A long, long time ago, Nate and I were shopping for our first home. In 2001 in Reno, it was one of those competitive markets for buyers, so you had to be on your toes to have a prayer of getting a house. So, I was surprised by how much I liked the house we ultimately bought, because it was “sitting” on the market. And by sitting, it was on the market for a week without an offer. So not really sitting, but in a market like that, I wondered what the problem was.

Turns out the reason it was sitting on the market was it had ugly blue carpet, at least according to the agent. She said people often have trouble seeing beyond the present state of a house to imagine what could be. Maybe the all the many HGTV shows since then have changed that problem for folks, but at the time, it was very handy for us to bid on a house in a hot market with no competition. So, hurray for ugly blue carpet!

Since then, we have joked about blue carpet, because it did become something of a nemesis for me. I hated this carpet, but it took us a while to be able to change it. So of course it became a joke that just kept going.

After reading the gospel this week, I thought perhaps the phrase ‘blue carpet’ should get an upgrade from joke punchline for me to being a call to discipleship, a reminder to have faith and trust in the promises of new life in Christ.

Here’s why. In our gospel today, our disciples are terrified for their lives. Now, to be fair to the disciples, their situation was a little more serious than blue carpet ruining the vibe in their cute new house. But emotions can still run high in both situations, right?

Now, these guys were likely experienced sailors. They probably knew when they were about to die versus when the boat was just a bit rocky. And yet here’s Jesus, relaxed and asleep. How annoying that would have been to KNOW you’re dying and your savior, your messiah is asleep. What good is a sleeping savior!?

I imagine one of them kicking Jesus’ foot to wake him up before yelling at him about not caring about their imminent death. They were likely soaked, scrambling with ropes and oars. And then there’s Jesus, asleep. In my imagination, somehow his pillow isn’t even soaked. Somehow Jesus is having a very different experience than everyone else. How could this be?

Perhaps it’s a question of perspective. Up to this point in Mark, Jesus’ healings and miracles have been for others. The disciples had yet to be delivered and saved by Jesus. Maybe they had learned a lot, or been transformed on some level by being witness to Jesus’ ministry for others.

But everything is different when it’s your body on the line. Deliverance is a lot more meaningful when it’s your need hanging out in the wind. And faith is a lot harder to come by when it’s your suffering or the suffering of someone you dearly love that needs to be lifted.

I certainly find it a lot easier to have faith and see beyond the current hopeless situation when it’s not me. When it is me, you will likely find me kicking the foot of a sleeping, super chilled out Jesus, demanding that he be as upset as I am.

But Jesus is settled, calm, apparently sleepy after a day’s work of ministry, and he’s grounded in the promises of God for all of us.

As we come to church today, we too may feel we are stuck in hopeless situations. All we may see are massive waves. All we feel is the heaving of the boat in the dark, with the water gathering around our ankles or shins. All we see is what we have to be afraid and what we have to lose. All we know is that it’s up to us to handle it. All the while, Jesus is resting with a miraculously dry pillow. But not asleep to our struggle, but resting in the essential goodness and wholeness of our lives, our world, and God’s creation.

So, not to brag or anything, but do you see how very Jesus-like I was when we bought our house, despite the blue carpet? Do you see how I looked beyond the limitation of the blue carpet to trust in the emerging new color palette for our house? Huh? You should all be very impressed!

I’m kidding, of course, but the blue carpet dilemma is not really that different than how we are with our big problems. When we’re afraid, we can get so focused on what is wrong. We can see ugly blue carpet in an otherwise great house and see it as a deal-breaker. We can look at the big waves in our lives and think we’re goners, while Jesus is chillin’ even though he’s in the boat with us in the same situation.

So, if you feel like you’re in the boat right now with these disciples, that you too are about to be drowned, and you’re wondering, “Why is Jesus asleep?,” you’re in good company. You’re with the disciples, those chosen by Jesus to spread the Good News.

You’re also in the company of every human who has ever lived, because at some point, we’re all going to feel like we’re in the boat, about to die, and we’re alone in fixing our situations.

We may feel this way, but that doesn’t make it true.

I have come to believe that God is a God of consent. What I mean is that God may not calm your storms until you ask and even then, likely not in the way you want. That said, I would bet that many of us could tell a story or two about God only getting busy in helping us after we finally reach the end of our capacities and finally ask for help.

Are these stories of ours simply other versions of this gospel, of Jesus chillin’ in the boat with us until we ask for help, even if that ask comes in the form of yelling and kicking?

Julian of Norwich was a Christian mystic who had a series of revelations as a young woman in the 1300s. Her writings have been studied over the centuries and have been a source of solace for many. In one of her writings, she wrote Jesus’ answer to her question about suffering. He ended with these words to her: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Doesn’t this sound a bit like Jesus being chill in the boat while everyone else is not chill in the boat? Another mystic, Thomas Merton, wrote about a “hidden wholeness” in the world, the Kingdom of God ever present and yet also hidden from our experience. Like Julian of Norwich, who lived in England during the plague and Europe’s ever-present wars, Merton did not have his head in the sand about the difficulties of life. Neither of them were simple-minded Pollyanna types. These wise disciples of Christ were paying deep, contemplative attention to their world and its miseries and yet saw in its depths a “hidden wholeness.”

I wonder if this “hidden wholeness” is indeed what Jesus was so imbued with that he slept comfortably while the others were struggling. He knew all was well, that the Kingdom of God was present, while the disciples only saw their lonely struggle. Perhaps the invitation to us is to look and see that this hidden wholeness is indeed present.

Yes, we struggle. Yes, we are afraid. And yet there is a hidden wholeness that is also available to us. The Kingdom of God is always present, even if our experiences are fleeting. We are invited to be grounded in this larger reality, to trust more in God’s promises than our fears of the present moment, and to continually acknowledge the essential goodness of God’s Creation in which we move and have our being. Perhaps in this way, we too can be the calm in the storm as Jesus is. And we can be that for the sake of ourselves and all those around us.

AMEN