Out Our Way: The Gospel According to Goliath: Tangerine-sized brains

Mark 6:45-52

Out our way, even non-church folk have heard about Goliath. From time to time I hear from folks who have no time for Church or preachers, but have begun to look forward to Friday's religion page to see what theological insights old Doc is offering this week.

It seems one of the most common themes that keeps coming up is the theology of the dreaded culvert. For all his horse sense, Goliath just can't wrap his orange-sized brain around the idea that the black plastic culvert on the nature trail in Beaver Creek really can't hurt him. No matter how many times I make him cross it, by the next day he has totally forgotten the lesson and is terrified all over again. Despite all the lessons and attempts to demonstrate that the culvert is only a culvert, it is just beyond his ability to comprehend. Indeed, it is only because he has come to trust me that I am able to force him to cross it. But he still doesn't understand.

Well, as my pal Rick keeps reminding me, Goliath may be 16 1/2 hands high and weigh more than 1,200 pounds, but his brain is very small. There are some things that even the smartest horse cannot understand and must simply take by faith. But OY! Sometimes I wonder if the orange-sized brain on that hoss isn't really a tangerine! At least when it comes to culverts. But I never quit on him, despite the frustration, for he is still my buddy. Even if he can't understand it, together we cross over that channel and continue on our ride. He doesn't need to understand how we can do it, only that when I am with him, we can and will do it. Although he still shies, he is slowly beginning to overcome his fears because of his faith in me.

The disciples remind me of Goliath at times, especially Peter. Recall that the name Peter means "Rock" or maybe "Rocky."  I often think of Sylvester Stallone's character when I read Peter.  "Yo, Jesus, I hope y'don't mind very much, but I don't get it, y'know?"

In today's text, the disciples are in their fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee, battling strong head winds, when Jesus comes out to them walking on the water. Mark said they were terrified because they thought it was a ghost. Yeah, I bet they were terrified ... I would be terrified as well. People can't walk on water. It just isn't possible! Yet here he was and he tells them to calm down. He gets in the boat and the wind immediately dies down. And they are "amazed!"

Well? Can we blame them? Interestingly, Mark does blame them, for he considers their terror to be the result of a lack of faith, of hardened hearts. Even after the feeding of the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish (also impossible, we say), they still refused to understand.

A few years ago, I was watching a science program on "NOVA" that was attempting to help "tangerine-sized brains" like mine get a slight grasp on what modern physics is discovering. Well, despite cartoons and simple animation to try to explain some basics to me, most of it was beyond my comprehension. But this much I did get out of it:  The universe is far greater than our five senses can comprehend. With our limited senses our reality is limited to the four dimensions we can comprehend. But some physicists suggest that there are more - perhaps some 10 dimensions at work in our universe - of which we know only four. Now I have no idea on what they postulate these other dimensions are that our senses cannot observe, but apparently there are things that cannot be explained apart from the idea that there are unknown dimensions.

The illustration that stuck out to me was that of a pencil passing through a sheet of paper. In a three-dimensional world, we see the whole pencil as it goes through the flat paper. But in a two-dimensional world, where height is incomprehensible, we cannot see the vertical plane, only the horizontal. In that flat world a pencil going through a sheet of paper would appear only as a yellow hole, assuming the pencil to be yellow as all school pencils used to be. Anyway, the point is, that there are some things that I cannot fully understand with my limitations (trigonometry for example), but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Some things one has to accept by faith.

Mark clearly thinks that as startling and inexplicable as Jesus' walking on the water might have been, the disciples should have had a clue that Jesus was more than just another man from the miracles they had witnessed.

Fortunately, Christ is patient with folk like me. He keeps trying to help me undertand that some things I just have to accept by faith because I cannot comprehend them with my tangerine-sized brain. Hey! Do you think Goliath's culvert problem was his training me about faith instead of the other way around? Maybe old Doc is a lot smarter than I thought. I am beginning to realize I am not as smart as I used to think. Thank God He is patient!

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John Bruington, Goliath, Scout, and a host of other beginners in the faith-journey share their insights and discoveries at http://www.havrepres.org where articles, cartoons, and sermons can be found. Come share the journey