What are you afraid of?

 

What are you afraid of? Lord you have to be kidding might have been our response. These men are skilled fishermen caught in the storm of their lives; their boat is about to capsize and despite all their experience, they are unable to take control and fear for their lives. And Jesus, who has done marvelous, mystical things on behalf of others,... is sleeping.

In our Gospel, (Mark 4:35-41), it’s hard to imagine that Jesus’ response and questions to the apostles were not rhetorical: Quiet! Be still!” Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?

We know that parables were used by Jesus to get us to think, expand our frame of reference and perhaps shake us up a bit. This story while not necessarily a parable, fits the bill. It does shake us up a bit. How would we have behaved as characters in this story? How would we have responded to Jesus’ question? What would it be like to trust our ability to have faith in the midst of overwhelming, and in the apostles’ case, incapacitating fear?

Have you ever gotten to a point in your life where you were powerless to control and take charge of a serious life-impacting situation? I can recall a number of times when I was confronted with having to make decisions that I knew would alter my and my family’s lives forever. These were not easy and options were very limited. In all cases, fear of the unknown resulted in feelings of helplessness, bordering on paralysis…there was no place to hide…no one to whom I could turn.

Fear or suffering gets us to a place in which our nerves are raw and exposed and that place between us and the bottom is very thin. This thin place seems to minimize the semi-permeable membrane that serves as a barrier between us and God. If we are open and receptive, in time we will hear or feel his prompting and finally be able to overcome our immobility and we begin to move. Sometimes it takes minutes, days, weeks…or even years.

Jesus’ lesson for his apostles in the midst of the storm is to trust in God. The storm will pass and we will “somehow” manage to make it through, different from the way in which we “entered,” transformed, with insight and a greater inner experience of God in us than we ever had before.

Albert Nolan writes that “God is closer to me than I am to myself. God is one with me and with you…If God is closer to me than I am to myself and we are in some profound sense one, then I have nothing to fear. I will be cared for at all times and in all circumstances. Nothing can really harm me and whatever happens will be for the best. I am loved beyond measure because I am one with the whole mystery of life.” ( Jesus Today, A Spirituality of Radical Freedom. p 143)