Brief synopsis of the readings: Our first reading comes from the Old Testament book of Job. Job asks why a good person suffers and God answers him by reminding Job that he (God) shut the doors holding the sea. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is with his disciples and suggests they get into a boat and cross to the other side. He was asleep in the boat when a storm blew up and the boat was in danger of being swamped. The panicked disciple woke Jesus who calmed the seas. He then criticized his disciples for not having enough faith.

One of the challenges of our faith is seeing God in different situations and coming up with a singular understanding of God. This is a complex and lifelong task; as a matter of fact in the Old Testament God has different names. In some places he is called Jaweh or Elohim. At times Jesus refers to God as Abba (literally “Daddy”). In other situations God is referred to as El Shaddai: God of the Mountaintop, or more familiarly, God Almighty. This God is a God who is so strong and powerful as to have no equal. El Shaddai is a God not to be messed with. The good news in this image of God is that with God on our side we can feel safe. The bad news is that a God this powerful can also frighten us, and it often does.

And it’s little wonder that when Job and Mark use the imagery of the sea, and a God who can tame it. From our earliest days we’ve feared the sea but have also depended on it. Our bodies need essentially daily hydration and a spring is a universal sign of life and refreshment. But nothing has the power of destruction more than flooding. Noah’s Ark, the Titanic, Hurrican Katrina. While no healthy person welcomes death, the idea of dying by drowning strikes us as particularly grisly.

And so if the sea gives us both life and fear, how do we view a God who is more powerful? A God that can contain the sea and calm the storm? Well, we do recognize that a God that powerful can also give us all we need for life. As a matter of fact, he has. But we also fear a God that can cause the Noah’s Ark flood.

Carrying this further, we see this dichotomy in all our leaders. We crave a leader who is all powerful but we also recognize that this same leader can turn against us and destroy everything he promised to protect. Almost exactly 100 years ago people in Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union looked to leaders who demanded absolute authority and promised safety for “those like us.” By 1953 all of them were dead and the ashes of World War II still smoldered. I believe that we’re still not done learning that lesson but unfortunately the that well founded fear can bleed into our image of God even though we profess belief in an all loving and caring God.

Some of that fear comes from stories like Noah’s Ark. There are also passages that speak of God as disciplinarian that can be interpreted as “we should accept suffering as punishment from God so that we’ll be better disciples.” That troubles me because that suffering requires us to figure out what we’ve done to deserve punishment. In fact that’s what Job’s friends did to him: “You must have sinned for these bad things to happen to you.” But any parent will tell you that you never punish a child without telling him what he did wrong. That’s just cruel.

That’s bad enough but I’m frustrated with all the ways we say: “Do what I want you to do or God will punish you.” That’s wrong on a few levels but mostly because we assign our flawed sense of justice to God. We may fear that people we don’t like will take away those things we want but God doesn’t. Those whose sexual orientations make us uncomfortable doesn’t mean God shares our prejudices. If we don’t understand something and condemn it we shouldn’t put it on God and we particularly shouldn’t label others as “unchristian.” We can’t believe that God’s justice comes down on everyone but his blessing comes down only on us.

The Christian pastor Benjamin Cremer has an interesting quotation: “Beware of any Christian movement that demands the government be an instrument of God’s wrath but never a source of God’s mercy, generosity, or compassion.” I love this quotation because it shows the worst of us. It shows that we are not even willing to stand up for our own ignorance or discomfort and instead put the blame on God.

Countless times Jesus was clear in his acceptance of those on the margins. Nobody understood the reasons behind leprosy or infertility but Jesus was clear that these were not punishments from God but were instead opportunities for healing, mercy and compassion. If we are to truly be disciples and followers of Jesus we need to not only understand that God’s infinite power points to love, but to do so ourselves.

God is not a tyrant. Nor does God use power to settle scores or seek revenge. God is the leader who cares most of all of his people. He is, if I can use an earthly example, more Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. The fact that their parties (the Republican party and the African National Congress) have strayed from these two men should remind us of the frailty of our use of power.

But it shouldn’t make us see ourselves as God’s enforcer. God does not get drunk on power or enjoy his use of strength. When Jesus calmed the seas he didn’t move the storm over to other people. He didn’t send the storm in the path of those the disciples didn’t like, even if the disciples thought they deserved it. If we see ourselves wandering from the commandment of love it says more about us than it does about those around us.

Finally, imagine if the sea provided us only with life and beautiful sunsets. That’s how we should see God.