Some of you, I'm sure, have read the bestseller, The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger. Others of you will, no doubt, be drawn to the movie and its star, George Clooney, premiering June 30th. In either version, the story is compelling. In late October 1991, a storm gathered off the coast of Nova Scotia, formed by a combination of weather factors so rare and extreme, meteorologists deemed it "the perfect storm." Thunderous winds and waves over 100 feet high pounded the coastline. Mountainous seas caused severe beach erosion and generated the worst coastal flooding in thirty years. The sword-fishing vessel, the Andrea Gail, and her entire crew was lost without a trace.

The billboards and trailer for the movie show that ill-fated ship heading vertically up the side of a mighty wave, causing our stomachs to churn with dread. All of us are held in fear and terror by the power of sea and its mighty waves.

I doubt that the storm on the Sea of Galilee that day long ago was powerful enough to be dubbed a "perfect storm." I doubt that neither its waves nor its winds reached that force capable of devastating des-truction. I doubt that that little fishing boat carrying the disciples ever reached vertical position as it rode a monster wave. But powerful, strong storms can come up suddenly on that part of the sea, near the Golan Heights, and the wind and waves can be truly terrifying. And so, the fear those men experienced that day was enough to send them scrambling, reducing them to cowering souls who sensed that all could be lost.

Whether or not we are among those who go out to the sea in boats, it's not far from the fear of the Sea of Galilee to the fears in our lives, is it? The fears with which many of us contend almost daily. We do not need to wait for the storm of the century to experience fear. From the fears that begin when we are children, of monsters lurking under our beds and in the back of our closets and of the things that go bump in the night, to the many fears of our teen years about self-image and identity and popularity and purpose. Then, fears in our marriages, fears in our jobs, fears for our kids, fears for our retirement, fears for our health. Fears for our elders, fears of loneliness, fears of falling down. Fears of the journey to death and beyond.

Fear permeates our lives. It can exist within us as the sotto voce base tone that seems to drone on and on not far below the surface of every experience and fleeting happiness. Fear can cloud our days and haunt our nights. The fear we carry around can literally do damage to our bodies on the inside and to our relationships on the outside. Fear mangles and warps and constricts and undermines. Fear is the primary barrier to love.

No wonder Jesus wanted his disciples to experience, early on in their calling, that he had come to conquer fear. Remember those heavenly angels singing at his birth: "Fear not! Fear not!" Remember the holy messenger at the empty tomb, reassuring those frightened women: "Do not be afraid." Remember his parting words to his disciples: "Let not your hearts be troubled and neither let them be afraid."

But those words would surely have rung hollow on this horrible day out in the boat. As experienced fishermen, they would have read the signs of the weather, gauging the wind and the waves and determining that things were getting out of hand, that they and their little vessel were, indeed, at risk. And all the while, you see, Jesus slept. There in the front of the bow, while they scrambled about, panic rising, he slept. Seemingly unconcerned and certainly, apparently, not getting involved to help them in any way. In their moment of need, Jesus slept.

What a great parable for our lives, is it not? How many, many situations we have had to go through, longing for God to swoop in and rescue us, but sensing instead that God was at best asleep and deaf to our cry, if not completely absent. Haven't we all been there? Help us, O Lord, for we are perishing. Save me, God, for my boat is so small and the sea is so vast. I am afraid, God. Are you there? Does anybody hear me?

I've often wondered what was going on for Jesus in that moment. It's been said that he was testing them by not responding, but frankly, that seems rather too malicious and almost cruel. It's also been said that the sound of the waves was so loud that he literally did not hear his disciples calling out.

But I prefer another interpretation of what might have happened that day, taken from Eugene O'Neill's play, Long Day's Journey into Night. It is the narrative of another sailor, losing himself in the wild beauty of sea and sky: "I lay on the bowsprit. . . . I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment, I lost myself -- actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray. . . . . I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater." I belonged.. .within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater. . . . That day, on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was leading his disciples into a deeper faith, to the place of their belonging and the source of life itself.

Perhaps you've felt it, too, sometimes . . . that sense of belonging within something far, far greater than what we normally perceive. Perhaps you, too, have felt it on the bow of a boat, or looking across the great expanse of the Grand Canyon. Or getting lost in the carpet of stars on a clear, cold night. Perhaps you've felt it listening to a gorgeous symphony. Perhaps you've felt it holding a newborn baby in your arms.

Perhaps you've felt it when you "did the right thing" or when your work produced results far beyond what you could have dared hope. Perhaps you've felt it in a moment of prayer, sensing the presence of God or experiencing for yourself a miracle that only love could have achieved. That holy sense of peace and unity, and a wild joy, that sense of belonging within something greater.

Jesus was at one with God. He lived in that sense of unity and belonging, grounded in peace and joy. So that when he spoke, the wind ran out of breath and the sea became smooth as glass and the disciples, as one translation puts it, were overcome with awe. "Why are you afraid?" he asks. "Have you still no faith?" he chides. He knew that the failure of faith within us could be the doorway for greater wisdom, a more profound faith and awe. Jesus Christ saves by setting us free from fear and opening us to awe.

You see, our words "fear" and "awe" are two variant translations of the same Hebrew root word. When confronted by the storms of life, we can respond either in fear or in awe. The two may be closely intertwined. Jesus invites us to abide in awe.

Perhaps the closest many of us come is in those frightening experiences when we brush up against our own mortality. When illness or the death of a loved one reminds us of the preciousness of life, and our eyes are opened to see that, in fact, in every moment, we might let go of fear and fall into the loving exuberance of praise and awe. That holy sense of peace and unity, a sense of belonging to something greater.

In this story we hear again this day, Jesus reminds us, shows us by the audacity of sleeping through the storm, that our lives are to be anchored not in fear, but in praise and awe, in the sure and certain love of our creator God who made heaven and earth and all that is therein.

The Psalmist sang it: "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. . . . O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" It is to this God that we are privileged to say, at every moment of our living: "Into your hands, I commend my spirit."

From fear to awe. This is the journey of disciples in every age. In moments of fear, which we will all continue to experience from time to time, may we remember Jesus sleeping in the bow of the boat, and take a deep, deep breath, and enter into communion with the one who holds us close and offers us life. Finding that peace and beauty and joy always available for us in the broad expanse of God's great love. Remembering that we have been set free to life that dares move from fear to awe. Thanks be to God. Amen.