“…and they were filled with great awe and
said to one another, ‘Who then is this that even the wind and sea obey him?’” (Mark 4:41)
Do you ever catch yourself reading a Gospel lesson like the one for Pentecost 4, Year B (Mark 4:35-41) and saying to yourself, “So what?” Okay. Jesus is asleep in a boat with the disciples, a big storm comes up (as storms are wont to do on the Sea of Galilee), Jesus’ buddies get spooked, they call on him, and—being Jesus—he works a miracle and the storm stops. Everybody’s safe.
Big deal, right?
I mean, haven’t we all heard this story a bazillion times before? Of course, Jesus stills the storm. He’s the Son of God, right? But what does that have to do with me?
Well, if you’re reading this post you’ve already decided that Jesus is pretty important in your life. The reminder of a one-time miracle may not be floating your boat just now[i], but a dive into some of the details of the story might do the trick.
I’ve been in pretty choppy water twice in my life. The first time was when I was sailing with some friends in the Channel Islands off the southern California coast. We’d sailed past the lee of Anacapa Island and found the open ocean a little rougher than we (or at least I) anticipated. I remember the skipper very calmly saying—as if he had to think about it for a few minutes—“I think we should put on our life jackets.”
The second time was when I was asked to accompany friends Tom and Vicky on a sailboat race in the Gulf of Mexico in what I perceived to be nothing less than a monsoon. As I helped to raise the ship’s spinnaker, we were caught by a huge gust of wind. The ship listed to port, and your Old Religious Guy got washed over the side. Fortunately, Tom grabbed me just as I floated past the stern and pulled me back onto the boat.
I think I can say without boasting that neither of these nautical events filled me with abject terror, even though I certainly don’t relish the idea of death by drowning. The truth is, in both cases I had tremendous faith that a more able mariner than myself was in charge of the vessel, and he would certainly know what to do if things started to go sideways[ii].
The disciples in our Gospel tale this week don’t seem to have the same level of confidence. In fact, they’re scared spitless, and they even seem to be a bit uncertain that the only begotten Son of God gives enough of a rip about them to wake from his nap and save them. And maybe we’re in the same boat with them right now.[iii]
For the ancients, water was a metaphor for chaos, and chaos isn’t very comforting. Now, you’d think that experienced fishermen would have a little more confidence in their own ability to pilot a boat safely back to shore even in rough weather conditions, but everyone gets rattled from time to time—even the folks who have been rescued over and over again. Jesus isn’t too gentle with his scaredy-cat buddies here. He asks them why they have no faith, and that’s the question which is always germane, isn’t it?
Yes. Things are wild and crazy now. In fact, they’re even existentially crazy. We have a planet that is speeding like a greased-up bullet towards climate catastrophe and a bunch of guys in charge of the government who may be more interested in oil prices than survival of our species. We have a political system in freefall. We have city streets turning into shooting galleries. We have hungry people at the southern border and right down the block. Our marvelous digital age has put out the welcome mat for a whole new classification of criminal activity, and I could go on and on. I certainly wouldn’t blame you for feeling scared or not having faith, because I’m starting to perspire a little myself.
We’re all in the same boat and getting knocked around by the chaos and wondering why God seems to be asleep. Perhaps we forget that we’ve been rescued before, and it is God’s will to rescue us again if we are willing to be faithful. There are some notable details in this story that give me a weird sense of uncomfortable comfort. The first is that Jesus “rebukes” the storm (v. 39). The word in Greek is epetimesen (epetimhsen, literally, “he rebuked”). This means Jesus didn’t just ask the chaos to stop. He ordered it to stop, scolded it, reprimanded it, kicked its butt and took down its name. He told that chaos it had no business doing what it was doing. He not only faced it, but directly challenged it. What’s more, the Greek which we translate as “Be still!” (pephimoso or pefimwso for those of you like to read it in the original[iv]) is in the perfect tense passive voice which could be translated “Be stilled!” or “Be silenced!” meaning “Shut the freak up and don’t talk again!”
The reaction of the disciples to this rebuke is pretty whacky. Our wimpy New Revised Standard Version translates it as “they were filled with great awe.” (v. 41). But, if you look at the original Greek (or even the dear old King James Bible which is a bit more faithful—to say nothing of poetic), the disciples bhqhsan fobon megan, which literally translates “feared a great fear” when Jesus silenced the storm. I guess confronting and denouncing the chaos scared them just as much as the chaos itself did. This kind of makes me think that following Jesus always tends to be a little bit scary. If we’re not scared to act as Jesus acted, maybe we’re not doing it right.
But there’s one more little detail which doesn’t seem to figure in the story. In verse 36 we learn that the disciples’ boat isn’t alone on the lake. There are “other boats” with them. The Greek calls them ploiaria or “small ships.” That is, they were smaller than the ship Jesus and the twelve were in. I remember when I fell into the Gulf of Mexico that there were other boats very nearby. If my shipmate hadn’t pulled me back, some other craft would’ve rescued me. I think the Bible is trying to tell us that, scared as we are, we’re not alone. If our little ship goes down, there will still be others who will make it across. We have a very able captain. Why should we ever be in doubt? Let’s face the storm.
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