The Other Boats

Mark 4.35-41

 

 “And leaving the crowd behind, they took Jesus with them in the boat, just as he was.  Other boats were with him.”

My family started attending Midland Heights Methodist Church in Fort Smith when I was 5 years old.  That was … umm … a few years ago.  In all that time, in all the sermons I’ve heard, in all the Bible studies and Sunday School classes I’ve been in, in all the classes I’ve taken as I studied to become a pastor, I don’t think I’ve ever once heard anyone discuss what happened to those other boats.

It’s one of those sentences that you just kind of skim over as you’re reading your Bible.  It gets overlooked in the sound and fury of the terrific storm at sea.  Matthew and Luke, in their tellings of this story, have the good sense to not even mention these other boats.  In my Bible Commentaries in my office, only one bothers to address the subject.  In The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, Dr. Rheme Perkins says that while “readers are told that other boats had set out across the lake as well … it plays no role in the story that follows.”

“It plays no role in the story that follows.”  That’s it!  That’s all Dr. Perkins has to say on the subject, and that is a veritable sea of information compared to other commentators.  Honestly, if you read nothing but the other commentaries I looked at, you’d never even know that those other boats existed.  But they did exist, and Mark chose to mention them.  I have an idea about those other boats, but before I get to that I do want to talk a little bit this morning about the main boat, Jesus’ boat.

Anyone who has seen the movie “The Perfect Storm,” or who has watched “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel, knows that the sea can be a treacherous place.  If you’ve ever been through a storm at sea, or even been in a small fishing boat on a big lake during a storm, you have an idea of what was happening there on the Sea of Galilee.  Given the fact that at least four of the disciples were professional fishermen and must have experienced storms at sea before, their terror indicates that this was a particularly violent incident.

The disciples panicked, and, like most of us do, they expected everyone around them to panic, as well – including Jesus.  Since Jesus wasn’t panicked – in fact, he was sound asleep – the disciples’ fear led to anger, because they felt like Jesus didn’t care.  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Now seriously, how can Jesus not care?  He’s in the boat with them!  The disciples, in their panicked state, aren’t thinking clearly.  And instead of trying to be like Jesus, they expect Jesus to be like them.

But, as he so often does, Jesus confounds their expectations.  Once the disciples have awakened Jesus, he doesn’t react to their panic.  Instead, he speaks directly to the raging elements, to the wind and to the sea.  “Peace!  Be still!”  Jesus cures the disease, not just the symptoms.  And then, to add to the amazement of the disciples, Jesus answers their question, “Do you not care?” with another question:  “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

There’s a common misconception, held even by many Christians, that being a disciple of Jesus Christ will keep us from encountering life’s storms of doubt and conflict.  Most of us try to avoid conflict like the plague.  We tend to view conflict as unholy – as the Devil’s chaos intruding on our sacred calm.  Throughout his Gospel, however, Mark tells us that this is simply how life is:  conflicted and chaotic.

The presence of Christ doesn’t mean an end to all chaos and conflict in our lives.  It does mean, however, that we have an anchor to help us hold fast.  It means that in the midst of life’s storms, we have someone who will help us remain calm.  Because that’s really what Jesus did.  Jesus didn’t just calm the storm, Jesus calmed the disciples.  Jesus calmed the storm so that the disciples – and you and I, today – can know that we don’t have to be afraid in the midst of life’s storms.  We can be confident, because we know that Jesus is in control.

Jesus doesn’t promise that storms won’t come up.  Loved ones will die, jobs will be lost, families will fall apart.  Depression will strike, stress will nearly paralyze us.  We will be tossed about like a ship in a storm.  Our lives will be filled with fear and uncertainty.

We will cry out, “Jesus, do you not care?”

And Jesus will answer, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?”

We can attend worship every week and say that we believe in Jesus as the Son of God, but our words mean nothing if Jesus doesn’t really represent God for us.  Our hymns and our prayers mean nothing if deep down we suspect that God doesn’t really care what happens to us.

It’s a question of trust, really.  Do we trust Jesus?  Do we really believe that God is in control, even when we can’t perceive God’s presence?  Even when things are going bad, when the storms of life are raging?  We claim to know that Jesus is Lord of all, that not even the storm of death is beyond the power of Jesus.  But do we really believe?  Why do we, so often, seek everyone’s help but God’s when the storms of life are overwhelming us?

Because we lack faith.  Or, maybe, it’s not so much a lack of faith as a lack of practice at using our faith.  We are conditioned, from the time we are little children, to be self-sufficient.  Stand on your own two feet.  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.  Learn to take care of yourself.  Look out for number one.

We are so conditioned to take control of our own lives that we find it difficult to put our lives in God’s hands.  And so, when the storms of life hit, we flounder around, trying to keep our boat from capsizing, and it never occurs to us to wake up the “Master of ocean and earth and skies,” as the old hymn says.  We try to do it all on our own, and when we make a mess of things, we lash out:  “God, do you not care?”  And God answers back, “Have you still no faith?”

We have to be willing to trust in God.  We have to be willing to let God have control of our lives.  Mind you, the storms of life will still toss us around, but, like Jesus asleep in the boat, we can remain calm on the inside.  Because when we follow the example of Jesus, and remain calm instead of panicking, the storms will do a lot less damage.

Now, what about those people on those other boats?  Mark doesn’t say anything more about them, the Bible scholars I’ve read tend to dismiss them out of hand, but I’m curious about them.  What did they see?  What did they experience, that day on the Sea of Galilee?  They, too, were caught up in that terrific storm.  And they, too, had to be astounded at the sudden calming of the wind and the waves.

The difference between them and the disciples is that the people in the other boats didn’t know what had happened.  They didn’t know why the wind suddenly stopped howling, why the waves suddenly stopped pounding their boats.  I can imagine, when they reached the shore, that the main topic of conversation was the storm, and the sudden, mysterious, calming of the sea.

And I can imagine the disciples telling the people from the other boats how Jesus had spoken to the wind and the waves.  Remember, these people had gotten into those other boats in order to follow Jesus.  They weren’t the chosen 12, but they, too, were disciples, followers of Jesus.  How would they have reacted?  Would they have believed what the disciples were telling them?  How do we react, today, when we hear stories of miracles?

I guess the reason I’m so curious about the people in those other boats is because I see myself as one of them.  In fact, I see the majority of Christians today as having more in common with the people in the other boats than with the disciples in Jesus’ boat.  I’ve never had a really dramatic miracle happen to me.  The miracles in my life have been the miracles of everyday life:  the love of my parents, the birth of my child, the surgery that cured Holly of a dread disease, my marriage to Melissa.

I don’t discount that all of those events are miracles, but they aren’t the kind of miracles that stand out from the crowd.  I’ve never experienced an unexplainable healing.  Holly didn’t just wake up cured one morning; she had to have surgery.  Most people love their children; lots of people have terrific marriages.  I’ve never fed a large number of people with a loaf of bread and a basket from Long John Silver’s.  I’ve never seen a storm come to an abrupt end just as I was praying about it.

I’m one of the people in the other boats.  I’ve listened to other people talk about the miracles God has performed.  Sometimes I’ve believed them; honestly, sometimes I’ve decided that the person telling me about the miracle is a bit coo-coo.

It took faith for the disciples who were in the boat with Jesus to believe that Jesus calmed that storm.  Imagine how much faith you and I have to have.  We weren’t there.  We didn’t see it happen.  If we’re going to accept this story as being true, we have to do so on faith, and faith alone.

It’s not easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, especially in this day and age.  We have to encourage one another, we have to help one another along the way.  Our communal faith, as brothers and sisters in Christ, helps bolster our individual faith.  Seeing and hearing about the faith of others helps us to hold fast to our own faith.

In your bulletin you see a very brief summary of the events which led to the writing of the hymn, “It Is Well With My Soul.”  Horatio Spafford was a successful attorney in Chicago.  He was the father of five children, an active member of the Presbyterian Church, and a friend and supporter of the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody.

But the storms of life struck the Spafford family without warning.  First, there was the sudden death of the Spaffords’ only son.  Then, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 wiped out the family’s real estate investments.  In 1873 Dwight L. Moody went to Great Britain on an evangelistic campaign, and Horatio Spafford decided to take his family to Europe to assist Moody, and also to lift their spirits.

However, Spafford himself was detained by urgent business.  He sent his wife, Anna, and their four daughters on to Great Britain, as scheduled, with plans to join them later.  As you can see in your bulletin, the ship carrying Mrs. Spafford and the girls collided with another ship, and sank in 12 minutes.  226 people lost their lives, including all four of the Spafford daughters.  Mrs. Spafford was among the few who were saved.

Hour after hour Horatio Spafford stood on the deck of the ship carrying him to rejoin his sorrowing wife in Cardiff, Wales.  When the ship passed the approximate place where his precious daughters had drowned, Spafford received a sustaining comfort from God, a comfort that allowed him to write:

“When sorrows like sea billows roll … though trials should come … Christ has regarded my helpless estate … it is well, it is well with my soul.”

What a picture of hope!  What a picture of faith!

The thing to remember is this:  No matter how bad the storms of life become, Jesus cares.  If we put our faith in Jesus, we know that in the long run the storms will be calmed, and all will be well with our souls.

Bringing People to Jesus

Mark 2.1-12

 

“Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man.”

Mark packs an awful lot of stuff into these twelve verses.  Besides the obvious healing miracle, this passage addresses the nature and origin of Jesus’ authority, the question of what constitutes blasphemy, the “Son of Man” title by which Jesus refers to himself, and the connection between sin and sickness.

But there’s another issue here, one that I think we tend to overlook.  This issue doesn’t jump out and grab us like some of the others do, but its an issue that I think needs to be addressed more and more in the church of the 21^st century.  The issue is teamwork.

I think maybe the neatest part of this particular passage of scripture is the teamwork involved in bringing this paralyzed man to Jesus.  And for us, as the Church, the body of Christ, isn’t that what we’re called to do?  Bring people to Jesus?

We’ve talked before about healing.  Jesus healed people because of Jesus’ compassion, but healing was not – is not – what Jesus is all about.  Jesus didn’t come to heal us:  Jesus came to save us.  Salvation is the ultimate healing.  Salvation is our goal.

A couple of months ago we talked about Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law.  This took place in Capernaum.  After this healing, the crowd became unbearable, so Jesus went out to a quiet place in order to pray and regain his focus on his mission.  Jesus had compassion for all the people who wanted to be healed.  But Jesus knew that he couldn’t spend all his time healing people.  So when the disciples came and found Jesus, Jesus to them that it was time to move on.

“Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.”

Healing is not Jesus’ mission.  Proclaiming the message is.  Because proclaiming the message leads to salvation, and salvation, ultimately, cures all of our ills.  Healing has its place in Jesus’ ministry, but Jesus is careful not to let his compassion for the crowd overcome his sense of mission.  Jesus knows that in the long run it is the message, not the miracles, that the crowd needs.

This is a valuable lesson for us as Christians today.  We need to keep our focus on our mission, and our mission is to bring people to Jesus.  There are lots of others things we can do, things we need to do, things we are called to do.  We need to feed the hungry; we need to clothe the naked; we need to shelter the homeless, care for the sick, welcome the stranger, visit those who are in prison.

We need to do all these things.  All of these things have a place in our ministry.  But these things cannot be the ultimate goal of our ministry.  If they are, then we’re not the body of Christ, we’re the Red Cross, or the Peace Corps.  Now, the Red Cross and the Peace Corps do great works, but their goal is not the same as ours.

As the church there are other things we ought to do.  We need to to have our Family Feasts once a month.  Potluck dinners provide a time of fellowship, a time when all of us can get together and just be friends and enjoy each other’s company.  Sharing a meal with friends is something that Jesus did quite often.

We need to send prayer cards, and give out prayer shawls, to those who are in need.  By doing so we show people the love of God, through our actions.  We need to do all these things, and more.  They all have a place in our ministry.  But none of these things, in and of itself, accomplishes our mission.

“Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them.”

We don’t know how many people were involved in bringing this man to Jesus.  We know that four of them did the actual carrying, but Mark implies that there were more.  I’d like to think that there were about the same number of people involved in this mission as there are in our church.

As we picture this scene, from some 2,000 years ago, we can see that each of the people involved in this mission had an important task.  This man was paralyzed – we don’t know how badly, maybe it was just his legs, maybe he was completely paralyzed.  If he was completely paralyzed, then someone had to feed him.  Probably, in this group of about the same number as we have here this morning, probably more than one person was involved in making sure this man was fed.

There were others who had to clothe this man.  They had to keep him warm, and make sure his clothing was laundered regularly.  Perhaps there were others who provided water from a well, and still others who sat around and visited with this man, keeping his spirits up; and still others doing other tasks.

Whatever their specific function was, each of these people had a part to play in caring for this man.  And in order to do their best, each of them had to care about his or her task.  They had to have a passion for their ministry.

That is something we really need to learn today.  As Christians, we all need to find our passion.  You need to find your passion.  You need to discover the ministry that you are passionate about, and then you need to get involved in that ministry.  You all need to have a passion for something.  Maybe it’s feeding the hungry, maybe it’s visiting people in prison, maybe it’s teaching Sunday School.

My passion is preaching and worship.  That is what I love to do, that is what fulfills me.  It took me more than 20 years of arguing with myself, struggling against the Holy Spirit, before I discovered my passion, but I found it.

Martha Scharbor’s passion is music.  Roger Pessa builds cross necklaces.  Bette Williams works with CASA.  Each and every one of you has a passion.  Some of you may know what it is, others may have a pretty good idea, and some of you may not have a clue – yet.  But you all have a passion for some kind of ministry.

Maybe your passion is reading.  Perhaps you could be involved in a ministry of reading to people whose eyesight is failing them.  Maybe your passion is, quite simply, compassion.  You could be involved in a ministry for the bereaved, those who have lost loved ones and are having a difficult time coping.

Whatever your passion is, I urge you to find it.  Find out what it is that you’re really good at, and that also fulfills you.  Find your passion.  And once you’ve found it, work at it.  Let your passion become your life.  Serve God through your passion.

But also remember this:  the body of Christ is the Church, not a bunch of individual Christians running around doing their own thing, but a community of believers working together toward a common goal, a goal of bringing people to Jesus.

To go back to our scripture lesson:  if all of those people taking care of this parzlyzed man had simply concentrated on doing their own ministry, and not coordinated with each other, this man would never have made it to Jesus.

Oh, he would have been well taken care of.  He had people feeding him and clothing him and telling him jokes and all that.  But it wasn’t until all of his caregivers got together, worked together toward a common goal, that this man was brough to Jesus.

And that is the main lesson I think we need to learn today.  It’s great that we have Sunday School and Bible studies and choir and Family Feasts.  But our mission, our calling, is not to take care of each other.  And our ultimate mission is not to take care of the physical and emotional needs of those people out there, beyond the walls of the church.

Our mission is to bring those people out there to Jesus.  Because ultimately, Jesus is what those people need.  Not food or shelter or companionship.  Jesus is what they need.  Salvation is the ultimate cure.  So, to really and truly take care of people, we need to bring them to Jesus.  And we can only do that if we all pull together.

It’s important for you to find your passion.  It’s important for you to do ministry that fulfills you.  But the main thing, the most important thing, is to use your passion, your ministry, in harmony with the ministry of other members of the body of Christ.  We all need to work together, as a team, in order to bring people to Jesus.

Your passion will take you where you need to go.  Use your passion for the glory of God.  But be sure to tie your passion to the passion of other believers.  When you do that, you’ll be well on your way to bringing people to Jesus.

When we all work together, doing God’s will, then we truly are the body of Christ.  When we all work together, that’s when people will look at us and glorify God; that’s when people will say, “We have never seen anything like this!”

We need to all work together to accomplish our mission.  We all need to bring people to Jesus.