Pentecost 5 B: Moving From Fear to Faith

Mark 4:35-41

Dear Partner in Preaching,

What moves us from fear to faith?

Hold that question for a moment; we’ll come back to it. For now, though, notice with me how similar what we perceive as very distinct responses actually are. Or at least their roots. Think about it. Both fear and faith make sense only in relation to something that is unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening. I mean, it’s just those kinds of things that make us afraid. And, when you stop to think about it, it’s just those same kinds of things that summon faith to face them. Indeed, in the face of things that are unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening, it almost seems like there is a clear choice in front of us – fear or faith.

At least, that’s the way Jesus seems to characterize things in today’s story about Jesus’ stilling of the storm, calling out the disciples’ fear and asking why they don’t have faith. Typically, I’m cautious about making such a hard distinction – either faith or fear – because I tend to believe that faith doesn’t so much banish fear as it does make it possible to cope with it. At the same time, it does feel like responding in fear or responding in faith are two very different responses to the same situation. And maybe that’s the issue, not whether you’re afraid, but how you respond.

Which brings me back to my original question: what moves us from fear to faith? Or at least, what enables us – even if we are afraid of something that is unknown, challenging, difficult, or threatening – to act in faith rather than be paralyzed by fear?

What struck me while reading this passage from Mark this time is that, interestingly, it’s not the miracle Jesus performs that makes the difference. Indeed, the disciples seems almost more afraid than they did previously. Perhaps it’s shifted from a terror of dying – “do you not care that we are perishing?!” – to more of a holy awe – “who is this, that even the wind and sea obey him?!” – but I’m not sure the actual level of fear has changed.

I think this is interesting because we tend to think that faith would be easier to find if we just had a miracle or two to summon and bolster it. But that’s not the case here. Indeed, it’s not the case through all of Mark’s story to this point and even beyond. The disciples have witnessed many, many miracles so far, yet they still don’t know what to expect from Jesus or even who he is. Miracles, it turns out, are ambiguous.

There is a poignant scene in the otherwise very violent film Pulp Fiction, when two hitmen, Jules and Vincent, are trying to come to terms with their narrow escape from death. Jules describes their experience as a miracle; Vincent disagrees. After defining a miracle as “God making the impossible possible,” Vincent argues that their escape from death earlier that day doesn’t qualify. Which prompts Jules to say, “Don’t you see, Vincent, that…doesn’t matter. You’re judging this thing the wrong way. It’s not about what. It could be God stopped the bullets, he changed Coke into Pepsi, he found my…car keys. You don’t judge [stuff] like this on merit. Whether or not what we experienced was an according-to-Hoyle miracle is insignificant. What is significant is I felt God’s touch. God got involved.”

“I felt God’s touch. God got involved.” Something similar, I think, is happening in today’s story. The shift in the disciples’ reaction – from “do you not care we are perishing” to “who is this” – signifies a shift from what, the miracle, to who, Jesus. Which leads me to conclude that perhaps the answer to our question – What moves us from fear to faith? – is relationship. It’s the move from what to who, from event to person, from ambiguous miracle to the actual person of Jesus.

And that, Dear Partner, is something we can preach on Sunday. Faith, in the end, isn’t believing certain cognitive propositions about when or how God created the earth, whether or not Jonah lived in the belly of a whale, the nature of Scripture’s authority, or even Mary’s marital status when Jesus was born. Rather, faith is about a relationship, a relationship with the God revealed by the ministry and words and actions of Jesus. And in Mark’s Gospel, the Jesus we meet is relentless in his pursuit of caring for all of God’s children. This very crossing of a rough sea is prompted by Jesus’ determination to get to the other side, to the land of the Gerasenes, a place few rabbis would venture. There he will meet and heal a man possessed by a demon and return him to the community from which he has been ostracized. And then he will come back to more familiar haunts to heal again, this time restoring life to a young girl and healing a woman who has been suffering for more than a decade.

These early chapters of Mark describe again and again Jesus’ determination to free people from all the things that keep them from the abundant life God promises: demon possession, disease, social exclusion, hunger, even death itself. Jesus reveals a God who cares passionately for the wellbeing of all God’s people. This is the One we invite people to trust. And trust, in the end, is the only thing that overcomes fear. Ultimately, you see, it’s the question isn’t what moves us from fear to faith, but who. And the answer is Jesus, the one who will not rest until we see and hear and experience and trust God’s passionate love for us and all the world.

There is a second “who” involved as well, for when we have a hard time trusting, a hard time believing that, in spite of our shortcomings God still loves us or, for that matter, in spite of those times of loneliness or struggle God is still present in our lives, at those times we gather as a community to read again these stories and remind each other of God’s promises.

And here, Dear Partner, is where things get especially interesting. Because when we do that – when we remind each other of God’s steadfast love – we are stepping into the biblical story to play one of the great roles assigned throughout Scripture. For at critical junctures across the biblical drama, apostles, angels, and prophets will be sent to the people of God to say the four powerful yet simple words that constitute the most frequently repeated command and promise in the Bible: Do not be afraid. And each time we say and hear these words we join all those saints before who, caught up in the Spirit of God, find the courage not just to survive, but to flourish; not just to live, but to live with abundance; and not just to get by, but knowing the favor we enjoy in and through Christ, to dare great things, expect great things, ask for great things, and share great things.

Your words this Sunday, Dear Partner, will help move us from fear to faith be re-introducing us to the God we know in Jesus, equipping us to remind each other of God’s promises and presence, and sending us out in faith to face our fears and confront the challenges of the day with equal measures of courage and compassion. Thank you for your work. Week in and week out, it matters more than you know.

Yours in Christ,
David