Headlong into the Storm of Fear

Well it is Tip of the Week time, but while humor would be a welcome diversion, it seems a bit incongruous given recent events.  I'm not in the States to see the premature Christmas decorations and listen to the radio stations that have already started playing non-stop holiday music, so maybe I'm misreading this--but it seems like instead of Christmas this year, fear is in the air.

So let's talk about fear.  It seems to be a subject I've been studying, talking about, and living out a lot these past couple months.  In fact, while I was home in September and October, it was the subject of the message I shared, basing my thoughts on Mark 4, where Jesus calms the storm.  That message was more timely than I realized given the attack in Paris and the events that unfolded here today.  (Actually there have been other events here throughout the last several weeks, but nothing that has called the media attention like today's ordeal.)

Here we are, in that boat being tossed by the winds and waves.  It is truly a scary time in our world.  Like the disciples we are panicked by what seems to be a sinking ship, our loss of control and stability.  There are those who, reading the story in safety and security, would say, "what are you so worked up about?" but we should remember that the disciples knew a thing or two about sailing a boat.  They knew that the boat was going down, and so they were right to cry out.  While we might have some sensationalized fear going on, it seems that there are truly some reasons for us to be concerned and to "cry out" so to speak.

When the disciples wake Jesus up, He calms the storm and then proceeds to scold them.  He asks them "why are you afraid", and then, "have you still have no faith?".  This question calls to mind a similar question from earlier in the chapter, when He asked, "Have you STILL not understood?"  Jesus is trying to get the disciples to understand who they are hanging out with.  His answer to fear is His presence, as it is all throughout Scripture-- every time God says, "Do not be afraid," it is always because He is promising His presence.

Now imagine yourself with the disciples.  This guy who was just asleep has performed what can only be an astounding miracle and then turns and scolds you.  In the sudden, eerie calm, you are asking yourself, "WHO is this guy?" and probably, "What have I gotten myself into?"  So you can understand when Mark says that the disciples were terrified.

Interestingly, when Jesus asks the disciples why they are "afraid", He uses a word that indicates a cowardly, retreating fear, but when Mark says that the disciples were "terrified", he uses a word that means that they were in reverential awe in front of something much greater than themselves.  See, God's solution to our fear is always to reveal to us His presence, and when we grasp that--really grasp that--we can't help but be in reverential awe.  (And that was my sermon summarized in 5 short paragraphs.  Who heard my sermon and wants their 30 minutes back??)

There are, however, some unnerving parts of this story.  It was JESUS who sent His disciples headlong into that storm and then decided to go to sleep in the stern.  He seems to have driven them into a head-on collision with their fears.  And, instead of leaving them with an assurance of safety and peace, He leaves them in terrified awe. 

If I was preaching this sermon today (and I am, I suppose), here's where I'd go with it.  Our reaction to our fear is everything.  If our reaction to fear is cowardly retreat , we get it wrong.  If our reaction pushes us to search for safety and security of our own making, we get it wrong.  Jesus doesn't offer that.  He offers us His presence, which frankly is simultaneously more scary and more calming than anything else in this world.

A young friend who is a new believer brought this all into perspective for me today.  He told me that yesterday he was visiting some (non-believing) friends, and a fortune teller was present.  On leaving, the fortune teller, unsolicited, turned to my friend and said that he was going to have problems in his marriage and that he'd better go offer some sacrifices.  My friend laughed it off at first, but when he got home, his wife told him that she had received news that her parents wanted to cause some problems for the couple.

He went on to tell me how he refused to give into fear and instead began praying.  I was so impressed by his reaction, and as we discussed, he recounted the story he had told his wife to convince her not to react in fear.  Before he was married, he moved to this new house during hot season.  Because of the heat, he was sleeping outside, but every night he was awakened by a frightening noise coming from the tree in his yard, and so he would go back into the sweltering house and barely sleep.  Finally one night, he decided that he was not going to go back inside.  So when he woke up at 1 am to the noise, he began to pray, fell back to sleep, only to be awoken again.  He began to doubt his prayers and debated going back inside, but decided to bring his Bible out and read aloud.  Then he fell asleep and was awoken again.  At his wits end, he asked Jesus to give him courage; he grabbed a light and went to examine the tree.  After looking for a couple minutes, he found a chicken roosted in the top.  He chased it away and slept peacefully outside for the rest of the hot season.

He used this to convince his wife that the fortune teller's advice wasn't correct and that prayer was the answer to their problems.  I think it is a really interesting analogy for our lives right now.  We are being woken up from a peaceful sleep.  We are running for safety into our own homes, but we are finding them strangely hot and uncomfortable, and we aren't getting much sleep.  What we really need to do is enter the presence of the Lord and then go chase the chicken out of the tree.

When we react to fear by entering the Lord's presence, our problems don't disappear.  My friend's prayers weren't rewarded immediately with a peaceful night of sleep.  He had to persist in the presence of the Lord, and then approach the very thing he was afraid of.  So it is with us.  God's presence was never a guarantee of peaceful nights and secure days.  Rather it drives us forward, into the storm that threatens to sink us, and we come out of it more aware of His presence and power.  And if Mark is any indication, it brings us exactly to the people that need a deep healing that only our Jesus can give. 

In Mark, that is the demon-possessed man.  Who is that in our day?  Yeah, you knew it was coming: The people whom we most fear.

Here's where I'm going to be a bit pointed. (So if you were only going for feel-good, it is time exit the train.) Maybe you are thinking, "Nice spiritual story, but you haven't convinced me in the least that we should be allowing refugees into my country.  This terrorism thing is a whole lot more serious than a chicken in a tree."  

I agree, it is a whole lot more serious and a lot harder to chase away.  There are many ways to respond to this.  I could talk about the process that refugees go through before coming to the States--a process so arduous that ISIS can surely find an easier point of entry (and will, even if we cut off refugees today).  I could ask you all to go make friends with a refugee family in your community, sit in their living room while they show you a humbling hospitality, cry tears as you hear their stories, and then ask yourself if these are the people you really want to see punished for the actions of ISIS and its ilk.  But, tonight I'm going to suggest to you a way to practically fight terrorism.

The first thing I'm going to do is to ask you to widen your category.  When we hear "terrorist" today, we imagine turbaned, jihadists.  That isn't incorrect, but I think we'd all have to agree that there are a lot of other people wreaking terror in our lives by shooting up schools, malls, and movie theaters.  If we consider all those scary individuals as one big group of people, who for various motivations are creating fear in our society, I think it might be more clear to us where we (you and me, ordinary, everyday people) need to go.

Now, I'm not a criminal psychologist, and I won't pretend to be one tonight.  However, one of the things I've learned by living in a country beleaguered by a terrorism problem is that it takes a whole set of conditions to produce a suicide shooter or bomber.  Imagine, that I came to you and offered you a ton of money to go shoot up a mall and likely die in the process.  Would you do it?  No?  Huh... What if I told you that everyone you would be shooting was a Satanist that was sacrificing children and that it was your Christian duty to do this?  Still no?  Hmmm...

Not to be too simplistic, but it is the same here.  Money, religious conviction, and even biases against people aren't strong enough in and of themselves to produce a terrorist.  That requires another layer of something more potent like mental illness, or repeated exposure to radical teaching (brainwashing), or a total lack of other hope.

Revisit the questions I've posed above and imagine asking them to someone who is suffering from severe mental illness.  Suddenly it is possible (and it is what we've seen).  Imagine you ask that of young man who has watched his whole life as his family has been mistreated and has just barely eked out a living; he sees no hope for his future.  Yeah, scarily possible.  Imagine you take someone who has been bullied into being a loner, who suffers with a weight of anger and bitterness that he can show to no one, and then who stumbles onto a website that teaches him to direct that anger to a certain people group.  Again, suddenly very possible.

So yeah, these are exactly the people Jesus is sending us to.  He's taking us right through the storm so that we can land and heal those tormented by demons.

You want to fight terrorism?  Go find the loner, the tormented soul, the mentally ill and love them in real and practical ways.  Come alongside youth who have no hope for the future and relieve their suffering.  Befriend the refugee family next to you, show them some hospitality, and make sure that their kids adapt to their new, complicated life.

You want to increase terrorism in our world exponentially? Close our door to refugees and leave thousands of youth in the hell-hole that is Syria, Iraq, the Sahel, Burma, and Palestine.  If we don't open our door, I promise you, ISIS will.  They won't need refugee status to come get us, they'll have waves of youth they can hurl at us from all directions.

Time to grab your flashlight, ask Jesus to help you, and with fear and trembling, go chase that stinking chicken out of the tree.