Danger!

The scriptures referred to are 1 Samuel 17, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13 and Mark 4:35-41.

When I was a kid, they had what we called monster movies. They were about people encountering Dracula or the Frankenstein monster or the wolfman or the mummy and eventually destroying them. Yes, the monsters killed people but (a) they tended to be extras or minor characters and (b) it was usually bloodless and often off-screen. You would see the monster approaching the victim, slowly (monsters weren't in a hurry in those days). You would see a close up of the victim with his eyes and mouth wide open but too scared to say anything. Then the camera would switch to a close up of the monster getting closer and closer. Then the film would cut to another part of the castle, where the rest of the group was gathered. There would be a long drawn-out scream and someone would say, “Listen! Isn't that Professor Von Der Trottel?” And by the time they got to where the scream came from, the professor was dead. We may not even see the body. People would look down and react in horror, leaving the state in which the monster left the professor to your imagination.

And like I said, the monster was always destroyed at the end of the film. The monsters were formidable but they all had weaknesses: crosses, garlic, silver bullets, holy water, sunlight. In the book Dracula, and at least one film version, Van Helsing actually uses the host, the body of Christ, to repel the fiend. The monster might come back in some improbable way in the sequel but this story about him had a happy ending. Good triumphed over evil. So we watched for the thrills. And while I might have watched from behind the sofa, I never worried about the monster being in my bedroom or coming to my house. The monsters were creatures of fantasy, quite unlike anything in real life.

Boris Karloff didn't like the term “horror films,” preferring to call them “terror films.” Because, he said, he wanted to scare you, not make you lose your breakfast. Today's films in this genre are truly about horror, about awful, graphic and drawn-out deaths, done with the most convincing special effects. Nothing happens off-screen. And there is an emphasis on watching the suffering of the victims, which has given rise to some of them being called “torture porn.” Also the monsters are rarely killed off at the end of each film. The movie ends when the last of the victims has been dispatched. Which isn't so much horrifying as depressing. I understand why we liked the scary fantasy films of my childhood but I have a hard time understanding why people watch today's nihilistic horror movies.

Of course you could wonder why we like stories about people in danger at all. Most people do not wish to be thrust into peril. Why do we find it entertaining to see a hero we identify with nearly be decapitated by a booby-trapped ancient temple or almost cut in two by an industrial laser when we would not enjoy being in that position ourselves? I think we like having our pulses raised and our adrenaline triggered by dangers that are experienced vicariously, as I enjoyed watching a thrilling tale involving creatures I knew I would never encounter in real life. And we like being a hero if only through our proxy.

In real life, if a wizard called you to fight an actual dragon, or you found yourself in possession of information a real assassin was after, or you were accused of a murder that you had to rely on yourself to solve, you wouldn't be entertained. You'd be horrified. Or terrified. You wouldn't willingly take part in such a dangerous mission.

We like comfort. And let's face it, that's why a lot of people come to church. To be comforted. To be assured that God is in control. To be told everything will be all right in the end. And all of that is true. But it's not the whole story.

In Track One of our lectionary, Psalm 9 does speak to our desire, indeed our need to take refuge in God. But the other 3 lectionary passages speak not of comfort but of challenge.

Our passage from 1 Samuel recounts the famous story of David and Goliath. Goliath is a giant who challenges the Israelites to end the conflict between them and the Philistines by facing him in single combat. He has no takers. But then David comes to drop off some food for his brothers who are in the army. He volunteers to take on the champion of the Philistines. At first King Saul balks. David is a boy and Goliath an experienced warrior. Furthermore David is unused to armor and finds it hinders rather than helps him. Despite the danger, he goes out on the field of battle armed with only his sling and 5 rocks. And a firm trust in God to be on his side. And we know how the story ends.

In our New Testament passage Paul gives us a whole litany of dangers he and his team faced in spreading the gospel: afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger. The comfort Paul got from following Jesus was not protection from physical or mental or spiritual challenges. It was the fact that he was undergoing these things for the right reason: to spread the good news of the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ. I think Paul would agree with the sentiment “I'll rest when I'm dead.” Of course, he is now enjoying his rest with Christ till the day of resurrection.

The story in our gospel is also about danger but it's a bit different. David knew the danger he faced. So did Paul. The disciples are on a boat trip that suddenly hits a storm. They didn't ask for this. But we forget that aboard were at least 4 experienced fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James and John. We mustn't imagine them just standing around and wringing their hands. They had encountered storms before. No doubt they were employing everything in their skill set to keep the boat afloat. Ultimately there was nothing more that they could do. The boat is taking on water. So they turn to Jesus, hoping no doubt that the man who saved people from the forces of disease could do the same for their situation.

And he does. He tells the wind and sea to cut it out and they do. Jesus turns to his disciples and says, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” He seems to be implying that even if he had not been awakened, they would have made it. He was still with them. They can trust him even when they don't see him up and about.

What can we learn from these stories?

First of all, we learn that believing in God and following Jesus doesn't mean you won't have problems. In fact, you may have more. David could have dropped off his sandwiches or whatever to his brothers and gone back home, figuring someone would take care of Goliath eventually. It was Someone Else's Problem. It needn't be his. Similarly Paul could have stayed in Antioch with the church there, preaching and letting someone else be the missionary to the known world. It needn't be his problem. When Jesus told the disciples to cross the sea of Galilee, the experienced fishermen could have said, “At night? The weather looks a little unsettled. Let's wait, Lord.” Why take instructions from someone who wasn't a sailor?

All of them—David, Paul and the disciples—felt called by God to act in this way. And they did it despite the danger. They trusted that the Lord knew what he was asking them to do.

And, as our gospel story shows, we are to trust him even when he is silent. Jesus is in the boat with them but sleeping. And his questions to them after they wake him and he quiets the storm imply that they would have gotten through the storm even if they hadn't wakened him. His presence should have been enough.

Does that mean the boat wouldn't have sunk if they hadn't awakened Jesus? I am not saying that. After all, in Acts 27, we read Luke's firsthand account of a shipwreck that happened when Paul was being taken to Rome for trial. Before the wreck Paul tells everyone about his assurance from God that all will survive. He tells them, “So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will happen just as he told me.” (Acts 27:25) The ship does not make it to land but all 276 on board do. Whatever happened to the boat Jesus was in, all the disciples would have lived.

So in addition to faith, we need to have hope. Hope has been defined by someone as the future tense of faith. We put our trust in God for the present and put our hope in him for the future. But it's easy to do that when everything is going well. So is that really hope? As Paul says, “Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?” (Romans 8:24) You don't generally have any anxiety about achieving what is within your grasp. Hope is for situations where you can't see what will happen. The disciples could not see the shore or else they would not have been panicking. The fierce wind and the towering waves and the dark of night overwhelmed their senses and their sense of where they were and their sense that Jesus could save them. So they wake Jesus and shout, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Jesus, as usual, answers a question with questions. “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” In other words, why are you afraid that you are perishing? What makes you so sure that you know what the outcome will be? What makes you think that with me on board the outcome will be terrible? Have you still no trust in me and what I can do?

At the end of the 13^th chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul says that the 3 qualities that will endure are faith, hope and love. The chapter is about love so we focus on that. But faith and hope are also essential. Faith, trust in God now, and hope, trust that he will make everything turn out right in the end, are not merely states of mind but virtues. They are moral qualities we are to cultivate and exercise, just like courage and justice and wisdom and self-control. And they are necessary because of the world we live in.

If we try to follow Jesus, proclaiming the good news, which comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, which speaks truth to power and empowers the powerless, we will find opposition. We will find ourselves sailing against the winds of popular opinion and the usual way of doing things. We will be battered by storms of controversy. The attacks will threaten to swamp us and we will be tempted to sink into despair.

But Jesus is on board with us and with the mission he gave us. Even when he seems silent he is there. He will never leave us or forsake us. (Hebrews 13:5) Indeed when he sent out the disciples Jesus said, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20) In him we put our faith and our hope.

As someone said, the safest place for a boat is in the harbor. But that's not what a boat is for. Nor is the church meant simply to be a shelter against the storm. It is meant to take us through the storm. It's meant to get us where Jesus wants us to go. He never said there would be no danger. In fact he said, “In the world you will have trouble and suffering...” Following Jesus will not get you off the hook from those things. He never promised that. Instead he continued, “...but take courage—I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

And that fact is vital to following Jesus. We are not in danger from monsters, at least not of the inhuman kind. We face pushback from those who resist God's kingdom because in it there is no place for greed or violence or lust or envy or overindulgence or laziness or arrogance. The harm we face is not so much physical as spiritual. The danger is to who we really are, to the persons God created us to be and who we are to become in Christ. The destruction of that, our true selves, is what Jesus protects from. And for these dangers and challenges we need not carry around special magical items. We carry within us the Spirit who empowered Christ, the light who shines in the darkness which the darkness cannot overcome. (John 1:5) He is all we need.