Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first comes to us from the Old Testament book of Job. Near the end of the book God addresses Job and reminds him that it is God who controls the sea and marked out the boundaries between the sea and the land. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is asleep in the stern of a boat. A strong storm blows in and his disciples fear the boat will be swamped and they will all die. When they wake Jesus, he commands the wind to stop and the seas to calm; when they do he asks his disciples why they were afraid. “How is it that you have no faith?”

It may almost be easier if you’re not familiar with the book of Job. For those of us who are familiar it’s hard to look at an individual passage without thinking of it in the context of the entire book. This may not be my best move, but I’ll give a brief synopsis of the book. Feel free to skip the next paragraph if you already know it.

The book opens with a dialogue between God and “Satan.” This “Satan” is not the devil, the Evil One, that we often think of. This one is more of an agent (my commentary calls him “something like a CIA agent”) who wanders the earth. God asks him if he has seen Job who is “blameless and upright” who “fears God and turns away from evil”? Satan responds by telling God that it’s easy for Job to be good as he has been blessed with health and wealth. Satan suggests that if all this were taken away, Job would curse God. And so God and Satan enter into a wager: Satan can take away all he wants from Job but cannot kill him. Satan then kills all of Job’s cattle, and then his children. After that Job is afflicted with painful boils all over his body after which his wife orders him to “curse God and die.” If that weren’t enough, three of his friends come to him and spend the lion’s share of the book telling Job he must have committed some sin to have caused all this suffering. All through this Job insists he had done nothing wrong and refuses to curse God. At the end of the book God addresses Job and his friends. God tells the friends that they have misrepresented God and God is angry with them. God reminds them that God alone created the universe and set everything in motion. This is where we find this first reading. After speaking, God restored Job even more wealth.

Reading that passage from Job it’s easy to think that God is angry with Job, as if Job had questioned God’s justice. But while Job complained, at times quite bitterly, about his condition he never cursed God or God’s justice.

This section of Job concerns the sea and how it was God who pent up the sea (ie, made dry land). Anyone who makes his livelihood on the water can tell you how much power is in the sea. Anyone who does not respect its power puts his life in grave danger. I believe that one of the reasons we find the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 such a compelling story lies in the hubris its builders showed, first in naming it Titanic, and then calling it unsinkable.

I have such a story in my own life. Twenty eight years ago this month I foolishly took a canoe (alone) out on Lake Ontario. About 30 minutes out I capsized and while I was able to crawl back into the canoe I couldn’t get back to land. Twenty hours (and one long night) later two fishermen rescued me. When I was recovering in the hospital I commented to one of the nurses that I was surprised to get so much media coverage. He responded: “Oh this type of thing happens all the time. We just don’t get many who survive.” I came away from that day (and night) with a renewed respect for the power of the sea.

The disciples in the Gospel didn’t need to be taught that lesson. They were fishermen and there were almost certainly times when the sea was rough but they couldn’t afford to take the day off. In this passage Jesus suggests that they cross the Sea of Galilee at night and then falls asleep. He must have the world’s soundest sleeper to not have awoken when the boat was in danger of sinking: it took the disciples to wake him up.

Once awake I find his reaction puzzling. It’s almost as if Jesus is grumpy from being awoken. He then rebukes the sea and asks his disciples why they lack faith. To their credit the disciples look on Jesus with renewed awe as he has shown them great power.

When Jesus asks why they are afraid he is really asking them why they are so cowardly. Again, just like God and Job, we can see this as Jesus expressing anger at his disciples, but I don’t think that’s the case here either. I think in both cases God and Jesus wanted to give their audiences a clear understanding of their power.

But we miss the point if we think of this just in terms of God’s and Jesus’ power. We also have to read these in the context of their love for us.

It’s become a mind numbing cliche to say “Don’t worry, God’s in charge” but there is great truth behind it. Nevertheless I’m always a little annoyed when someone tells me not to worry because God is in charge. There’s a part of me that feels that my legitimate fear is not being taken seriously.

And on further reflection, perhaps there’s something to that. We fear legitimate things: what if we lose our jobs and are not able to support our families? What if something tragic happens to someone we love? What if our retirement is suddenly exposed as a ponzi scheme? What do we do then?

But this healthy awareness that we may lose what we have often blocks our ability to enjoy what we have. Do you remember what fears kept you awake 20 years ago? Or 10 years ago? Or last year at this time? If you remember, did any of them happen?

Probably not. It seems the things that really crash into our lives are things we never saw coming. You’ve heard this from me before, but choosing to be a disciple of Jesus does not shelter us from suffering but it does promise another sunrise and another day to live in God’s love.

A few years ago I was in a job I loved. I felt valued and challenged, respected and liked. I felt I had as much job security as anyone could imagine and I was certain I was going to spend the rest of my career there. That worked well until the company went bankrupt and closed its doors. For all of my worrying I never saw this coming.

But just as I never imagined the sunset, I never even thought about a sunrise. Along with several of my coworkers I was hired by a startup and I’ve been there ever since. And while I sometimes think wistfully about my previous situation, I know that I’m in a place to have experiences I couldn’t have had before.

I’ve also learned that I’m more resilient than I thought. If, three years ago, you looked into your crystal ball and told me what was going to happen I would have turned into a blubbering idiot. But I survived because I could, and because I had to. And I believe much of it was because God was with me. God calmed the storms in my mind and allowed me to continue on a journey I needed to make.

In my work in hospice I’ve seen countless family members (including parents of young children) journey with a loved one to his or her death. Their grief is unimaginable and many have told me they would not be able to endure it. But they did. It wasn’t easy, and the prospect of facing the sunrise of a new day without their loved one tears at their hearts.

But they greet that sunrise every day and move on. In their darkest hour they have seen God calm the seas just enough for them to make just one more day, or even one more hour.

They’ve mastered the faith because they’ve had to. But they’ve done it.