William H. Willimon - "Does Jesus Care?" (June 22, 1997)

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-	Steven Crane wrote a poem.	0:08
	"A man said to the universe... 'I exist.'	0:15
	'Well, that may be true,'	0:21
	said the universe,	0:22
	'However, that has never created in me	0:25
	a sense of obligation to you.'"	0:31
	How many, like Crane,	0:37
	have cried out in their pain	0:39
	to the universe and have received nothing.	0:41
	Have you ever wondered,	0:49
	is there anyone out there who cares	0:50
	about us down here?	0:54
	Or, in time of pain, are we left	0:58
	mostly to our own devices?	1:00
	When we shall pray, as we shall later in this service,	1:05
	'Deliver us! Deliver us from evil!'	1:09
	are we only speaking to ourselves?	1:12
	Or do we really expect God to	1:18
	hear and to care and to act?	1:23
	Now, there is a Professor Davies	1:29
	in Adelaide, Australia,	1:32
	who is last year's recipient of the	1:35
	Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.	1:37
	And Professor Davies has much to say	1:41
	about how little threat is science to	1:44
	the Christian belief.	1:49
	And yet, in Dr. Davies book,	1:51
	he says that if the Christian faith is going	1:55
	to be credible to modern people	1:59
	we've got to get over our notion of	2:01
	what, he calls, an interventionist God.	2:05
	That is, a God who hears	2:09
	and who cares and who intervenes for our good.	2:11
	Because such a God, says Professor Davies,	2:16
	is not only an offense to reason,	2:19
	a rebel against the laws of nature,	2:22
	but also incredible to modern people.	2:24
	He asks the question, 'Do you really want a God	2:29
	who, from time to time, hears and steps in	2:34
	and reaches out, and acts?	2:38
	Do you really want that God?'	2:43
	I want you to keep Professor Davies' question in mind as	2:46
	you encounter today's gospel.	2:50
	You've heard Jane read the first lesson,	2:55
	in which, faced with a giant,	2:59
	little David takes matters into his hands,	3:02
	goes up against the giant and triumphs.	3:05
	But today's gospel... it's about people	3:09
	who come up against something so big	3:13
	they can't do anything about it;	3:16
	and what then?	3:17
	Here is today's gospel:	3:21
	"When evening had come, he said	3:25
	to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'	3:27
	And, leaving the crowd behind,	3:32
	they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.	3:34
	Other boats were with them.	3:38
	A great windstorm arose,	3:40
	and the waves beat into the boat,	3:42
	so that the boat was already being swamped.	3:44
	But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion,	3:48
	and they awoke him and said,	3:53
	'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'	3:55
	He woke up and then he rebuked the wind.	4:02
	He said to the sea 'Peace! Be still!'	4:05
	And the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.	4:09
	He said to them, 'Why are you afraid?	4:13
	Have you no faith?'	4:16
	And they were filled with great terror	4:19
	and they said to one another,	4:23
	'Who then is this, that even	4:24
	the wind and the sea obey him?'"	4:28
	This is the Word of the Lord.	4:32
	(audience replies with "Thanks be to God")	4:35
	Jesus is in the boat with his disciples.	4:37
	It's a story about Jesus in the boat,	4:40
	on the sea with his people.	4:42
	And it's therefore a story about us,	4:45
	because in a sense we are in the boat with Jesus.	4:48
	And it's like we're on a journey.	4:52
	The central space of this chapel,	4:55
	to this day, is called a nave,	4:57
	which comes from the Latin word 'navis' which means 'boat.'	5:00
	And if you look up at the ceiling of this	5:06
	chapel, it really does look something	5:08
	like an up-turned ship.	5:10
	Note that Jesus made his disciples get into the boat,	5:14
	saying, 'Let's go to the other side.'	5:19
	And so, they are here as we are here,	5:23
	because Jesus has invited us into the boat.	5:27
	And sailing with Jesus, it turns out, is no placid journey.	5:31
	Because no sooner than they launch out,	5:37
	then there's a great storm, and the waves rage,	5:39
	and the boat is threatened. And Jesus?	5:46
	Jesus is asleep...	5:52
	See him there on a cushion, sleeping placidly,	5:54
	curled up in the fetal position, sleeping like a baby,	5:59
	when everybody else is terrorized by the storm.	6:02
	The contrast between the peacefully sleeping Jesus	6:07
	and the terrified disciples... is sharp.	6:10
	And their question, maybe, is ours.	6:16
	To the sleeping Jesus they say,	6:21
	'Do you not care that we perish?'	6:24
	Don't you care?	6:31
	Jesus obviously doesn't care about the storm.	6:34
	But does he care about us?	6:40
	About those of us who do care about the storm?	6:43
	Storms, they can get rough.	6:49
	About this time of the year, I invariably think	6:53
	of a divinity school student whom I taught.	6:55
	He felt called by God to serve as a pastor	6:59
	to rural churches in North Carolina.	7:02
	And, amazingly, he found a woman who felt called	7:05
	by God to marry him and go into a lifetime of	7:08
	service in out-of-the-way places.	7:13
	And it was about this time of year they got married.	7:16
	They went on a honeymoon, and on their honeymoon,	7:18
	they decided to go on a bike trip through the mountains	7:21
	of North Carolina and they would camp out	7:25
	because this was the only honeymoon they could afford.	7:26
	And, second day out, she was struck by a car.	7:29
	She died a terrible, agonizing death.	7:34
	And I can imagine that young man crying out to God,	7:40
	"You called me into this ministry!	7:46
	You put me in this boat (so to speak)!	7:50
	You put her with me! You called us	7:55
	to launch out into the deep, onto the other side.	7:57
	Do you not care that we perish?"	8:03
	Now, on this beautiful day in June, it's	8:09
	easy to sit here in an air-conditioned chapel	8:12
	and think good thoughts about the world.	8:14
	But some of you known enough about life to know	8:19
	there are darker, more difficult days than this.	8:21
	In June, when you're on vacation, walking around	8:26
	a placid lake, hiking in the park,	8:30
	the nature world seems benevolent, benign.	8:33
	We modern people, maybe because we devise so many	8:38
	means of protecting ourselves from nature,	8:42
	we tend to be nature-romantics.	8:45
	But this story about Jesus and his disciples in a boat	8:49
	renders a very different world.	8:53
	A world where storms rise up from nowhere	8:57
	and nature is a perilous thing.	9:00
	If you've ever, say, suffered from cancer...	9:05
	I think you know that world.	9:10
	In cancer, normal, natural reproductive cellular processes,	9:14
	these natural workings of cells,	9:22
	go out of control.	9:25
	They reproduce with astonishing speed,	9:26
	oblivious to checks and balances in the body.	9:29
	That once placid lake, which was our body on most days,	9:33
	suddenly becomes an angry, raging sea.	9:39
	And I think this is a Bible story about that.	9:45
	Perhaps you thought there would be	9:51
	smooth sailing with Jesus.	9:52
	Maybe you thought that with Jesus in the boat	9:55
	there would be no storm, no waves, no fear.	9:58
	No... Almost every page of Mark's gospel proclaims	10:03
	Jesus provokes a storm...	10:11
	When Jesus is near, the wind picks up	10:17
	and the waves begin to beat against the side of the boat;	10:20
	and there is trouble.	10:24
	Now, if you are enjoying smooth sailing now,	10:28
	if this Sunday in June is pleasant and peaceful,	10:31
	maybe you've got nothing to learn from this story.	10:37
	However, be assured that life, being what it is,	10:42
	and discipleship with Jesus being what it is,	10:47
	there will be storms.	10:52
	As comedian George Carlin says in his new book,	10:59
	"Look kid, we're all pre-cancerous."	11:02
	So listen to the story.	11:08
	When that physician comes in	11:11
	after your yearly physical and you can read it	11:13
	on her face before she speaks the word...	11:17
	When your startled, roused up by the late-night call	11:23
	and the voice on the other end says,	11:27
	"I've got some bad news for you."	11:29
	How does that feel?	11:35
	It feels like waves beginning to beat,	11:38
	and the boat begins to sink,	11:43
	and the water comes up and you cry out...	11:47
	What is it you cry?	11:52
	"Lord, do you not care	11:55
	that we perish?"
	Even to ask that question, even to cry out,	12:02
	is to assume that there may be a God who cares;	12:05
	and who, not only cares, but who acts.	12:09
	The deists assume that God created the world	12:15
	and set certain natural processes in motion	12:21
	and then absconded,	12:24
	leaving us to our own devices, the 'Deus absconditus.'	12:26
	"Storm at sea? Well, sorry, there's certain	12:32
	natural laws which have been established,	12:35
	certain meteorological processes, and when they converge,	12:38
	there are storms.	12:43
	Nothing to be done about it,	12:46
	it's just sort of the way things have been set up."	12:47
	Jesus, unconcerned about the raging waves	12:52
	and the wind and the sea,	12:57
	is concerned about his people.	13:03
	The disciples who ventured forth with him	13:07
	on the sea, in the boat.	13:10
	At their cry, Jesus rouses,	13:13
	rebukes the waves and the wind and there is calm.	13:16
	The story says Jesus doesn't just empathetically care,	13:21
	but he hears, and he acts and saves.	13:27
	In the storm, when the illness,	13:34
	the storm, the wind, the waves, are at their worst...	13:39
	When the clouds turn dark, when all seems lost...	13:42
	There is this strong voice.	13:47
	"Quiet! Be still!"	13:52
	This story doesn't explain how;	13:57
	it asserts that, in the storm,	13:59
	Jesus hears, and Jesus cares, and Jesus speaks and saves.	14:05
	Here is good news	14:11
	in the middle of the storm.
	And yet, permit me just one observation before we're done.	14:19
	You'll note that this story begins in	14:26
	stormy, fear, anguish, terror.	14:29
	"Teacher, don't you care that we perish?"	14:33
	But the curious thing is that	14:38
	even though the storm is stilled,	14:41
	the story ends in terror. Did you pick that up?	14:45
	What was the disciples' reaction	14:50
	to Jesus' strong rebuke of the wind and the waves,	14:52
	his intervention?	14:55
	Mark says that if the disciples were grateful,	14:59
	or if they were thankful, or if they were	15:02
	pleased that the storm had ended,	15:04
	any of those emotions were overcome by another	15:07
	stronger emotion: terror, fear.	15:10
	The calming of the wind and the waves	15:15
	did anything but calm the disciples.	15:19
	Isn't that curious?	15:21
	At the end of the story, they're still terrified.	15:25
	They're shaking with terror.	15:27
	"Who is this?" They ask to themselves. "Look!	15:29
	Even the wind and the waves obey him!"	15:32
	Now, do you find that odd?	15:37
	Or do you find that perfectly understandable?	15:40
	The story begins with the disciples terrorized	15:44
	by the wind and the waves, and the story ends	15:47
	with the disciples terrorized... by Jesus.	15:52
	Now, back to Professor Davies in Australia.	15:59
	Professor Davies says we modern educated people	16:02
	just can't stomach an interventionist God.	16:04
	A God who hears, and who cares, and who acts.	16:09
	And Professor Davies says it's because we're so	16:14
	skeptical and scientific and modern.	16:17
	How little he knows us.	16:22
	Because when you think about it, there is	16:26
	something kind of reassuring...	16:28
	To live in a world where God may care empathetically...	16:32
	but God impotently does nothing.	16:41
	There's something kind of calming to know that	16:46
	that in the boat, and in the storm, it's all left up to us.	16:49
	When faced with some giant Goliath coming at us	16:56
	about the best we can hope for is some little David	16:59
	to come out, pick up a rock, and do something for us;	17:01
	some hero, otherwise, we're without hope.	17:03
	We can adjust to that.	17:09
	If you live very long in this life,	17:14
	you'll know about tragedy.	17:16
	You'll know that bad things happen to good people everyday.	17:17
	Life can be terribly unfair.	17:21
	In fact, sometimes it seems that the worst tragedies	17:23
	in this life happen to the best people.... You know that.	17:26
	And I think we human beings have a lot of	17:31
	different means for dealing with tragedy.	17:34
	Adjustment, cynicism... depression...	17:37
	wishful thinking... denial...	17:42
	But what if God is also dealing with our tragedy	17:50
	with surprising intervention?	17:56
	Strong words, rebuke of the injustice,	17:59
	a calming voice amid the storm.	18:03
	What if we are not the only ones in the boat?	18:07
	What if it is not all left up to us?	18:11
	What if there always exists a possibility	18:16
	that our anguished cries for help may be heard?	18:19
	Well, then things are more open-ended than we once thought.	18:25
	And... there's always hope.	18:29
	There's always a way.	18:34
	Even when there seems no way.	18:37
	What if? What if things are never over until He,	18:40
	in His loving wisdom, says, "It's over."	18:45
	Here's a story which begins with Jesus rebuking	18:51
	the wind and the waves, but the story	18:55
	ends with Jesus rebuking his very own people.	18:59
	"How come you've got so little faith?	19:05
	Why are you afraid?"	19:08
	That's interesting.	19:14
	I don't know if we want an interventionist God	19:17
	as much as we may think.	19:20
	As a young pastor, I remember, I was visiting	19:25
	a woman who was in therapy for her cancer.	19:28
	And things had been going well, exceedingly well,	19:34
	in her therapy, but still she complained	19:38
	and she lamented her fate.	19:43
	And I remember the afternoon a relative of hers and I	19:47
	sat at her bedside and listened to her tale of woe,	19:50
	and her tale of woe seemed sort of odd	19:54
	considering that the doctors said that they were	19:56
	pleased they were making progress.	19:59
	And I remember on the way out of the hospital,	20:03
	her aunt said to me, "You know if she ever got better,	20:06
	it would kill her."	20:13
	(audience laughs)	20:15
-	What does she mean by that?	20:18

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Does Jesus Care?" (June 22, 1997)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:08. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 20:25.
This sermon discusses whether God intervenes in people’s lives, especially in times of suffering and pain. The preacher argues that God does act and deliver people, although not always in the ways that people want or expect (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49s1m070

Date:

June 22, 1997

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Mark

Chapter and Verse:

Mark 4:35-41

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0860
ref9872_r9s
uachapelsermaud
duke:320716
dcrau001505
ark:/87924/r49s1m070
fc549606-b70a-46a1-866b-a1c9e2b9d1ea

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "Does Jesus Care?" (June 22, 1997)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Does Jesus Care?" (June 22, 1997)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "Does Jesus Care?" (June 22, 1997)

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Duke University Archives

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