Do You Not Care?

​In our Gospel reading, Jesus stills a storm with a word. The disciples who witnessed this miracle were understandably “filled with awe” at that display of divine power.
 
But what sticks out to me in our story is not the miracle so much as the disciples’ panicky cry, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
 
Jesus fusses at his disciples for their fear and their lack of faith. And it does seem like they should have known better by now. They had already seen some amazing things.
 
But I am sympathetic with the disciples. If a bunch of fishermen were frightened at the storm, the storm must have been genuinely scary.
 
And, although every Christian should be faithful and trusting no matter what kinds of storms we experience, all of us struggle some of the time. So, what can we learn from the struggle of the disciples in our reading?
 
I see the distressed cry of the disciples as a kind of prayer. After all, they are bringing their need to God incarnate, God with them. That’s what we do when we pray.
 
Most obviously, they worry about perishing in the storm and, by implication, ask Jesus to do something about it. His response is the miracle. Problem solved.
 
But the disciples also express anger at the sleeping Jesus. “Teacher,” they ask, “do you not care?”
 
At first, their anger may seem a little shocking. It seems like we shouldn’t fuss at God.
 
The problem is, sometimes we are angry at God. I have known plenty of people who went through real hardship. Why, we want to know, is this happening? Where are you, God?
 
It can help, in thinking about anger at God, to think about how we handle our anger at other people. We have all been angry. And we all have strategies for dealing with our anger.
 
My first response to my own anger is to repress it. Sometimes, that’s OK. Sometimes it’s best to let things go. Usually, if I’m just a little miffed, repression works fine. Time goes by, and I more or less forget about whatever it was that irritated me. No lasting damage done to me or the other person.
 
If a stranger is truly obnoxious to me, I might get more than miffed. But I don’t have anything vested in that relationship. I may hate the person for a few minutes. But then, whether or not I say anything, I forget about that, too. Again, no lasting damage.
 
But when my anger runs deeper, and it’s at someone I care about, I have to do something with my anger. I have tried repressing my anger then, too, and it doesn’t work well. Over time my anger festers and begins to infect my relationship with the other person in all kinds of negative ways.
 
One of my on-going tasks is learning how to express my anger constructively, to say what I need to say, in a timely manner, without sulking, and without getting overly aggressive. It’s a work in progress for me.
 
Others have different challenges in dealing with their anger. Carrie has mellowed with age, but she used to have a quick anger reflex. For her, repression wasn’t the main problem. Controlling her anger was the bigger issue. (I should add that I did check with her to confirm that I had permission to say that!)
 
Anger, particularly within the context of important relationships, is a big deal. It’s one of the main things we talk about in pre-marital counselling sessions. We talk a LOT about communication, about fighting fair, and about processing anger as the key to a long and healthy marriage.
 
What is true in our relationships with other people is just as is true in our relationship with God. When we are angry at God, we have to do something with that anger.
 
And what we have to do with our anger at God is about the same as what we have to do with our anger in every important relationship: express it in appropriate ways, so that we can process it without damaging the relationship.
 
In our Gospel reading, to their credit, the disciples express their anger at Christ. Of course, the disciples are not perfect models of the Christian life until the Holy Spirit comes on them.
 
But we see the same thing in the Psalms, the prayers of ancient Israel. Many of the Psalms express anger at Israel’s enemies. A fair number of them express anger at God, too. That’s especially true of the Psalms we do NOT read on Sunday mornings. If you have been struck by the anger in some of our Sunday Psalms, I am here to tell you that others are much angrier.
 
We’ve just started the Psalms in our Friday Bible Study, and we looked at Psalm 39 this week. It’s one that we don’t pray together on Sundays. But that’s a shame.
 
The Psalmist begins by trying to be “silent and still” (vs. 2). But silence didn’t work for him. “My distress [only] grew worse, my heart became hot within me. While I mused, the fire burned” (vs. 2-3).
 
Finally, he couldn’t hold it in. He says to God, “Remove your stroke from me; I am worn down by the blows of your hand” (vs. 10).
 
And, in the very last verse of the Psalm (13), he begs God to “turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more.” Just leave me alone.
 
That’s an odd thing to say in a prayer!
 
And yet, how many of us have felt that way at some point in our lives? If not at God, then at someone we love?
 
And if I have to say that to Carrie sometimes, so that I can process my feelings and then resume our relationship in a healthy way, then it’s not surprising that I might need to say it to God as well.
 
Honesty and open communication are important in every relationship, most definitely including our relationship with God.
 
Thankfully, God is big enough to take it. And it’s better to bring whatever we are feeling to God in prayer, including our anger, or whatever other negative emotions we may be experiencing, than it is to pray as if everything is OK with us when it’s not. After all, God knows what we’re feeling anyway.
 
But, as in our other important relationships, so in our relationship with God, we express our anger as part of getting past our anger, of letting it go so that we can move on, so that we can get back to loving each other in more positive ways.
 
And the good news, the gospel, is that God’s love never wavers, no matter what we might be feeling and how obnoxiously we might express it. God loves us, and forgives us, and helps us to get over whatever has wounded us, so that our love for God can grow and mature.
 
I want to come back to the specific question the disciples ask Jesus in our reading: “Teacher, do you not care?”
 
If that’s our prayer to God, we can take Paul’s words to the Corinthians as God’s answer: “Our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to [my beloved] children—open wide your hearts also.”
 
And so, I thank God for inviting us to bring everything we are and everything we feel to God in prayer. I thank God for loving us straight through it all. And I pray that God will help us to open our hearts wider and wider, to God and to our neighbors. In Christ’s name. Amen.