*Due to technical issues, we did not live stream today. This is our backup copy starting with the announcements forward.*

Today’s Service.

Psalm 133 & Mark 4:35-41
“Teacher. Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Do you not care? There’s the question.
How often have we witnessed such questions run through our heads in moments of despair, of pain and loneliness. Moments when we feel absolutely alone, buffeted by the apparent cruelty – or at the very least the indifference of this world. As we grieve the loss of a loved one who died all too soon.
Or we struggle with the news of a heart breaking diagnosis. Jesus, do you not care that we are perishing?
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus asks this question as he dies on the cross.
This morning we read that Jesus and his disciples have gotten on board a boat and are making their way to the other side of the Lake of Galilee. This follows Jesus performing exorcisms and teaching through parables. They encounter a sudden storm that threatens to swamp their boat. The followers are beside themselves and terrified at the thought of drowning. And through all of this, Jesus sleeps.
Their reaction: terror in the face of losing their boat in this storm seems quite natural. And in their anxiety, they ask the question, Does Jesus not care?
And after calming the storm Jesus responds do you not have faith yet?
This story, along with many others, is often used as a corrective for people who ask too many questions. Who express doubts in God’s ability or willingness to make things right. To calm the stormy seas of our lives.
But I think that is a reading that needs to be challenged. The implication that asking questions; of expressing doubt is a sign of a weak or absent faith is harmful, and I would argue, with assistance from some very important theologians, incorrect.
Arguing with God, wrestling with God, questioning God, is an age old tradition of the Jewish people.
Abraham argues or debates with God over the fate of Sodom. Jacob wrestles with God, and Mary when told she will bear a child, responds by asking, how can this be?
All of them are blessed by God and remembered for their faithfulness and dedication to God.
Do you not care?
We have been conditioned to view doubt as a weakness, and I cannot help but think this is tragic. It leads to our silence when we have questions, instead of sharing with a loving and supporting community that can guide us and share its questions and lead to a sense of greater understanding.
Let me introduce you to yet another German theologian of the 20th century. This one is a man named Paul Tillich. Tillich of course wrestled with the big issues of who is God, or how God relates to the world. He also spent some time reflecting on the nature of faith. Much of this is detailed in his 1968 book The Dynamics of Faith.
In that book, Tillich argues that to describe faith as belief or trust is not enough. He completely rejects the notion that faith is the absence of doubt. In this book he argues that faith is actually “the state of being ultimately concerned.”
“An act of faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped and turned to the infinite.”
Faith is an acknowledgement that there is something beyond our finite lives. There is an ultimate concern. We are part of something far larger than the little bit of the world we see and experience.
Essentially, we can find God in that ultimate concern. What is that ultimate concern? Some of us may describe it in different terms. Love? Justice? Mercy? Compassion? Life?
Tillich, in another of his books, On Being, describes God as the ground of being. God is infinite.
God has always been and always will be. We as part of creation are finite. We have a beginning,
a middle and an end. Our being has a time limit. And yet we yearn to connect with the infinite that is God. We yearn to connect with the grounding of our being. To acknowledge that there is the infinite is faith.
However, since faith takes place between a finite person and an infinite presence, there must be an element of doubt, Tillich continues. Therefore, faith is never without doubt. And furthermore, that means doubt is a confirmation of faith, because doubt cannot exist without faith.
Trust and belief, it would seem, are biproducts of faith.
Tillich goes on to argue that doubt confirms an ultimate concern because the presence of doubt means you take seriously the object of concern.
Asking questions, seriously considering the ramifications of belief and what you are told to believe requires courage and strength. It is an act of faith to investigate what is your ultimate concern.
“Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Does God not care what is happening to me?
Do you not yet have faith?
The Greek word that is translated as faith here is “pistis” It comes from the root word “peitho”, which translates as persuade or have confidence. So pistis can also be translated as confidence or trust.
Do you not trust me? Do you not have confidence in me?
Faith is a word with a great many meanings and implications. But to see faith as an absence of doubt leads to pain, fragility and silence and loneliness.
We can turn to Jesus; we can seek that infinite quality of love and justice; of meaning and life, and still express our doubts and our fears. We can and should ask questions. It means we take the question of ultimate concern seriously.
Ultimately, I am left with this image from the story of Jesus in a boat in the midst of the storm.
As the disciples frantically set to bailing and trying to keep their boat afloat and wake up Jesus challenging his seeming indifference, Jesus is right there in the boat with them. And Jesus calms the seas and calms their fears. He does not rebuke them or send them away when they reach shore.
He stays with them and teaches them and loves them. He encourages them, and I believe like Psalm 133 tells us, finds true beauty and strength in their togetherness.
Let us welcome our doubts. Let us voice our doubts and talk about our doubts so that we may find
or way to a greater understanding of God, our ultimate concern. The ground of our being.
And even as we may ask the question, may we come to the understanding that yes, Jesus does care.
Our lives may be finite, but Jesus is with us for all of our journey; comforting us and calming the storms and offering us peace and strength along the way. So that we may say, Thanks be to God.
Amen

 

 

Music provided with permission through licensing with CCLI License number
2701258 and One License # A-731789