Was Lack of Faith Rewarded?

In recent years, I have become less certain that I understand the point of the story of Jesus calming the storm. The bible story is well known enough and is repeated in all three gospels. I will use the story as described in Mark 4.35. (click here)

In summary, the disciples are in the boat with Jesus, when a storm brews up. Jesus is asleep, and they wake him up, demanding to know whether He is going to let them die. Jesus calms the storm and criticises them for their lack of faith. 

I am intrigued by a number of points in this story, but I will try to keep to just one of these. This question could be represented by “Were they rewarded for their lack of faith?” After all, by generally panicking, Jesus saved them; If was not the appropriate response, what should their response have been? How would Moses, for example, have reacted if he had been on the boat?

One of the lessons that is typically given from this story is that we should have more faith and trust in God. This is a good lesson. When things get tough, we should turn to God, but not in a desperate panic like the disciples “Are you going to let us die?”

One possible implication of Jesus’ criticism is that the response should have been to wake up Jesus, but in faith.  Would Moses even have bothered to wake up Jesus? The answer based on this line of thinking is “yes”.

I put forward five possible responses, including the response shown by the disciples:

1. Prayer with panic and lack of faith.

This is the response of the disciple and Jesus rebukes them for this. However, it is considerably better than nothing, has the benefit of being generally effective and has plenty of examples in the Old Testament, when the People of Israel “Cried to the Lord”, usually when they were being disciplined or punished for turning away from God.

2. Prayer with a request. This might be described as “I trust you, Lord, but I don’t like it and want to get out of here”

This has the benefit of honesty, even if the starting point is ourselves and what we want. This has a good biblical precedent in Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane “Lord, deliver me. But not my will, but Yours.”

3. Prayer with acceptance. This is trusting and also active. The question “Lord, do you want us to drown?” could be asked as a genuine and neutral question. i.e. “If the answer is yes, then that is fine.”

This is not a common experience among Christians that I know, although not unknown. Also I could not find any good examples of this in the Bible. However, I could imagine that sometimes it is the only way that we can deal with extremely difficult circumstances. 

4. “God, I do not know what is happening. What are you saying to me here? What should my response be?

That God uses difficult circumstances to challenge us and speak to us is probably a generally accepted truth. However again, the Bible does not give us many examples, so we should be cautious about this. The one example that does come to mind is from the “Book of Job”, and explained in the last 4 Chapters.

5. No response, not even a prayer, with complete acceptance. “Lord, I can accept whatever you want and whatever you do to me”. In this scenario, we do not even wake Jesus up, in which case, I guess, we drown. We don’t like this, as it is completely passive.

This is an interesting one and has the appearance of spirituality. It may have its place on some occasions, but examples of this in the Bible are in short supply. The only one that I could think of that supports this is one of the most famous verses from Psalm 23. “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” God’s presence is sufficient.

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Note: Other points which are worth some thought are:

- The disciples were experienced sailors. Why were they afraid? Whatever the answer is to this, what is the lesson?

- Did Jesus calm the storm to show his power? What is the purpose of this “Showing off”?

- Is the panic amongst the disciples significant?

- What happened to the boats that accompanied them? (Mark 4.36) (My son-in-law’s point)

He is a Jealous God (and He feels the pain)

Just in case you have been following the overall storyline, this is Key Belief Number 9.

I remember going to church as an 11 or 12 year old. Dragged might have been a better word. Our Sunday morning visit to the 10.30 service and then quickly back home for Sunday lunch, usually with plenty of shouting and screaming, probably from me.

My weekly visits to church service were disconnected from anything else that went on in my life. In fact, at the end of the service, to the extent that I prayed at all, I would say “See you the same time, next week, God”. It seems rather humorous or ridiculous in retrospect.   

But the absurdity of the statement was not at all obvious to me at the time. Actually, I do not know how it could have been obvious. Church was a compulsory event, like Latin and History. They had to be fitted into the diary, and dealt with before I could do the things that I wanted to do, such as watch television or play cricket. It was an obligation, which was dropped at the first opportunity.

And I do not suppose for one moment, that I was unique in this respect. What God made of all this, I have no idea. It could be patronising amusement, indifference or anger at the whole charade. I have no idea whether I ever learned something. I do not remember anything at all from this, although some chants from the “Sung Eucharist” still go through my head, when recalled from deep memory.

The whole thing had about as much to do with God, at least for me, as a game of cricket. God was remote and of no practical relevance. It had no relevance to either of us, I guess.

We could have had a fairly comfortable co-existence, God and I. Going to church on a Sunday these days is no longer “de rigor” from a social point of view, so I am not so sure what the benefit to me would have been. But God would have had another public supporter.

Of course, the whole thing is quite absurd. God has no interest in such a relationship. Neither would another person. “See you next week”, indeed. On the other hand, perhaps it is not so absurd, or at least many people might not feel that it is absurd. Perhaps that is how they live, in so far as God ever has a place in their lives.

It is one of my themes in these blogs that people, to the extent that they think of God at all, think of him as a kind of Father Christmas. He should do nice things generally and in particular do nice things for us. To the extent that he does not do this, then the response is “I could not believe in a God, who …..”

The Bible describes another side to God. He wants us for Himself, full-time, not part-time. The concept is not so strange, although people may find it difficult to conceive this in the context of God. The concept of jealousy in an established relationship, whether in marriage or in a partnership, is well understood and experienced by most adults. Marriage, in particular, is centred on faithfulness, rights and exclusiveness, at least as far as many aspects of the relationship as concerned. No one else, other than the one person in question has these rights.

When this relationship breaks down or one side is let down by the other side, the feelings of jealousy on the other side are easily aroused.

We don’t think of God as being jealous. I am not sure why not, but I can imagine that the word has overtones with which many people are uncomfortable. I described separately in an earlier blog, the thought that God requires us to obey him. Click here for Link.

The act of obedience can be seen in Father / Child relationship; or Employer / Employee relationship. The relationship here may be “I say; you do” and need not involve anything emotional.

But Jealousy is altogether different. God wants us for himself. This is not ownership of a thing, in the sense of “This is my car”, but in the sense of “This is my wife / husband”, together with the emotional pain when this is not returned. God feels the pain.

He wants our hearts. He wants it all. He insists on it. The Old Testament records God’s statement to the people of Israel and is the 2^nd of the 10 Commandments. Exodus20. 4-5. (Click for link). "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God."

It doesn’t get much clearer than that.