Carry On
One's theological perspective is more relevant to
everyday life than one might think. We humans are very good at believing in God
when all is well. I suppose we think that if all is well we have God to thank
for that and perhaps we do. Unfortunately the logic of this theology - and this
is one theological view, of course, that God blesses us with a life that is
going well (anything that we think about God is theology) this followed to its
logical conclusion would then suggest that if things are not going well then
that is God's doing as well and we turn away from God when things go badly
either out of anger at what God is doing to us or because we can no longer
believe that God can help us if God cannot keep this sort of thing from
happening to us in the first place. How many times have I as a pastor seen
people turn away from God when God is most needed and, ironically, most
present? Too many times. All because
of bad theology. It's ironic because it is when we think that God is
most absent (may even, we assume, have abandoned us altogether) that God is
most present and that is because we have mistakenly assumed that God is only
present in the good times. Of course, at closer examination, we might also
discover that that is when we want God to be present, when times are good,
because it is easy to relate to God then. Everything makes sense just the way
we want it to. God is good. We are good. Everything is wonderful. If we dare to
look for God when the rug has been pulled out from under us we also have to
face our helplessness and our fear.
Fred Craddock says the original text before it was
translated into English actually says in vs. 41 of the Gospel reading: They
feared a great fear. It is translated for us as: They were filled with great
awe. You could very legitimately translate it that way but you can see in your
own minds eye how the meaning is slightly distorted, perhaps even lost. (In a
world where so much is "awesome, dude" it is hard to take the word
seriously which is a same because it is a seriously beautiful, powerful word.
Ah, well.) In the story the disciples are terrified and they are terrified not
just of what frightens them but of the fear itself. It is not simply fear of
the storm which was frightening enough but something greater than the storm,
something greater than anything and everything, something they knew but did not
know. As Craddock puts it: Mark ended the story with this question, confident
that even if those first disciples did not know, the church to whom he wrote did. The question, of course, was: Who then is
this who stills the storm? According to Craddock: the church
knew but in the storm sometimes it forgot.
Paul knew who this was and he never forgot. In the
letter to the Corinthians he reminds his readers of what he and others have
been through and why they have made it this far and how, by extension, others
can make it too. As the disciples in the boat were to learn so did Paul want
all the Corinthians to know that the point of a faithful life is to carry on
through whatever comes, whether it be hardship or
misunderstanding or even good times. Carry on. Carry on not just because we
must but because we can. And we can because it is God who gives us the strength
to do so. All this is from God Paul had said earlier. All this is from God. All
this life with its trouble and its joys, with its hopes and with its
disappointments, all of this is from God and we can carry on because we are
from God also and God will not give us more than we can handle when we remain
with God whatever comes. Paul was convinced that whatever happens along the way
there is something good, something very good coming to meet the faithful
traveler. Love is coming to us all. We are to carry on not just so that we will
make it but because life is redemptive. What happens to us is meaningful. It
matters how we respond to what we are given whether it be the good or the bad.
It matters what we do with our lives and what we do with our lives will depend
very much on what we finally decide about what life really is about even if we
are not aware that we are deciding or have already decided such a thing. When
you consider what your theology is it may come down to whether you can believe
in a loving God or whether you can't believe in love at all.
One thing at least seems clear from the word we have
read this day and that is that if we are to know the answer to the question the
disciples asked in their little boat in the raging sea it will only be when we
are not afraid to open our hearts wide and keep our hearts wide open to all
that will come, the good news and the bad, vulnerable to the end to love and
suffering, life and God. A heart open wide is the opposite of a defensive
posture, of a heart hardened by the blows of the universe, by the fears that
come naturally to this life. a heart opened wide is a generous heart, one that
is ready to forgive again and again, to take the blow and carry on with
tolerance and forbearance and mercy, and a willingness to take another blow if
necessary for love because love is the only thing that never ends and maybe,
just maybe, the only thing that matters in the end. This is a very Methodist
way of thinking. John Wesley was born this week 300 years ago. In the great
theological debates of his day he would inevitably come back to the essentials
of the measure of love in one's heart for God and for people. He would often
say: "If your heart be as my heart, give me your hand."
Who is this then sleeping in the boat if not love incarnate?
The love of God revealed in one man. So once in
Why are we afraid of love? Perhaps we are afraid of
love because it will change us, will take us where we hadn't planned to go,
will ask of us things we don't want to give. Perhaps we are afraid of love
because we know instinctively that it will break our hearts, that it will hurt
us and save us and that it can't save us until it hurts us. We cry out like the
disciples in the story: Don't you care, God, about us? We are going to die
here. The storm is overwhelming us. We are afraid. We cry out so because we,
like the disciples before us, just aren't quite sure who this is. How can we be
sure? The only certainty I know is the love that heals the heart that is broken
by love. It is sensible to be afraid of fear because fear is the darkness where
we are lost but there is a way out and the way out is to carry on in love even
if we can't see yet what love is. Only love can cast out fear and set us free.
Only love will give us eyes to see what love is. We will know what love is when
we love, when we dare to carry on. When we carry on in love we are not lost
anymore and neither is this beautiful broken world. As Mr. Wesley said that
became the general rule of the society of Methodists: "Do all the good you
can." (A lot of people don't know this but Eeyore
was a Methodist.) Even Eeyore would agree: "A
little Consideration for Others makes all the difference.,"
he said.
And this is the good news. Love is,
like Paul said, having nothing and possessing everything. Love is more
powerful than any trouble, bigger than any storm. When we carry on in faith
that God's love is more real than anything else, it is God that carries us,
that holds us, no matter how small our boat or how big the sea, in the good
times and in the bad, in life and in death, now and forever. In the words of
Paul who knew a thing or two about theology, Now is
the day of salvation. This day and every day, God is with us to help us carry
on.
© 2003 Lawrence L. Wimmer
