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Sunday
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Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
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Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 25
Jun 00
http://www.secaucus.org/
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Weathering
the storm
Reflections on the
lessons for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Job 38:1-11, 16-18 / Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32
II Corinthians 5:14-21 / Mark
4:35-41
People are funny about sleeping. Josie Roberts is doing what little kids have done forever: She fights and fights against going to sleep until she finally just conks out.
My Mom says that -- since her retirement -- she has gotten very irregular about sleeping habits. Staying up too late, the lying awake, then napping at odd hours. She winds up vacuuming the house at 2:00 am sometimes.
As for me. I can't take naps anymore. I want to. I sure need naps now more than I did ten years ago. I used to. I loved it. But somehow, for the past few years, I just can't bring myself to take the Sunday afternoon nap that used to be routine for me. There's too much going on. And I don't want to miss the sunshine on nice days. So, even when I do try to make myself take a nap. I can't do it. I'm up and reading, or something, in five minutes.
On vacation, I marvel that people can nap on the beach -- right out in public. Even more so, people seem to take little catnaps on the subway in Manhattan. Amazing. Don't they know they need to be on the lookout? For something. I could never, ever, ever, take a nap in a boat -- even in calm water. Certainly never in a storm.
Here's Jesus in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, sleeping. A storm comes up. The disciples panic. The boat's going down. It's really rough. And Jesus just sleeps right on through it all. That alone is really weird.
So, they shake him awake and ask if he doesn't care whether they all drown or not. And he doesn't answer. He speaks to the wind and it dies down.
Then he asks the disciples a question. "Don't you have any faith at all?"
And they respond with another question. "Who are you that can shut down a storm?"
My point is that this is a much more complex story than the one we think we hear initially. In the ancient world, stories like this appear in almost every culture. The hero-God has a confrontation with the forces of nature and chaos and evil. There's a mighty struggle. And the hero-God triumphs over the water or whatever. Usually water, though.
In the ancient world, the sea was one of the great forces that mere mortals could never tame. Calming a storm would be proof positive that divine power was on the side of the hero.
Mark did not write this story in order to take us in our imaginations back to a long-ago evening in Palestine when Jesus stopped a storm. Of all the miracle stories, this is one of them that -- actually -- even the more conservative scholars have to admit is an allegory.
Demon possession -- well, that could be many things and a powerful personality like Jesus' could do a lot with such a thing. But, really, stopping a storm. What are we talking about here?
Mark wrote this story for the church of his own day. And for the church in days to come.
And the point, of course, is that storms will come to you. Shake your trust. Shake your faith. Shake your security. You will be unable to understand the storms. But Mark is saying that God is there with you in the whirlwind -- remember Job -- and that Jesus would tell you to ride out the storm calmly as you can. Getting wild will help nothing.
I am apparently not nearly enough like Jesus. Since I can't sleep in unusual surroundings. When humans sleep appears in scripture, it's very often a metaphor for confidence and trust. Just one example: Psalm 4 "You alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety. I will lie down and sleep in peace."
Jesus can fall asleep, Mark is saying, because he really believes that God will take care of things. That things will work out for the best one way or another. The world does not depend on his being on guard every moment.
There's a second scriptural tradition of sleep. About when gods sleep. One example of that: When Elijah taunts the priests of Baal because they can't call down fire from heaven and burn up a sacrifice. "Maybe your god is asleep and needs to be wakened," Elijah sneers.
Another: In Psalm 44 Israel has been defeated in battle and David sings to God "Wake up! Why do you sleep O Lord? Wake up! Do not hide from us forever!"
Now, clearly, Mark's intention was to show that Jesus has a connection with divine power. So, a second facet of the nap -- in that light -- is that when the disciples thought that neither God nor Jesus was paying any mind to their trouble, Jesus in fact does get up and do something about it.
It's really a brilliant allegory of the dual nature Christians attribute to Jesus. As truly human, he sleeps through the storm because of his extreme trust in God's plan. As truly divine, too, he responds to the outraged cries of his people and comforts them by responding as they ask.
It's easy to misread Jesus' questions to the disciples at the end of this little passage. Why are you so afraid? Don't you have any faith? I don't think Jesus was saying "You should have more faith and stop bothering me."
Notice, he DOES calm the storm before asking the questions. Jesus really isn't telling his followers -- and therefore us -- that we need to muster up enough faith to get through crises calmly on our own.
The story is about how help will come in God's own time. And that anxiety will do nothing to change that. And that part of the help God can offer is enough relief in the middle of the storm to help build up your trust and calmness for you.
Awakened from the sleep of a trusting human being, Jesus demonstrates to his followers the vigilance and power of God. And -- as always -- the Good News here is that on one level or another, you can too. Or you can at least be on your way to channeling trust and peace and power like that. But panic is not the place to start.
Ultimately for our own sake -- Mark's miracle story teaches -- God wants us to know the peace and confidence Jesus felt when he slept through that storm. Because whatever your storm -- and the list of possibilities is as long as can be -- it will still be there when you wake up. And it will not change its course because you go wild and stay up all night.
But it will run its course in God's time. And whether we are left standing or not when the wind dies down we will have played well our part in God's plan to work out the perfection of the world if we go through the storm calmly and hopefully, trusting in the ultimate logic of the whirlwind.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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