If you remember from last week, we talked about Jesus’s role as a teacher in Mark’s Gospel. In contrast with the three other Gospels, in Matthew, Luke and John, Jesus’s teachings are somewhat limited in Mark. Instead, as we noticed last week, in Mark’s, Jesus is presented as a man of action, always on the move, spending most of his time with people, performing healing and exorcisms – and traveling quite a bit.
We have noticed that the Gospel we heard last Sunday, about the different parables of the seed, was kind of the pause in the narrative – we saw Jesus sitting with the crowds to give them images to ponder about what the kingdom of God could look like – This Sunday we are back for more action…and it’s quite dramatic to say the least. We find ourselves on the very evening of that day where Jesus gave us a pause and took time for teaching, and as he and his disciples move forward to another place, they encounter this powerful storm that threatens to overturn their boat.
One mistake we should avoid doing is to believe that we have nothing to learn from this episode and that Jesus has nothing to teach through this event. Mark did not pack his Gospel with action so people wouldn’t get bored, it’s not a blockbuster movie, rather everything in his Gospel are an occasion for learning and we discover that if Jesus taught a lot through parables, he also taught a lot through experiences. The story we have heard today is, if you will, an “acted parable”. Jesus uses the opportunity of this rather dramatic incident to show something to his disciples – and there is still today a lot we can learn from it.
In the first part of our reflection today, I would like to notice is what we may learn about ourselves in this story:
– First thing we could notice is that Jesus calls his disciples to trust. We may be tempted to say that the disciples weren’t very trusting people, but we shouldn’t blame the disciples for getting very anxious in the situation they are in. Mark doesn’t tell us that they were in some kind of “turbulence” during their crossing, rather Mark says that it was a “great storm” – not just adverse winds.
And so, instead of feeling bad when it’s difficult to trust in our own storms, I think it should help us accept our feelings – since we see that the disciples found themselves in the same place. Moreover, we can see that Jesus, although physically present in the storm, didn’t seem to offer any kind of help before they asked him. For us, in the same way, we may have moments when we feel in danger and quite forsaken. Rather than blaming ourselves for lacking trust – or blaming others or God for failing to rescue us – we need to learn to take the next step. Trust is not so much about what we feel, but how we decide we should act on our feelings.
– The disciples decide to ask Jesus for help. When Jesus rebukes them, making comments about their lack of faith, I don’t think he is upset about being woken up, but rather about being accused of letting them “perish” (Him, the author of life!). We need to trust that Jesus does not want to let us perish (which in the Gospel, is a little different than dying – perishing is dying in sin, or without having accomplished any purpose), but that we can turn to him. This is I think the heart of trust. It’s really hard to get rid of anxious feelings, but maybe we can choose to trust that there is a something, or someone!, greater than our fear.
It’s interesting to read the Gospel in Greek because the word “fear” is used both for what the disciples experience when they face the storm, but then it says as well that they experience “a great fear” when they see Jesus calming the storm (and not “awe”, as in our translation today). To me, this is this sense they have that there is much more power in Jesus than in all the other things they could be afraid of – and I think Jesus asks us to trust that. It’s not about not being afraid, not being anxious, but trusting that he is there beyond our fears and our anxieties. Rather than obsessing on getting rid of our feelings, we can just turn to him.
– Now, and this is my third remark about the disciples, I think the teaching moment is not only about learning to trust and to ask for help. More deeply, I gather from the story that Jesus helps the disciples face their own powerlessness. You know, they must have started to feel pretty confident about themselves following the Master. And yet, they still had to realize their own mortality and that they had no power over their own lives. This is probably the root of all fears, that we cannot save ourselves, that we cannot give life to ourselves. Jesus reminds the disciples that he has this power but moreover, that this is his will for them, that they will live (physically for a while, but mainly spiritually).
The disciples have to learn humility to be able to let God act through them, that they are at their core powerless. Yet, the story also tells us that the disciples shouldn’t be complacent about their powerlessness either. Maybe some of us feel overly confident and they need to learn humility, but I guess some of us, or at certain times of their lives, just give up on themselves or on anything they can do. The story reminds us that even if we are in a situation where there is nothing we can do, we still have prayer, we can still ask God to intervene in our crisis.
And so – as a conclusion about the disciples and what we can learn for ourselves – I would say that the story shows us what faith looks like, as a good mix of trust, humility but also boldness. But maybe, there is more to that in the story – I would like to touch briefly on that in a second part of our reflection today.
The story you see is not really about the disciples – the story is about Jesus – and it’s actually the main thread in Mark’s Gospel. Throughout the Gospel, Mark wants to answer this question: “Who is Jesus?” and it’s exactly on that note that our passage concludes today: ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’
– Who is Jesus? Well, as we have just discussed, we see that Jesus is a teacher (It’s after all the way the disciples call him when they wake him up) and we see that this story in many aspects is a teaching moment. Yet if you think about it, it’s rather rough for a teaching! More than just a teaching moment, it is a saving moment. Jesus displays his power as a savior, not just as a teacher or a healer or even an exorcist, there were a lot of teachers and healers and exorcists at the time – and probably still today. But there is only one savior – and not one that just helps in difficult situations, but one who saves our life – not our physical life but out eternal life!
In the Episcopal Church, we don’t talk much about Jesus as our savior, so I invite you this week to think a little more about that. That we are invited to trust that Jesus save our eternal beings in the same way he saved his disciples from death on that day.
– Now the second thing to notice about that Jesus that is really important, is that Jesus acts like God. Notice that Jesus does not pray to ask for a miracle, rather he uses his own authority to call out on the wind and the sea, and this is really what manifests the power of God through the Bible on very important occasions: When the world is created, or when the sea is parted before the Hebrews when fleeing Egypt. Jesus is not the incarnation of God the creator, but authority (and it’s really a display of authority we have here!) authority has been given to Jesus over the created world. And so this passage is what we call a “theophany”, a manifestation of God.
What Marks asks us to trust here is that Jesus really embodies who God is, and manifest to us the character of God. A God, again, who creates life and save us from death, even in the chaos of a natural world we don’t understand and cannot control – and this is the source of the trust we need to put in God. That there is no situation, problem crisis that is beyond this power.
– And so lastly, we see that Jesus’s power is to bring peace and order – not as a cop using coercion, but Jesus brings peace and order in the same way that God brought peace and order when God created the world, by calling each to their own being, and where it is supposed to be. We noticed a few weeks ago that the work of the Devil in Mark is to create division – the work of the Devil in Mark is also to create confusion and chaos. Jesus accomplishes the work of God by putting back the world in the order intended by God, a creative and life giving order. And this is of course the way we are supposed to live too.
Conclusion: Jesus manifests who God is through his teaching about the kingdom of God, but more deeply, Jesus manifests who God is through his own action and character: A God who saves, creates and restores. And this is about this power that we will learn more next week.