Navigating through the Storms - Mark 4:35-41

High winds, downed trees, power outages, flash flooding, road closures – from what we have experienced here locally lately, we can certainly relate to the stormy conditions that we just heard about in the gospel. We had our own share of violent squalls. Many of us were frantically scrambling to rescue porch furniture, storage sheds, and anything else that wasn’t bolted down to keep the damage at a minimum.

Storms, because of their power and unpredictability, are often depicted in the scriptures (including today’s first reading with Job battling his own storms) as symbols or metaphors for evil and chaos. Stories like these give us guidance as we navigate through the storms of our lives.

The question for us is: What do we do when we encounter the rough seas in our lives? Some of us might be in a place where life has become really challenging, if not overwhelming. It may feel like the waters are just overtaking us. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything we can do to turn things around or undo the damage that has been done.

What has caused the storms? It might’ve been something that someone did to us that has caused great harm. It could be something we did to ourselves. Maybe we’ve done something in our lives or made some decisions that have put us in a tough spot. Whatever it was, we feel that we will have to carry the burden for a long time. We’re just stuck!

I was watching a YouTube commentary by Fr Mike Schmitz, where he used an expression that I’ve not heard before, though the word itself is very commonly used. The word was “agency”. He said we always have agency. Now, this isn’t the agency that may come to mind, some sort of organization that provides a service. This kind of agency has more to do with something we possess. In social science, agency is defined as the capacity an individual has to act independently and make free choices.

So, how does having agency apply to navigating through the storms of life? Well, there are two points. Both of them remind us of the great gift that we have of freedom that has been granted to us by God.

1-With our freedom, we must avoid the pitfall of what might be described as learned helplessness. There was a professor named Dr Martin Seligman from the University of PA, who did this experiment to demonstrate what learned helplessness is. He put these animals in a confined area where, no matter what they did, they would receive a little shock – they were physically unable to affect their circumstances.

And so then he brought them into a situation where they could affect their circumstances because a partition that had prevented them from going to the other side of the confined area, where there was no shock, was removed. All they would had to do is just move to the shock-free side.

They were in a situation where no matter what they did they couldn’t escape their circumstances (the shock), and then he brought them into a situation where they could, but they had learned that they were helpless. And so they didn’t move, even though they were in a place of discomfort, a place of pain. They had learned that, no matter what they did, things weren’t going to get any better, so they gave up.

Sometimes people are in that kind of situation too, where they are like “I fought and I fought. I tried to change things but I couldn’t change them. I’m just going to keep running into that same wall. So now, I just throw up my hands and say, “It is what it is. This is my life now”.

But no. Each of us still has agency. We are free to actually act on our circumstances. We don’t have stay put in confining situations at work, abusive relationships, unfulfilling career options, or whatever it that is keeping us from being our best selves.  We are free to make decisions.

Now, it could be that we’re dealing with a serious sickness. Maybe we’re dealing with a cancer or a paralysis of some sort. Say, someone we love has promised their life to us and they have left, and will not return. These are realities that we might not be able to change. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have agency. Just because I can’t do everything, doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. We still have agency.

And that’s where the second part of agency comes into play. It’s where you and I have the most agency.  The key area where we have the most influence is in our heart. And what I mean by that is there are many circumstances, where we can allow ourselves to become bitter, that our circumstances can lead us to begin to resent – resent others, resent our situation, resent ourselves, resent our own past choices.

Here’s what we are invited to this evening: We must do absolutely all that we possibly can that’s within our power (we have agency) to resist bitterness, to resist resentment. I might not be able to change my circumstances, but as long as my heart remains free of bitterness and resentment, I remain internally free. We may be externally enslaved to something out of our control, but if internally, we do everything we can do to resist bitterness and resentment, we remain truly free.
We can’t always control our situation or circumstances completely, but we can always make the decision to be like Jesus. Jesus submitted himself to the cross. He submitted himself to the Roman government. He submitted himself to torture. He submitted himself to all of these things yet he remained free of bitterness. He remained free of resentment, all the way to the point where he could freely say from the cross, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” He didn’t change his circumstances but he had agency which he demonstrated by not allowing his suffering to callous his heart.

Question: Is your heart calloused right now?  Has your heart become bitter or resentful over things that have befallen you lately? It happens to all of us at times. But we have a task now. If we acknowledge the callous, if we acknowledge the bitterness, if we acknowledge the resentment, we have a task, and that task is to do everything we can to be free, do everything we can to be free of the bitterness.

Here’s the invitation to us: Surrender it! What does that mean?  It means put it under the Lord’s dominion. It is confessing to Jesus, “I have this bitterness in my heart and I can’t get rid of it on my own. I have circumstances in my life that I just cannot shake. I have this situation and I can’t change it on my own. But what I am going to do is give it up to you. I can say, ‘God, what I am going to do is to place my bitter heart under your sovereignty, my circumstances under your dominion. Dear God, you are now the Lord of it all.” You know, that doesn’t mean that he is going to necessarily change my circumstances. It just means that I have surrendered it. And he can calm the turbulence in my heart.
 
This being Father’s Day weekend, I was reading a little article from Erma Bombeck who was talking about what fathers do. Of course it was a bit dated, but many of the characteristics that she ascribed to good earthly fathers is what we can expect we can see in our heavenly Father. She said fathers listen more than they talk. They let the kids make mistakes. They allowed the kids to fall from their first two-wheeler without having a heart attack. He reads the newspaper (nowadays, looks at his cell phone) while they were trying to parallel park the car for the first time. A good father doesn’t fight their battles for them. And as a kid, you always felt better after confiding with them.

Many of you know that I’ve worked for the local Catholic Cemetery for the last year and a half. My role is to help families pre-plan, but I also get to spend a lot of time ministering to people. Life becomes really real at the cemetery.
I’d like to share with you a letter that I came across one day recently that apparently was left at a deceased father’s grave by his son, who is going through some storms in his life. The letter had blown away clear up to the driveway by our office where I picked it up.  It’s a beautiful letter in a lot of ways and I bet that you’ll agree with me that it demonstrates the parallel between a good earthly father and our heavenly Father. This could easily be a prayer written for God’s ears. I’ve edited this a bit to clean up the language and change the names:

Here’s the letter:

Hey Dad,

I love you… I’m sorry. I miss you so much! Please give everyone a hug for me. I feel like I’m messing up so bad!  I wish you were here.  Please help me. I don’t know what I am doing about mom, or life, or Leslie, or anything. I met this girl and I love her more than the world. I think that she feels the same, even if she says otherwise.

Should I hold on and keep fighting?  Should I let go?  What should I do dad? I’m so lost… What do I do about mom?  What do I do about life? Please, guide me dad!  I need your help more than ever. I love you. I miss you. Happy Father’s Day!

Love, Kevin


Sounds like a tender hearted young man that knows the value of surrender!

So we can pull all this together with this prayer to God: Dear Lord, help us to deal with the stormy conditions in our lives. Remind us that we do have agency.  Let us not fall into the trap of learned helplessness. We are not victims who will settle for being less than you made us to be. But if we are in a negative situation that is beyond our control, help us to be more like your Son who, though he was forced to suffer, didn’t allow himself to become bitter, resentful or calloused.  We surrender our lives to your sovereignty, because only you can calm our turbulence. And as Kevin said, guide us dad, we need your help more than ever!

Amen!