BREAKING NEWS! Father Riley will lead us in Holy Eucharist The following Sundays in July: 1st, 8th, 15th; 29th. Layleader Jane Barnett will lead us in Morning Prayer July 22nd. Please join us for the 10am service and the fellowship time following the service.
5 PENTECOST, PROPER VII - B -
18 MARK 4. 35-41
“On that day, when evening
had come, Jesus said to them, “let us go across to the other side,” the other
side being the East side of the Sea of Galilee. To go there would take them
away from Galilee and the crowds. The region in that part of the country was
less populous creating an opportunity to rest and recoup from the demands of
the people.
As we heard in the preceding
week’s gospel, the crowds had been following Jesus from the beginning. The word
was out that he was a great healer and a great teacher. The crowds sought to
bring him their sick, their lame, their blind and those possessed with demons,
and to hear his kingdom message.
The scribes and even some of
those who knew him thought he was crazy. The authorities had to find some way
to discredit him, to try to get the crowds to stop following and believing in
him. His own mother and members of his family thought there was something wrong
with him as well.
Now would be a good time to
escape from all of that and have some quiet time - just Jesus and his
disciples. So Jesus gets into the boat with them and says let us shove off and
get away from the crowds for a while. He is literally exhausted from preaching,
teaching, and healing. Not to mention the unending questions from the religious
leaders in Jerusalem who want to know whom he really is and what he thinks he
is up to.
The Sea of Galilee is
relatively calm the majority of time. However, a sudden storm bringing high
winds that easily produce whitecaps can seem to come out of nowhere. Obviously,
there was no storm when the disciples set out for the other side. Jesus being
physically tired, a sign of his humanity fell asleep in the stern of the boat.
However, a storm did arise
white capping the lake and threatening to swamp the boat. The disciples feared
they might drown. They woke Jesus up and rebuked him, “Teacher, do you not care
that we are perishing?” That is the real
question in today’s story is it not. The question whether God cares?
Jesus began his ministry
exercising his power over the supernatural forces that threatened humankind. He
exorcised a demon from a man with an unclean spirit. He went on to demonstrate
his authority to preach and teach of the coming kingdom of God, a teaching that
baffled the powers to be in Jerusalem who deemed him a threat to their
authority.
He healed various diseases and infirmities
demonstrating his power to physically heal and make whole. In today’s gospel he
stills the wind and calms the sea removing the threat that caused fear to rise
in the hearts of his disciples. Their fear assuaged, they ask themselves ‘who
is this?”
Wouldn’t you think by now
they would have an inkling of Jesus identity? Jesus’ authority over creation is
another sign that he is the Messiah and is divine. On the other hand, their
following him up to this point had brought no test of their faith in him.
Why would they think that he
does not care if they perish? Was it not his compassionate caring that moved
him to exorcise demons, heal the sick, restore, and make whole human lives? Was
he not in the same boat?
How quickly they forget, as
do we. Like the parable of the good seed falling on various kinds of soil their
faith had not yet taken root. “Have you still no faith, “he asks them. Fear
overrides faith every time.
We all know that the world
can be a scary place. In addition, there are moments when our fear can
immobilize us. Think of a moment or an occasion in your past when you were
afraid, afraid perhaps that you were going to perish.
I can vividly recall such a
day when I worked for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. It was a day I
came very close to drowning. My partner and I were working duck hunters in a
large open bean field flooded by the rising waters of the White River, which
had more than exceeded its banks. The water in the field was several feet deep.
It wasn’t storming when we
crossed from the river into the field. However, by the time we decided to
return to the river a storm arose bringing high winds, rain, thundering, and
lightening at work against us. We were in a 14 foot jon boat with a 25 horse
Johnson and were being beaten by the wind and swamped by the waves. The bean
field was white capping. It was difficult to make any headway and the boat was
filling with water faster than I could bail it out.
When all seemed lost, I
noticed the tops of a row of willow trees less than a hundred yards from where
we were struggling to stay afloat. By the grace of God, we were able to make it
to that row of trees. Their tops were standing several feet above the water. We
hung on for dear life as the boat continued to take on water from the surging
waves until the storm finally passed.
When the calm came we bailed out the boat and
made it safely back to the river and eventually to the landing. I can
understand the disciple’s fear. They were not thinking of their “faith,” or of
what they had seen Jesus do or say. At that moment, all they could think of was
how to survive and not perish.
The same was true for my
partner and me on that day in the flooded bean field. It was only when the calm
came did I Thank God for having rescued us by stilling the storm. True, Jesus
demonstrated his power and authority over the forces of nature in today’s
passage, but the disciple’s question is one we have all raised at one time or
another.
Where is God in moments like
this? There are times when it appears that God is absent, doesn’t really care,
or is asleep in the back of the boat, the car, or the plane. The point of the
gospel story we have heard today is that God never abandons us, no matter how
much we feel God’s absence.
I am not suggesting that we
should never be afraid, that it is wrong to be seized with terror in times of
danger. It is precisely at these times that we must hold to our conviction that
God is with us that God is for us. The love of God impels us to put our fears and
terrors into perspective and to hear that same voice that the disciples heard
when there was dead calm, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”
The image of Christ and his
disciples in a boat is traditionally used to illustrate the church. God both permits
storms and delivers us through them, so that we can see his loving kindness and
protection more clearly. As Christ has the power to still the wind and the
waves, so He has the power to still the storms within each of our lives thus
renewing our faith while giving us His Peace. AMEN+
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