jesus has had a hard day or not. He gets in the boat in the same way. He knows that the disciples will do all the sailing, so he sits in the boat and relaxes.

Sleep

The gentle rocking of the boat sends him to sleep just as he intended it to. This is the only record in the Bible that Jesus ever slept, although, being a man, He must have done so every night. Here, He sleeps so that the disciples in the boat can experience the storm without His immediate presence.

The storm arrives exactly on schedule, it is a sudden violent squall just as He wanted. The boat will be overwhelmed unless the storm abates.

Be Still (2)

So when the disciples wake him up he already knows what’s happening. He calms the storm for their sake – to bring them comfort, but more importantly to teach them an important lesson about relying on God in all circumstances. Now the question “Where is your faith?” becomes a question designed to start a conversation to see how much the disciples are really learning.

God’s Storm

If we attribute the storm to God specifically, rather than saying that the evil one was permitted to send it, or that it is just one of those things we get a different view of what God is doing in our lives – and we get a different view of God. We are acknowledging His sovereignty.

In this view God has much closer control, He is in charge of the storms that arrive in our lives and their length and intensity.

We know he can do this because we have already seen him calm the storm. If He can do that with a few words, he can just as easily cause one.

God in control

With God in control I can see the crisis of both my parents apparently about to die and then my father surviving as a way of building my faith, not as having it put under threat.

With the hikers on the mountain, God is sending the storm to push at least one of them to go and talk to at least one professing Christian.

God doesn’t have to wait for a scheme of the evil one which He allows, and then work to bring good from it, rather he sees the good that we need and creates the situations that will drive that good. The good here is not our comfort but our growth – the character building and faith building that is the purpose that He has for us in preparing us for Eternal Life.

All Things ...

This view also helps me to understand how “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Ro 8:28

Saying

There’s a saying popularised by John Lennon, but it’s original author is not known. “Everything will be alright in the end, if it isn’t alright, it isn’t the end”.

We have seen in the Revelation reading how the end will look, it’s a wonderful picture of heaven, and the whole book of Revelation shows us what the end is, and that it is indeed better than alright.

It is Good.

God is preparing us for that, but we may have to go through more difficult trials, that He will not rescue us from.

There are thousands of Christian martyrs that God used to bring others to faith, they will get their reward in heaven. Here are just two of them:

Ridley and Latimer

In October 1655, two of the great people in the history of Anglicanism, Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake together. As the fires were lit, Latimer cried out, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as I trust shall never be put out!”

Prayer

Father,

We may never face the fate of Latimer and Ridley, but help us to grow in faith and love that we are prepared to face any trial, knowing that you have already saved us and have a secure place for us in heaven.

Amen.

References

https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/when-you-are-scared-there-is-always-faith-david-elvery-sermon-on-fear-and-worry-98519?ref=SermonSerps
https://tbcpdx.org/LDC_sermon_notes/Sermons%20on%20Luke/LDC%20-%20Where%20is%20Your%20Faith%20Luke%208.22-25%20-%2010.17.1993_ocr.pdf
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-36-what-do-when-life-gets-stormy-luke-822-25