I Sam.17:32-49
PS.9:9-20
2 Cor.6:l-l3
Mark 4:35-41
Pentecost 3
Proper 7B RCL
HE 2A 10:00
CRISIS INTERVENTION*
Credit: Pulpit Resource 6/19/88
Prev.preached: 88,91,00,03
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Crisis Intervention is a term we hear often today. It is effectively used through telephone hot lines, community health centers, pastoral counseling centers, and other kinds of psychological first aid carried on by hospitals and private practitioners.
Countless people have been helped through crisis intervention: people on the verge of suicide, victims of rape and abuse; and those who suffer through the crises of AIDS or divorce or widowhood, migration, unemployment, illness or injury, accidents or imprisonment, retirement or midlife crisis, and all the natural and man-made disasters - fires, floods, tornadoes, airplane crashes.
In the Gospel reading for this week, we have a case of crisis intervention. The disciples had started out for an evening's relaxation after a hard day, and Jesus Himself was so tired that He took a nap at one end of the boat. The crisis is twelve frightened disciples in a sinking boat, in one of those sudden storms that are common on the Sea of Galilee. The intervenor is Jesus, who is also in the boat, but He is sound asleep. As the boat fills with water, the alarmed disciples awaken Jesus, for they have "that sinking feeling", which comes with a crisis. Jesus intervenes by hushing the storm and hushing the disciples too, and then He makes His point, that faith is the antidote for a crisis: "Why are you afraid?" He asks; "have you no faith?"
Faith of course has to do with trust in God, and that is where we fall short. It is not that we do not trust God - but we do not trust Him enough. So our prayer must be what the disciples said in another context: "Lord, increase our faith" - or what a distraught father said to Jesus, "Lord, I believe: help my unbelief."
A financial crisis like what this country and others are going through now, and in far too many personal and family bank accounts - is caused by an insufficiency of capital for carrying on the financial undertakings which have been set going. We could also understand FAITH as the capital in most of the crises of life, and when there is an insufficiency of capital, an insufficiency of faith, a crisis comes about. Faith, more faith, is the answer to crisis. It was so for the disciples, and it is so for us today, for when it comes to crises, we are all in the same boat. And we have the word of Jesus: "If you have faith as even a grain of mustard seed, you will be able to move mountains": that is, the crises will be no longer crises - still there but no longer crises.
Now this is Fathers' Day, and it is interesting that those whom we remember as father (or mother) figures in our lives, are quite often those who have given us faith, have given us spiritual capital with which to cope with life: those are the ones we remember most deeply.
Let me continue with another account of crisis intervention and increased faith.
A prominent Presbyterian pastor was in a doctor's office for an appointment. The doctor's assistant put her head around the corner and said, "You're from Fourth Church, aren't you?" "Yes," the pastor said, wondering what was to come next. "My husband and I have heard you preach sometimes. I'm from the Assemblies of God Church, and I want to tell you about my experience."
In short sentences the story came out. "God saved me ... I gave my life to God ... and guess what? It all tumbled in! I developed a heart condition; "my husband lost his executive job, and recently died of cancer."
The pastor started to mumble a few words about God's mysterious ways, thinking that that was what the woman wanted. But she cut in, "So what? What's new?" And all his theological training became impotent before her two-word logic. "So what? What's new?" Do you know what God told me?," she said: "Why not? Why should you be spared the crises of life that everyone else must go through?' And then she said something most unusual: "One day I said to God, 'Lord, You've forgiven me. Now I forgive You'."
Do you think that sounds insolent or blasphemous? Well, it is if you think of God as some remote Being who is out of touch with our day-to-day struggle. But if you know that God is our Father who cares and loves in ways beyond imagining, then we cannot cope until we come to God with all our anger about so much in our lives, and our resentments, and set matters right with God; that is, we need to forgive God. It is then that we begin to realize that God is right in the same boat with us, and He can calm the storms in our lives, and set our hearts at peace.
I have mentioned before from this pulpit that we can offer our angry prayers to God, and the specific place where we do it is at the breaking of the Bread at the Eucharist. Of course, we get those broken pieces of our anger back in Communion - but now with God's strength and power.
A lot of people think that Christianity says, "God is love; therefore He will not let anything bad happen to us" But that is nonsense. What Christianity really says is this: "God is love; therefore nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." Look it up in the eighth chapter of Romans. God is love; therefore nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
The very next section (5:1-20) of Mark tells of the healing of the demon-possessed man who lived among the tombs - a mental storm every bit as severe as the storm on the lake. Jesus calms the mental storm as well.