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Do You Have No Faith? Mark 4:35-41
I am getting ready for the General Convention and have
gone through the materials to be read before as well as
observing the tension among clergy, laity and
congregations about the future of the Episcopal Church.
What is going to happen? No one really knows because we
are part of a democratic church and most importantly is
that we depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and
our good faith.
It would seem that we are in the middle of a storm and
that the Master is asleep and does not care about our
safety. Like the disciples, we need to awake the Master
and tell him that we are in midst of a storm. Do we
really want to do that, or do we feel that we have the
power to calm the storm? Perhaps we feel that we should
not bother the Master and that we can solve this problem
if we can just sit and talk to each other and make some
compromise. By the time you read this you will already
know what took place at the convention since I am
writing this meditation a week before the General
Convention.
My sharing does not only have to do with the results of
the decisions made at the General Convention, but also
with storms that may be happening in our congregation or
in our own personal lives where we need to wake him up
and invite him in to calm the storms. When we sit around
a table to discuss our problems and we cannot reach a
compromise, then it is the time to invite the Master in
the midst and have him calm the storm or show us how.
But there is something about inviting the Master in the
midst of our personal situations. Do we trust him to
come into our lives and will we be committed to follow
up on doing what he tells us to do? That is the
important part of this invitation. After the storm Jesus
begins to question his disciples about their faith: “How
come you don’t have any faith?”
So it seems that Jesus was awakened just to give them a
helping hand during the storm. “Work with us and do not
sleep in the midst of this storm,” was perhaps their
concern. They did not really know that Jesus would have
the power to calm the storm. Now that they have
experienced his power, Jesus is asking them about their
faith.
The bottom line in inviting Jesus to take part of our
problems is to realize that he has the power to write
straight in a crooked line. Because we have that faith
in Jesus, he can do more than that. Faith in Jesus is to
know him, be a part of him and to help him in the
building of the Kingdom of God. He also invites us to be
one with him as he is one with his Father in heaven.
When we live that faith, then we can trust that he will
be awake and with us amidst our problems, not only to
solve them, but for us to deal with them with faith and
love.
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