(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 24, 2018, Proper 7)
In the Deep End:
Trusting the Water
Do you remember the first time
you went into the deep end of the swimming pool without any help? Without a parent to hold you up,
without floats around your arms, without a pool noodle to hang onto?
I remember my first time. My heart was in my throat. What would it feel like without any
ground beneath my feet? Nearby my
parents were cheering me on. They
told me to trust the water. I
could turn over onto my back, they said, and the water would hold me up.
So I splashed my way down into
the deep end. Full of fear, I
flapped around at first and it felt like I was sinking. But then amid my fear, I stopped
flapping and trusted the water. I turned over onto my back. And I floated in peace.
The Difference between Faith and “Belief”
When Jesus stills the storm, he
asks the disciples, “Why are you afraid?
Have you still no faith?”
In our world today, that question—Do you have faith?—is often understood
as a matter of the mind. For many
folks, faith has to do with what you believe. In the same way that we might say, “I believe there’s milk
in the fridge,” or “I believe in thunderstorms, that they exist and make lots
of noise and bring lots of rain,” many folks today express their faith by
saying, “I believe in God.”
But when Jesus asks the disciples
if they have faith, he isn’t asking them what’s in their head. He isn’t asking if they believe in the
existence of God. Back then,
everyone believed in at least one god if not more. That’s why they made so many sacrifices. Their belief filled them with
fear. They believed in these gods
who could cause storms or droughts or other catastrophes in the flick of a
finger, and so they were continually trying to get in the gods’ good graces.
Jesus isn’t asking his disciples
about what’s in their head but about what’s in their heart. He isn’t asking them if they believe in
God but rather if they trust
God. For Jesus, faith is not a
belief in powerful gods that fills us with fear. Faith is an intimate trust in God that confronts our
fear. Faith is what stops us from
flapping in the deep end and enables us to trust the water.
Contrary to popular opinion, I
think Jesus was afraid in the storm just like his disciples were. We know Jesus experienced the frailty of
fear. The gospels tell us that he
sweated blood and wept tears.[1] I think Jesus shared his disciples’
fear, but unlike his disciples he trusted in God. Faith, I think, was the difference between Jesus’ calm and
his disciples’ flapping about. His
faith enabled him to respond to his fear with a defiant—one might even say
miraculous—peace.
Faith Fiddling around with the Text
In the story of David and
Goliath, the Israelites are the ones flapping about in the deep end. They are fearful of the Philistine
warrior Goliath. But David is not
flapping about. “Let no one’s
heart fail because of [Goliath],” he says to Saul (17:32). David appears to be floating serenely at
the deep end. When Saul expresses
doubt at David’s proposal—“You are just a boy,” he says (17:33)—David recites
how he has dealt with lions and bears, and this Philistine will be no
different. The Lord, he says, will
deliver him now as before.
We generally read this story as
an illustration of David’s great faith.
He has no fear because he has faith. That is a fine reading, and an inspiring one, and quite
possibly what the original storyteller was hoping to tell us. But today I want to explore another
reading of the story, a reading inspired by Jesus in the storm, Jesus who
responds to fear with a defiant peace.
Let me be clear, this is no authoritative interpretation. What follows is my faith fiddling around
with the text, wondering how the way of Jesus might have looked in the time of
David. So treat what I am about to
tell you as a rumor, as gossip—and see what truth you can work out from it.
David Shows No Fear
Look at David, ready to waltz
into battle, so sure of himself, so sure of the Lord. Does this look at all familiar? Are not such self-certainty and such a combative religious
zeal also marks of the religious fundamentalists who have wrought great
violence in our world? Anyway…I
think there’s a reason we love this story so much. Not only is it the tale of a victorious underdog. It also gives us the bravado that we
love. David is cool, calm, and
fearless.
Isn’t that the model we’re given
growing up? Don’t show your weakness,
your doubts, your fear? And so we
don’t. We hide them behind
boasting resumes, behind sharp and professional attire, behind uncompromising
attitudes—“It’s my way or the highway.”
We don’t overcome our fear.
We hide it. We push it
down. We deny it. But what is repressed, often rebounds
back upon us in terrible fashion.
And so we see bullies who compensate for their hidden fears with shows
of domination. We see bosses who
respond to adversity with a brutality of their own. Again and again, repressed fear returns in a show of strength
and force, as though to prove there is no fear in the first place.
Now look at David again. Is this a man of faith who faces his
fear with peace? Or is this a man
who has denied his fear, repressed it behind a mix of holy machismo and
misguided nationalistic piety, a man whose response to fear is not peace but
bared teeth.
A Lapse in Faith?
We generally read this story as
an illustration of David’s great faith. But the narrator is strangely silent. He furnishes David no praise here, nor
criticism. It is left up to us to
interpret. Personally, a part of
me can’t help wondering if his meeting Goliath on the battlefield might not be
a lapse in faith. David shows no
fear, for sure. But what has he
done with that fear? Has he
confronted it with faith and defiantly declared peace? Or has he repressed it? Does he trust in the God who blessed the
family of Abraham to be a blessing to all
the families of the earth, the God who the prophet Amos says liberated the
Philistines from their captivity as
the Israelites had been liberated from Egypt (Amos 9:7)? Or does he put on his best James Dean,
his best Marlboro Man, and act out in the way of our world, a way that shows no
weakness, no doubts, no fears, a way that prefers strength and force over
peace?
This really is unfair of me to
put David on the stand. After all,
the Old Testament is full of war and violence. Maybe David trusted in God but knew no way to extend the
peace of that trust to the world around him. Whatever the case may be, I cannot shake the example of
Jesus from my mind. I can think of
two instances in the gospels when the fearful followers of Jesus want to
respond to the world with violence, and in both cases Jesus rebukes them.[2] And so today as I read the story of
David, I also hear his words: “Put away your sword. For all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Sadly this would be all too true for
much of David’s family and royal court.
What Would Jesus Do in David’s Place?
It’s nearly impossible, of
course, to imagine an alternative ending to the story of David and Goliath,
just as it’s impossible to imagine peaceful resolutions to many of our world’s
conflicts. But let’s try for just
a second. What would Jesus do in
David’s place? I believe that
instead of hiding his fear and putting on a strong front, he would have felt
fear, sweating as he did before the cross, perhaps crying over the brokenness
of his own nation and of the Philistines’. But I believe that amid that fear, he would do as he did on
the stormy sea: he would defiantly declare peace. I believe that instead of
speaking death and curses, he would speak life and blessing, reminding folks
that God had liberated both Israel and the Philistines, that God was on both
their sides. That all sounds
wildly impractical, and you might be thinking that would get Jesus killed. That’s not much different than what
happened in his own time.
But that wouldn’t be the end of
the story. When Jesus went into
the deep end of his world, he went not only with fear but also with a deep
faith. Some called it
weakness. Some called it
foolishness. He went into the deep
end with nothing—no floats, no noodles.
It looked crazy, but he trusted in the water. He trusted in a God of love, a God whose love was even
stronger than death, a God whose love would keep him afloat. Even in death he did not sink. And so even in the deep end, even amid
fear, he could confidently proclaim peace.
It really is gospel—good
news. Our faith is not a belief in
a powerful, violent God that fills us with fear. Our faith is an intimate trust in a loving and life-giving
God that enables us to face our fear.
It’s what empowers us to stop flapping around in the deep end, in fright
and violence, and instead to echo the defiant declaration of Christ within the storm:
peace!
Prayer
Creator God,
Whose creation is cut
From the cloth of love—
There are many things in life
That we do not understand,
That we cannot control,
And so we are fearful.
We thank you
For being in the boat beside us.
Inspire us with the deep trust
In your love
That enabled Jesus to proclaim, “Peace!”
Amid wind and wave;
So that one day we would live
Not by fight or flight,
But by trust in your incomprehensible peace.
In the name of our companion, Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] Luke 19:41;
22:44; John 11:35. Cf. Dorothee
Sölle, The Strength of the Weak: Toward a
Christian Feminist Identity (trans. Robert and Rita Kimber; Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1984), 149.
[2] Matthew
26:52; Luke 9:54-55.
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