On Election Day this year, I heard an excellent sermon by a recent graduate of Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology – the Rev. Kristen Pope. Looking intently into the computer monitor framed by other Zoom participants, Kristen confessed that when she accepted the invitation to preach on November 3, she did not realize that it would be Election Day, a day fraught with heaviness and divisiveness. She went on to deliver a healing and challenging message inspired by the words of Jesus to the disciples during a storm at sea, “Why are you afraid?” (Mark 4:40 NRSV)

I am convinced that this is the one thing that unites America – we are afraid. I have heard the public and private confessions of people voting for one candidate or another simply because they are afraid – afraid for the future for their children, grandchildren, afraid for the economy and jobs, afraid of accessible healthcare, afraid of higher taxes and big government, afraid of the pandemic, afraid of global warming, afraid that black lives matter, or blue lives matter, or all lives matter, afraid of white privilege, white supremacy, afraid of losing, afraid…

It is the one thing most every voting American agrees on – we are afraid. And for people of faith who voted on one side or the other of the political divide, we are particularly afraid that God must not matter to the “other side.” The gospel writer of Mark uses the term “other side” often. The other side is where demons dwell. The other side is where different people live with different languages, customs, beliefs. The other side includes the powerful and influential as we well as the forgotten and neglected. Jesus is often going to the other side according to Mark’s Gospel (five times to be exact).

On the way to the other side, as the storm was swamping the boat, Jesus was asleep in the stern. The disciples woke him up and said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (4:38)

“Do you not care…?”

The early church used the image of a boat as a symbol for the church. The gospel story itself is a picture of the ancient and contemporary church – swamped with fear, some of it wondering that Jesus must not care, does not matter, does not count, especially for the other side.

Jesus looks to his disciples, then and now, and said, “Why are you afraid?”

How would you answer? I know I have many things on my mind, within my heart, that cause me fear. It is enough to sink any boat.

And I must also confess that I have little patience with the other side. The other side oftentimes disturbs me and leaves me discouraged. Sometime the other side really is dangerous giving me good reason to be afraid. Like I said, the fear of the other side is enough to sink a boat.

I am not sure where to take my fear. It is as real as yours, and during election week I have lost some sleep over it. Maybe you have too.

The late Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote a seminal work in 1938, “I and Thou.” Buber writes that we are created in relationship, but when we treat others as objects to be used, vilified, exploited, or neglected we diminish our sacred birthright. The “Thou” of the other is reduced to “it.”

The only way I can get to the “Thou” of another is to risk the journey to the other side and look, learn, and speak to the fear. Without a doubt there is violence, hate, and treachery. The risk is real. Yet I cannot let the fear define or paralyze me, otherwise I am left alone and fearful and less of a human being created in God’s image.

If it is true that the one thing that unites us all in America is that we are afraid, then the only way through our fear is to make our way to the other side and join with the work of God meeting the demonic, the misunderstood, the forlorn, and the neglected, believing in something bigger than our fearful expressions, believing that a “Thou” is possible.

Otherwise the boat is not going to make it. The storm on its own is enough to swamp anybody.