Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
“Why are ye so fearful?”
It is the question for our times. That it comes in response to another question put to Jesus by those in the midst of the storm reveals an even deeper problem. “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” they ask. He arises, rebukes the wind and calms the sea, and then asks, “why are ye so fearful?” and answers with a rhetorical question, a question which provides the answer. “How is it that ye have no faith?”
Care but what kind of care and in what way? Our fear about what exactly? Our lack of faith in whom or what? These are the serious questions of the Gospel that challenge each of us and our contemporary world. My hope is that you would have been here today had there been no winter storm because you care about the care of Christ and his Church, that you would have been here not out of fear but out of faith, the faith that is grounded in love not fear, the faith that knows the deep care of God for our humanity and our world so magnificently signaled in this epiphany story.
Storms and tempests are nothing new, especially for a maritime culture. The storms and tempests of nature are an integral part of an older Canadian sensibility about finding ways to survive and not least how to survive the bleak, mid-winter! Our literature has been more about survival than conquest and more often than not that survival depends upon the reciprocity between those who govern and those who are governed. The juxtaposition of this Gospel story with the passage from Romans reminds us of a profound spiritual teaching. We are to “render to all their dues”, to all who are in power but only in the wisdom of knowing that all power belongs to God and that those who wield power do so only in a delegated sense. They are not omnipotent. The exercise of power by those in authority over us must be grounded in respect and toleration. It must be just and not vengeful. It must be aware of the uncertainties of the finite world and the limits of human justice and human reason. When those things are ignored or forgotten then authority overreaches itself and paradoxically undermines itself. Its claims to care reveal more about themselves and the systems of power with which they surround themselves. It is dominance rather than governance.
A problem about care is shown in this Gospel story. Those caught in a tempest at sea awaken Jesus asleep in the boat, not out of any sense that anything can be done, but to enroll him in their own fatalism and fear of death. He is awakened to be yet another fearful one. Not to be part of the culture of fear is to be an outsider and a threat to the dominating spirit of fear. But such is the culture of death; we are but the walking dead.
