Let Us Go Over To the Other Side
Sermon for June 21, 2009
Scripture: Mark 4:35-41
You know Jesus can be difficult sometimes; just when we are settling in, getting comfortable here he comes telling us to go to the other side. We’ve had a long hard day. All we want to do is sit down to read the newspaper, have a refreshing drink, maybe watch some TV or a movie. Or if you were the disciples in Jesus time, maybe you were just about to relax on the shoreline and tell some fish stories about the day’s catch. And then you see that Jesus isn’t sitting down and he has that look in his eye. Finally he speaks and says, “Why are you getting comfortable, we need to go over to the other side.”
This isn’t the first time Jesus has told them to go over to the other side. In Matthew you may remember that he told the disciples to go over to the other side of the lake and he meets them halfway, walking on the water. Why can’t Jesus just relax, get comfortable on this side, the side we are already on?
In this particular scripture Jesus and his disciples had finished a very successful day of teaching and learning. They were on the Sea of Galilee, the kind of sea that could get very rough at nighttime or anytime. Most boats went around the lake,(it was really more like a lake) close to the shore, not across the lake. On the other side was foreign territory, the land of the Gerasenes—the place where Jesus drove out the demons from Legion into the swine who then hurtled down the bank into this same sea of Galilee.
The disciples were obedient and they all got into the boat. Knowing the threats as these local fishermen would have known, would you have gotten in the boat with Jesus? Do I go over to the other side when Jesus tells me to go? Or do I roll over and settle deeper into my comfort zone.
We know our side, the side where we are comfortable, where the risks are decreased. Yet Jesus is persistent. The first time he told me to go I was a teenager, very involved in church youth group. I thought about being a minister but it was just too scary. Not many women did that back in the 60’s. I wanted to get married and have children. I convinced myself that being a social worker made more sense; it would be just as good as being a minister. Maybe I would be a missionary social worker.
Getting back to the Bible story, we know that Jesus got in the boat with his disciples and quickly fell asleep in the back of the boat. A terrible storm came and they were so afraid. They woke Jesus up with a exclamation of blame, “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?” You know the rest of the story, Jesus calms the storm and then it’s his turn to question, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Why won’t you go to seminary? Why won’t you go do missionary work in Africa? Why won’t you go back to school? Why won’t you read the scripture in church? Why won’t you go repair and build houses in New Orleans? What are you waiting for? What do you do with the rest of your life? Jesus says, Go! But I don’t have enough money; I don’t want to be so far away from my family. I’m too old! I’m too young! It’s so easy to think of excuses. It’s just too scary, too risky. That big storm may arise and then what would you do.
To the elders, I quote Fred Buechner, “ Keep going, Jesus says, because to keep going is to keep living and to stop going is to stop living in any way that much matters.” 1 Jesus says let us go over to the other side. Who knows how far it is to that foreign land or what awaits us when we get there if anything at all?
Where is our faith? Why do we have so much fear? Many of us fear current or potential suffering and pain, bad health, death of loved ones and of our own death. Some of us fear being alive without living. We fear loss and loneliness. In these days there are more things to fear than usual due to terrorism, economic troubles, and environmental damage. Some of us have the pain of broken relationships, alienation from family, concern about our children both young and old. Maybe we are hearing Jesus tell us to Go, and we are just too scared to go. We want to make the world a better place; we want to follow the words and actions of Jesus, but is the risk of a big storm just too much?
Faith is having trust in the company of Jesus Christ. It believes that the world can be transformed by love; that angry waves can be calmed, and no matter what comes your way, you are not alone. You may recall that our Gospels are filled with Jesus and angels saying, “Do not be afraid; peace be with you. This is not because there are no scary things in our world, yet they need not paralyze us. They need not stop us because we are not alone in the boat. Faith is about going to the other side, especially when we know that the odds are against us. It’s easy to get so comfortable that we don’t even hear Jesus telling us to Go over to the other side. However, I believe along with Fred Buechner that “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and whatever we do in whatever time we have left—whether that be 5, 10, 20 or 50 years, wherever we go we can call upon him and he will come awake within us, to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us, each one, our way.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick says:
My prayer is that we will help each other to increase our faith so that when we hear the call to “Go over to the other side” we will be able to get in the boat, knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us to the end of time. Amen and Amen
1 Secrets in the Dark, p. 296.
Scripture: Mark 4:35-41
You know Jesus can be difficult sometimes; just when we are settling in, getting comfortable here he comes telling us to go to the other side. We’ve had a long hard day. All we want to do is sit down to read the newspaper, have a refreshing drink, maybe watch some TV or a movie. Or if you were the disciples in Jesus time, maybe you were just about to relax on the shoreline and tell some fish stories about the day’s catch. And then you see that Jesus isn’t sitting down and he has that look in his eye. Finally he speaks and says, “Why are you getting comfortable, we need to go over to the other side.”
This isn’t the first time Jesus has told them to go over to the other side. In Matthew you may remember that he told the disciples to go over to the other side of the lake and he meets them halfway, walking on the water. Why can’t Jesus just relax, get comfortable on this side, the side we are already on?
In this particular scripture Jesus and his disciples had finished a very successful day of teaching and learning. They were on the Sea of Galilee, the kind of sea that could get very rough at nighttime or anytime. Most boats went around the lake,(it was really more like a lake) close to the shore, not across the lake. On the other side was foreign territory, the land of the Gerasenes—the place where Jesus drove out the demons from Legion into the swine who then hurtled down the bank into this same sea of Galilee.
The disciples were obedient and they all got into the boat. Knowing the threats as these local fishermen would have known, would you have gotten in the boat with Jesus? Do I go over to the other side when Jesus tells me to go? Or do I roll over and settle deeper into my comfort zone.
We know our side, the side where we are comfortable, where the risks are decreased. Yet Jesus is persistent. The first time he told me to go I was a teenager, very involved in church youth group. I thought about being a minister but it was just too scary. Not many women did that back in the 60’s. I wanted to get married and have children. I convinced myself that being a social worker made more sense; it would be just as good as being a minister. Maybe I would be a missionary social worker.
Getting back to the Bible story, we know that Jesus got in the boat with his disciples and quickly fell asleep in the back of the boat. A terrible storm came and they were so afraid. They woke Jesus up with a exclamation of blame, “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?” You know the rest of the story, Jesus calms the storm and then it’s his turn to question, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Why won’t you go to seminary? Why won’t you go do missionary work in Africa? Why won’t you go back to school? Why won’t you read the scripture in church? Why won’t you go repair and build houses in New Orleans? What are you waiting for? What do you do with the rest of your life? Jesus says, Go! But I don’t have enough money; I don’t want to be so far away from my family. I’m too old! I’m too young! It’s so easy to think of excuses. It’s just too scary, too risky. That big storm may arise and then what would you do.
To the elders, I quote Fred Buechner, “ Keep going, Jesus says, because to keep going is to keep living and to stop going is to stop living in any way that much matters.” 1 Jesus says let us go over to the other side. Who knows how far it is to that foreign land or what awaits us when we get there if anything at all?
Where is our faith? Why do we have so much fear? Many of us fear current or potential suffering and pain, bad health, death of loved ones and of our own death. Some of us fear being alive without living. We fear loss and loneliness. In these days there are more things to fear than usual due to terrorism, economic troubles, and environmental damage. Some of us have the pain of broken relationships, alienation from family, concern about our children both young and old. Maybe we are hearing Jesus tell us to Go, and we are just too scared to go. We want to make the world a better place; we want to follow the words and actions of Jesus, but is the risk of a big storm just too much?
Faith is having trust in the company of Jesus Christ. It believes that the world can be transformed by love; that angry waves can be calmed, and no matter what comes your way, you are not alone. You may recall that our Gospels are filled with Jesus and angels saying, “Do not be afraid; peace be with you. This is not because there are no scary things in our world, yet they need not paralyze us. They need not stop us because we are not alone in the boat. Faith is about going to the other side, especially when we know that the odds are against us. It’s easy to get so comfortable that we don’t even hear Jesus telling us to Go over to the other side. However, I believe along with Fred Buechner that “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and whatever we do in whatever time we have left—whether that be 5, 10, 20 or 50 years, wherever we go we can call upon him and he will come awake within us, to give us courage, to give us hope, to show us, each one, our way.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick says:
Fear imprisons, faith liberates;
Fear paralyzes, faith empowers;
Fear
disheartens, faith encourages;
Fear sickens, faith heals;
Fear makes
useless, faith makes serviceable;
And, most of all, fear puts hopelessness
at the heart of all, while faith rejoices in God!
My prayer is that we will help each other to increase our faith so that when we hear the call to “Go over to the other side” we will be able to get in the boat, knowing that the Holy Spirit is with us to the end of time. Amen and Amen
1 Secrets in the Dark, p. 296.
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 7:24 PM
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