03-01-09 Sermon Mark 4:35-41 Fill My Cup, Lord ... with Peace

Finally I decided to blow out the candles and try to get some sleep. The storm was still fierce and it was hot upstairs without any air conditioning so I decided to stretch out on the coach in our family room. As I laid there in total darkness and utter silence, not only could I hear the pounding of the rain outside the house, but I could literally hear the water pouring into my basement. There have been few times in my life when I have felt as alone and as helpless as I did that night.

It had been a long day. The crowds had gathered to see Jesus, to ask for his help and listen to his teaching. It had been a long day and they were tired -all of them, the disciples and Jesus. So Jesus said to the disciples, "Let us go across to the other side." Perhaps it was the disciples -most of them experienced fisherman- who told Jesus to take a nap, as the journey across the lake. Or perhaps he was just so exhausted that he couldn't keep his eyes open. But however it happened, Mark tells us Jesus was asleep when a great storm arose and the disciples panicked.

As I thought about this I was puzzled. These were fisherman. They spent their life on this lake and as Richard Hoefler says in a commentary on this passage[1]:

The Sea of Galilee is as dangerous as it is beautiful. Located 680 feet below sea level, it has a fertile climate that is almost tropical. The hills surrounding the lake are carved deep with ravines and gorges which act like gigantic funnels drawing the cold winds toward the sea. In a matter of seconds, the calm surface of the water can become a raging, churning cauldron

So doesn't it stand to reason that these fishermen would have encountered such storms before? And doesn't it stand to reason that they should have known what to do? As I shared this question with Tom, he said, "Yes, but Nancy, I think that most of their fishing was done by nets so the boats did not venture all that far away from shore. In this story they were crossing to the other side, which meant they were out in the middle of the lake."

As I thought about his words, I realized that the problem was that these fishermen were in uncharted territory; they were more than likely in a place they had never been before, facing a storm greater than anything they had ever encountered; they felt helpless and they were terrified and Jesus -well he was asleep through it all. So they woke him up with the cry "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

We've been with those disciples haven't we? We're hit with storms of illness, unemployment, relationship breakdown, or death. In the midst of those storms when our emotions are raging and our minds are running wild and we feel as if we are about to be swamped by the next wave we see coming we cry out "How on earth will I get through this day, this week, or even this hour? How can I possibly survive this pain? How can I meet this deadline or overcome this challenge? How will I ever find the strength to face tomorrow?" We feel helpless, empty, alone and we sometimes wonder if God even cares that we are perishing. The disciples knew Jesus was in the boat with them, but he wasn't doing anything to help. Sometimes we don't even remember that Jesus is in the boat.

In a sermon on this passage Anne Le Bas, a priest in the Church of England[2], says this:

I wondered what Jesus actually meant by those words "Peace, be still" which he addressed to the storm. And when I looked up the Greek, I discovered that he didn't actually say "Peace, be still" at all. The Greek is "Siopa, pefimoso." .... [Siopa] means "shh -- be quiet." And pefimoso comes from the word for "muzzle" -- it means to "shut the mouth." So what Jesus actually says to the storm is "Shh -- put a sock in it." He is literally telling it to be quiet -- to stop shouting. It isn't the storm that is the main problem. It is what the storm is saying to the disciples -- the message it is giving them -- and what they are understanding through it.

Jesus quiets the voice of the storm -the voice of fear, the voice of inadequacy, or guilt or abandonment- so that the disciples can hear his voice, reminding them of what has been true all along: they are not alone; they have been and will forever be held in the loving hand of God -a God who sometimes calms the storms and sometimes gives us strength to grow through the storms.

At the end of the long night of rain, still without electricity, more than a foot of water in my basement, my head began to clear and I stared to make phone calls. Maybe I could find a generator somewhere. Although there were none to be rented or purchased anywhere in the Chicagoland area, I soon discovered that Allen and Susan, still had power and a working generator they would be willing to share with me. About as quickly as it was possible for him to get from Plainfield to Mokena, Allen arrived with the generator, he fired it up and my sump pump began to do what it was made to do and the water gradually drained. In the meantime, Tom was in his car driving home from Omaha to help me with the clean-up that follows every storm.

It seems like we are in the midst of many great storms right now -storms of fear, storms of uncertainty, storms of change, storms of doubt. Sometimes the crashing of the waves and the pounding of the rain is so loud that we forget that Christ is in the boat and we think we have to do it all on our own. But Jesus says to the storm "Shhh -be still." And then he reminds us "I am with you!" Sometimes the voice of the storm seems to shout "Jesus is asleep! God doesn't care! You must be a real loser! What did you do to deserve this?" But then Christ speaks again to quiet the voice of the storm, "Shhh -be still" so that we can hear the voice of God reminding us of what has been true all along: we are not alone! God -who is able to accomplish in us far more than we can ever hope for or imagine- God is always with us, bringing us all the strength and the power and the courage and the wisdom and the love we need to walk through the storm into a bright and beautiful new day.

Lift your cup or your cupped hands, listen for the whispers of the Spirit and allow God to fill your cup with peace as we sing:

Fill my cup, Lord

I life it up, Lord

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul

Bread of heaven feed me till I want no more.

Fill my cup, fill it up, and make me whole!