"Do you not care?" (Fifth Sunday after Pentecost)

Mark 4:35-41

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

“I have to tell her,” he said. “I have to tell her my true feelings.” I suppose teenage infatuation makes poets of even the most unlikely candidates. He had been wrestling with these feelings for days, which to most of us at that age can feel like months. He had to tell her how he felt, how he thought about her often, how he wanted to ask her out but was afraid she’d say no because they didn’t go to the same high school. My friend was telling me all about how much he liked this girl, perhaps hoping I’d give him a rousing pep talk that would propel him from the passenger seat of my pick-up and over into the small crowd of girls gathered in the parking lot. It’s funny now, but back then relationships seemed more than necessary. Back then, when we were teenagers, it seemed like life wouldn’t go on without someone to take to a movie every once in a while, someone to spoil with cheddar biscuits at Red Lobster or the salad bar at Ruby Tuesdays (or in my case, the first date that landed the love of my life: two Dairy Queen chicken finger sandwiches, a Diet Mountain Dew, and an orange Fanta). He sat there until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then, he opened the door of my truck, got out, walked across the parking lot, and told this girl his true feelings. I watched him slink back to the truck, climb in, shut the door, and tell me, “Let’s just go home.”

He poured his soul out to this girl. He did what takes mountains of courage for most boys that age to do. He did it all in the broad light of a buzzing street lamp and in the close proximity of other girls—her friends. He took the bold risk that has inspired playwrights, novelists, and poets, and it burned him. It burned him bad, because, you see, she didn’t respond with a bubbly reaction, reciting her own hidden feelings for him. No, it was worse than that. She didn’t laugh in his face and tell him to hit the bricks. No, it was even worse than that. When my friend poured his feelings out to this girl, the event which had no doubt kept him awake at night for days before, the moment he may have perhaps imagined with its own soundtrack—when he told this girl his true feelings for her, she said what may be the most devastating grouping of syllables in our language. He poured his heart out to her, and all she said in response was “I don’t care.”

“I don’t care.” Man, those words will cut you more than just about anything else. They’ll leave you with an emotional hole, an emptiness, when they come from one for whom you yourself actually care. Sure, we might say them flippantly when talking about where to go for lunch after church or what movie we want to pick up from the Red Box on our way out of Walmart, but to hear someone say, “I don’t care” after you’ve followed, after you’ve poured yourself out to them, after you’ve taken so many risks just to show them you care…that hurts in a way beyond description, but what hurts even more, what can inflict even greater pain and leave our hearts broken and ground into dust is when we think no one cares without them ever having to say it, when we think someone doesn’t care because of their complete lack of interest in our well-being. At least an enemy thinks enough of us to hurt us, but for someone to just not care…

“Teacher, do you not care…?” That’s what they said when they woke him up. I mean, when you’re in a skinny jon boat without so much as a trolling motor, crossing a big lake late at night, and the wind whips up and a storm breaks lose and “the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped,” and the one who dragged you out into the middle of all this chaos is asleep in the boat—on a cushion—yeah, I could get the feeling he doesn’t care. Who does that? Who takes a nap when the waves are crashing all around, when the storm is raging, when it seems like all hell is breaking lose and even the experts (fishermen who would have no doubt been out on the lake more than once when a storm rolled in) are crossing themselves as they put on the orange life vests? Who, if he had the power to stop it, would just go right on sleeping through all of this chaos? Obviously some one who doesn’t care, right?

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” I’ve heard similar words. I’ve heard similar words from my own mouth. Of course, they weren’t spoken in the midst of a storm on a lake somewhere off the coast of some village in ancient Judea. No, they were spoken in the darkness, towards the ceiling as I lay in bed, in the car after a long, excruciating day, in my office after hearing of another tragedy, after reading another story. The words themselves were different, but their intent was the same: “God, do you not care that people are dying? Do you not care that children are starving? Do you not care that good people are hurting? Do you not care that I’m trying my best?” I’ve said these words, and I bet you have too. When your best laid plans fall through your fingers like so many grains of sand, when all you’ve worked so hard for goes up in flames with a single word, a single envelope in the mailbox, when the phone rings and the voice on the other end sends your world careening into a chaotic tailspin, I bet you’ve said those words. “God, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Too often it can seem like God is just taking it easy, cat-napping on some clouded cushion while the world burns. Too often it can feel like God doesn’t care, like God is far off in heaven, making sure the right folks are getting through the gate and the wrong folks are getting turned away. Maybe that’s on God. After all, if God really cared, wouldn’t God do something about all of this mess? Wouldn’t God have intervened before it got this bad, cutting it off at the pass, making sure things never got this out of hand? I mean, couldn’t God at least make sure the storms pass before we get in the boat, maybe wait until morning, when there’s light to see, when storms on the horizon are easier to spot, when our confidence to row is greater? Can’t God keep evil folks from rising to power? Can’t God manipulate our circumstances enough to make sure we don’t lose our job, to make sure no child ever goes hungry, to make sure the crops grow, the nets fill with fish, the bank account stays on the positive side, to make sure we never have to go to war again? Can’t God do that if God really cares about all of this? Why does it feel like God’s just asleep somewhere?

Then again, maybe that’s on us. Things don’t just happen without folks making them happen, and even when a storm rolls in on the lake at night, no one had to get on the boat, right? Maybe God seems to not care because so often it seems like we don’t care. I mean, how can someone be comfortable enough to fall asleep on a boat if he thought the captain and the other professionals were anxious, worried, and tense? I couldn’t sleep on a car ride if I thought the driver was nervous! Maybe, when it seems like God doesn’t care, it’s really the amplification of our own apathy, a reflection of our own disinterest. I don’t know, but I do know there does seem to be a growing sense of folks not caring, especially about others, as if there’s a growing attitude that says, “Who cares if these others make it to the other shore, as long as me and mine get there….” Maybe it’s on us.

Really, though, I’m partial to believing that it’s all in the way we see things, the way we perceive our circumstances. I mean, think about what’s going on in this scene: the storm comes, pounds the boat, these disciples, these professional fishermen, are scared, and in their fear, they say, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” You know how I hear that? “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” It’s like they believe they’ll all die why Jesus goes right on sleeping. But there’s a very important lesson here; it’s easy to overlook because it’s so obvious. They overlook—so do we.

“On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.” Did you catch it? It’s so obvious, but so subtle. “[T]hey took him with them in the boat, just as he was.” Jesus is in the boat with them. He got right in the boat—he may have been in this very boat while he was teaching the crowd in starting in verse one. Jesus is in the boat with them. Do you get what’s happening here? Jesus isn’t back on the shore when the storm rolls in. He’s not spending the night in some Holiday Inn when the phone rings and the disciples are asking, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing out here on this lake while you’re relaxing in a bathrobe on a cushion indoors?!” He’s in the boat with them! He’s right there in the midst of the storm, not above it, not beyond it, not behind it—right smackdab in the middle of it with them. And you get the impression they’ve forgotten about that too. Don’t we all?

Sure, Jesus wakes up, rebukes the wind, calms the storm, as if he’s exorcising some demon, but he doesn’t do it from the sidelines, from a throne in heaven, from the isolated, sterile sanctuary where only the best, brightest, right, and righteous reside. He does it right in their midst, in the midst of the storm—in spite of the storm, in spite of their fear, in spite of all that would otherwise make sense. Jesus speaks peace in the midst of the chaos, because that’s where Jesus is, right there in the middle of it all.

I know, there are times in our lives when it feels like the storm will overtake us, when the wind will overpower us, when we can’t take one more bit of bad news, when we can’t hear one more tragic story, when we can’t take one more hit, when we can’t get out of bed in the morning, when we can’t answer that call one more time, when we can’t make that call one more time. I know, there are times when we want to look up to the heavens and ask, “God, don’t you care that I am dying?!” Can I tell you something? Don’t expect an answer from the sky, because God’s not there. God’s right there in the midst of all that junk with you, right there in the swirling clouds of thunder and fear, right there in the raging waters of uncertainty and dread, right there, in the place where the divine and the human meet, in the midst of fear, grief, pain, faith, hope, and love. God’s not asleep on the cushion; God’s hanging on the cross, right there in the midst of it all, in this battered boat with us. Amen.