Why Are You Afraid? (Fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

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One of the important skills in active listening is paying close attention to the question that you’re being asked, because sometimes a question is slightly different than what you might be expecting.  And, it’s often different from the question you might be prepared to answer!

And this is important when we listen to some of the questions Jesus asks his disciples.  For example, in today’s Gospel reading, right after Jesus calms the storm, he asks his disciples, “WHY are you afraid?”  Notice that he DIDN’T ask them, “WHAT are you afraid of?”  But sometimes, that’s the way I’ve heard the question. It sounds like Jesus is mocking the disciples for being afraid of very real things that could kill them.

But that actually isn’t the question that Jesus asked.  He didn’t ask “what are you afraid of.”  He knew darn well what they were afraid of.  The disciples were rightly afraid of:

• Storms on the Sea of Galilee – it can be smooth as glass or full of white caps (I’ve seen both when I’ve been there); and if you’re not concerned about the storm, it’s because you’re a tourist or don’t know any better…!  But the disciples did this for a living, and they knew the very real and present danger of those storms…

• The unknown – the problem on the Sea of Galilee is that windstorms can arise suddenly and unexpectedly, because the winds are channeled through valleys on the north end of the Sea … (and they’re not gentle breezes, they’re “whirlwinds”); the thing is, you never really know when to expect them; and like any normal person, the disciples were rightly afraid of what they couldn’t see coming…

• The stuff they couldn’t control – they all had to be good sailors as well as fishermen, but they also knew their limits; and like any normal person, when you reach the limits of what you know you can fix and manage, it can correctly frighten you …

Jesus knows WHAT they’re afraid of.  So the question he asks is, “WHY”.  Why are you afraid?  In some ways, it can sound like the same question, but it’s really not. 

What Jesus is really asking is why, when the disciples face legitimately scary things, they don’t think that Jesus cares?  After all, that’s the question they ask Jesus when they wake him up: “don’t you CARE that we’re dying?!”

Even though Jesus was right there in the boat with them, when they faced a legitimately lethal danger, they felt alone and unloved by God.  In the midst of the storm, maybe they felt they were alone and had to fend for themselves because they imagined:

• Jesus didn’t know what was going on – is God asleep?  Does he even realize the predicament we’re in?  They felt ignored or forgotten, and maybe that’s why they were afraid…

• Jesus didn’t care what was happening – “How can you be sleeping through this?!” they cry!  Don’t you care what happens?  They felt unloved, and maybe that’s why they were afraid…

• Jesus wasn’t doing anything – they don’t specifically ask Jesus to stop the storm, because they’re pretty sure Jesus can’t do anything more than help them bail out the boat.  But at least they want to feel like Jesus is doing something, but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything, and maybe that’s why they were afraid…

So the question Jesus asked the disciples after he calmed the storm was a question he asked them to consider the next time they found themselves in a legitimately scary situation.  He didn’t tell them that there would be no more storms.  He didn’t tell them they shouldn’t be wary of things that could kill them.  He didn’t even promise them that no storm ever would kill them.

Instead, he asked them to consider why they were so afraid in the midst of the storm?  Did they have the courage of faith to meet the dangers head on in spite of their fears?  That’s the question that Jesus asked his first disciples, and it’s a question Jesus asks us as well.

And the “faith” that Jesus was talking about wasn’t the faith that Jesus would always make the storm go away.  Instead, in the midst of any storm in our lives – even the storms that might actually kill us – faith is about the:

• Confidence that God knows what’s happening, even when we don’t fill God in on all the details… (because we have to tell everybody else everything, sometimes we think we have to wake God up and tell him what’s going on, or he won’t know; we even re-inforce this sometimes in prayer…; faith is the confidence that God actually knows what’s happening to us and around us even before we do, and even more than we do…)

• Trust that God cares about us, even when it feels like God’s asleep and should be as agitated about the situation we’re in as we are…sometimes, we feel that people aren’t taking us seriously if they don’t get as wrapped around the axel as we do about something bad that’s going on; and if God doesn’t seem to, we think doesn’t God take us and our problems seriously…; faith is the conviction that God cares about us and loves us even if he doesn’t seem to get as caught up in the whirlwind of our storms as we do…

• Courage to act in the midst of our fears, expecting God to act, even if we don’t know what that action will look like…at this point in the story, the disciples couldn’t really have been expected to know that Jesus could stop a storm.  Their problem was that they didn’t expect anything from God; they figured they were on their own.  Faith is often the courage to act expecting God to do something with us, in us or through us, even when we don’t know what that action will look like …

In the end, Jesus doesn’t promise us that there won’t be storms in our lives, either.  He doesn’t promise us that he’ll quickly quiet every storm in our lives.  And he doesn’t even tell us that no storm will ever seriously hurt us or kill us.

But Jesus does promise us we can face the storms with the confidence of faith that God is going to be with us through whatever storm we face.  Jesus promises us that we can face the storms with the assurance that God’s love and care will always be stronger than the storm.  And Jesus encourages us to face the storms with the courage to act in the midst of the storm, knowing that ultimately, God will bring us to new life through every storm, even the storms that actually do hurt and kill us.

Amen.