A Sleepless Night?

Job 38:1-11, Mark 4:35-41   

Time after Pentecost — Lectionary 12   June 21, 2015

What disturbs your sleep? I hope my sermon isn’t interrupting your morning nap. What is it that wakes you up in the middle of the night? Those nights in which you are tossing and turning and twisting the sheets into a knot, what is it that is preventing you from sleeping soundly? Maybe your restful peace is disturbed by a 21 year-old hate-filled racist murdering 9 people as they were faithfully studying God’s word. Maybe your sense of peace is disrupted to learn that two of the people killed at Emanuel AME Church attended Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, including the pastor, and the shooter was on the rolls of an ELCA congregation. Maybe it disturbs your peace that, although we think that racism among younger generations is waning, statistics say it is not.

What is it that disturbs your sleep? I am worried about… you can fill in the blank for yourselves – money, the welfare of a son or daughter, a relationship. Maybe you are waiting for medical test results. Maybe you have gotten the test results, and that is what is disturbing you. Worry is often fear of the future. What is going to happen when I can no longer work, if this surgery doesn’t fix the problem, when my loved one dies. Fill in your own worry for the future.

Maybe your fear and anxiety is for others or for our world—racism, children in refugee camps, carcinogens in the environment, those who need to choose between food and medical care, genocide in Africa, or the upcoming presidential campaigns. There are life-threatening storms and chaos all around us, no shortage of disturbing situations that can cause a sleepless night.

It is interesting to observe that while the disciples are faced with a life- threatening storm, Jesus, the one who put them into this situation, is sleeping. The disciples, fisherman by vocation, were used to rough weather, but this storm terrified them.  The winds were blowing so hard that the water came up over the sides of the boat and began to fill it. You can feel the boat rocking and rolling. They were facing death, and Jesus was in the back of the boat, sleeping on a cushion. All are in tremendous danger ., and Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior, sleeps.   “Wake up, Jesus!! We’re going to die! Don’t you care?”

Jesus wakes, and with three words, “the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.” “Who is this?” the people in the boat asked. “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Of course, this question is not answered, not then and never directly.

Job had similar questions about God. You might have heard the expression “patience like Job,” but that is not an accurate assessment of the story. Job had done everything right. He prayed, he worshipped, and he obeyed God. Life was good for Job, and then he lost it all within a matter of days. His donkeys and camels were stolen, his servants were killed, and his sheep were struck by lightening. His children died when a wind blew their house down on top of them. Then Job himself got sores all over his body, and they itched.

Over the course of thirty-seven chapters, Job maintains his innocence. In response to his questions, God remains silent, much like Jesus sleeping in the midst of the storm. Exasperated, Job shakes his fist in the air, demanding that God answer him. “Why is this happening to me?” Finally God speaks, perhaps with a touch of sarcasm. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know!” God continues, “Who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?” God asks, and we are brought back to the calming of the chaos of the sea, the disciples in the storm, and Jesus.

“If there is an answer to the problem of unjustified suffering in Job,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “then, it is only this: that for most of us, the worst thing that can happen is not to suffer without reason but to suffer without God—without any hope of consolation or rebirth. All other pain pales next to the pain of divine abandonment. When there is nothing left—when all the flocks have been stolen and all the children have been buried—when there is nothing left but a potsherd with which to scratch our sores, what is still left is the God of all creation, who laid the foundation of the earth, who has walked in the recesses of the deep, who has made Behemoth and Leviathan and everything that breathes. This is the Lord of all life, who never runs out of life, and whom we may always ask for more.[1]

“The worst thing that can happen is not to suffer without reason but to suffer without God.” God never did answer Job’s questions. At the end, it was enough for Job to know God was there with him.

Jesus was in the boat. The striking thing about this story is not that Jesus calms the storm. It is that Jesus slept through winds and waves, and the screams of his disciples. The Lord, the Messiah, was surrounded by his friends, friends full of fear and anxiety, and it did not disturb him. He was at peace. When Jesus asked his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” maybe he was saying to them, “Don’t you know that if you had sunk to the bottom of the sea, I would be with you? Don’t you know that if you drowned, I would be holding you all the way down?”

In a moment, we will be singing “Peace Like a River,” written by Horatio G. Spafford . His story reminds me of Job’s story. Spafford was a highly successful Chicago lawyer. He was married, and had four daughters and a son. Their young son died, and shortly thereafter the Great Chicago Fire destroyed many of Spafford’s real estate investments. Two years later, he planned to help Dwight Moody with an evangelism campaign in Europe. Some unexpected business came up, and so Horatio sent his wife and daughters over ahead of him. Several days later, he received notice that the ship had encountered a collision. All four of his daughters died. Only his wife survived. On his way to England to join his grieving wife, he wrote these words, “When sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.”

Today, James Kenneth Stein will be baptized. Through water and the Word, he will be joined to Christ’s death and resurrection and be marked with the cross of Christ forever. One day, James will encounter turbulent waters and storms that threaten his peace. Having been drowned with Christ in the waters of baptism, James, and we, the baptized, are assured that Christ will hold us through whatever life or death brings.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] Taylor, Barbara Brown. Home By Another Way. Boston: Cowley Publications, 1999. Pp 166-167. Print.

Author: Pastor Cheryl Griffin

Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin thinks God has a sense of humor for leading her into ministry, but can’t imagine doing anything else! Pastor Griffin received her BA degree from the College of William and Mary. She worked as an accountant before God led her to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, where she received her Master of Divinity degree. In the Virginia Synod, Pastor Griffin is a member of the Ministerium Team and frequently leads small groups at synod youth events. She is also a representative to the VA Synod Council.