June 21, 2009
The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

WHO IS THIS?
Mark 4:35-41

It was evening, after a full and exhausting day of teaching. The crowd had pressed so tightly about Jesus on every side that he had stepped into a small boat and pushed a short distance from the shore so that he could teach them. At the end of the day, the only way Jesus and his disciples could escape the throng and get any relief was to cross over Galilee to the gentile shore of Gerasa.

There may have been some disagreement among the disciples as to the advisability of this move. The fishermen among them knew how unpredictable and dangerous the sea could be, with sudden storms coming across the water, combining winds and waves to swamp or capsize small boats. But crossing held the only possibility for rest and rejuvenation, and so they cast off and set out for the opposite shore, a distance of five or six miles.

And, as so often happens to us when we are exhausted and our reserves are low, the storm came. The little boat was rolled and beaten, waves broke over the gunwales and threatened to swamp the small craft. The disciples were terrified, their superstition attaching demonic power to the wind and waves. They turned to Jesus, who was asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. “Wake up! Wake up!” they shouted. “What are you doing asleep? Don’t you care that we are all about to die? Don’t you care?”

How often we turn to God in the midst of the storm, and our first question is, “Don’t You care?” If we think about it for more than a minute, we realize that this is life, and storms come and go. It isn’t as if we haven’t been in some similar storm before. But because this particular storm has arisen, we fear that God is abandoning us, doesn’t care about us any more, doesn’t care whether we live or die.

And so, Jesus awoke, and as Mark tells the story in his matter-of-fact way, Jesus rebuked the wind and waves and the storm was calmed. And the disciples, having witnessed this great miracle performed right before their very eyes and saving their very lives, were all moved to faith in Jesus as the Messiah sent from God, and right then and there they offered him thanks and praise!

That is the way the story goes, isn’t it? You say that isn’t the way it happened? Well, let’s look at the story again. He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Obviously, this story is not a simple one, with the predictable sequence of storm, fear, and then calm. The fear of the disciples is pictured as continuing after the stilling of the storm, after Jesus’ reproach, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” It is then that Mark says, quite literally, They feared a great fear.” The storm is frightening, sure enough, but the disciples sense that they are in the presence of a power greater than the storm. They can only look at one another and ask, incredulously, “Who is this?”

Does this sound familiar? The disciples don’t know who Jesus is! They have walked with him, talked with him, eaten with him, listened to his teaching, but he has remained a mystery to them. Every time they thought they were beginning to understand him, he would break out of their grasp with a new teaching, a new act. It was only after the resurrection that the disciples, and the early Church, really began to understand, really began to know Jesus.

They began to understand that Jesus wasn’t just calling them to a nostalgia for the past, a return to the “good old days.” He was calling them to a truly new thing that God was doing. They began to understand that Jesus’ death on the cross was not just another political execution. It was, incredibly, God’s act of redemption for all people. In some mysterious, miraculous way the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus inaugurated the possibility of new life, of salvation, of new relationship with God.

And they discovered in telling and retelling the story of Jesus that there is value in knowing him, and not only in knowing about him, because it was only in knowing him that they could actually begin trusting him, and it was only in trusting him that they could begin to live without so much fear over the storms of life.

You know the old cliché that says, “We’re all in the same boat.” As familiar as the cliché is, it isn’t really the way we often feel. When we are in the midst of the storm, our fear tells us we are all in our own boats, and that there is no one there to save us, to care for us, no one who is willing to sink or swim with us.

We’re afraid. That is the point of Jesus’ question (rebuke!) of the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Jesus wasn’t asking them if they believed the Apostles’ Creed or were willing to grant the truth of some of Jesus’ prepositional teachings. He wondered why they still didn’t trust him, trust what he said to be true, trust that he cared for them and would be there for them through death and beyond.

But the fact is, we are still afraid. We fear crime, and terrorism. We fear bacteria, viruses, and illness. We fear losing our job, or, if that has already happened to us, we fear that we will never find one again. We fear becoming dependent in our old age, of giving offense to friends and neigh¬bors, of losing ground, or losing face. We fear people telling and believing lies about us; we fear finally facing the truth about ourselves. We are afraid of the unknown, of the dark, of fail¬ure, and of death.

And Jesus recognizes our fears. He knows the fear of hav¬ing to stand up for what you feel is right, knowing that you’re going to be knocked down. He knows our secret fears of failure, of rejection, of abandonment. He knows the fear that comes when we realize that following Jesus means that we will have to make deci¬sions and choices that might cause pain, conflict, misunderstand¬ing, or division. He knows, and yet he assures us, even in the midst of our fears, that everything is in God's loving hands, and that there are really only two ultimate things that can happen to us -- life and death -- and that these ultimate things, too, are both in God's loving care.

We in the Church, especially, should be able to see that we are all truly in the same boat, no matter what our individual need, our particular storm is. And that there is One who is here with us who calls us to abandon our fear, our mistrust and suspicion of one another, our tendency to strike out, our responses of hurt and indignation, and to trust that, even in the turmoil, he will not abandon us. He will be with us, as he promised, guiding, sustaining, challenging, and encouraging.

When we lose sight of him, we tend to fall back on the world’s ways, the ways of parochial interests, emotion, personality, and fear. It is only in opening ourselves to relationship with the living Christ, in beginning to know him, that we will be able to trust him, to overcome our fear, and to live life together as children of one God, as brothers and sisters of one Lord, and of one another, in the Church which is Christ’s body in this world.

“Who is this?” That may just be the single most important question for your life, and mine.

Let us pray.
O God our Defender, storms rage about us and cause us to be afraid. Rescue Your people from despair, deliver us from fear, and preserve us in trusting Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.