Mark 4:35-41
June 21, 2009
About 3 or so years ago, on a Sunday morning during worship, one of my worst fears was realized. I was giving the sermon, and about 2/3 of the way through, I ran out of pages. I was missing the last 1/3 of my sermon. Now, for those of you who don’t know me, having my sermon written out and in front of me is…well…important to me . I had had nightmares exactly like this; a minister’s version of having a final exam and then not being able to find the right place to take it. But, this wasn’t a dream. I felt immediately exposed. I had to rely on my memory, and of course the Holy Spirit – our version of Jesus since we don’t get the actual human. In the moment, I have to say it really didn’t feel like the Holy Spirit was all that concerned with my sermon. I felt abandoned. Internally, I was crying, “Jesus, Wake up! Wake up! I need you.”
I can’t say for sure if the Holy Spirit showed up. I know she didn’t take over my body and speak through me directly. It’s possible that somehow she calmed the storms brewing inside me by reminding me I was amidst a loving and forgiving people, and with the storms calmed I could stumble my way through – and stumble I did. So, the Holy Spirit may have shown up, but, according to the gospel of Mark, Jesus seems to think that she could have slept through the whole thing and I would have been just fine, just as I was.
Let’s face it; Jesus is weird in this passage. He does some very suspect things. Right before this, Jesus had been hanging out by the sea of Galilee trying to teach people about the kingdom of God – using parables and lots of “seed planting” metaphors. He has marginal success. Then, he switches gears: he moves from words to action. He turns to the disciples and announces that it’s time to move on.
“Let’s go to the other side,” he says. And this is a pretty bold request. The other side of the sea was Roman territory, home of the pagans. These folks had little tolerance for Jewish people and their practices. The disciples should definitely get credit for saying “yes” to such a mission. So Jesus sets the course. And then…
he becomes completely passive. Mark writes that the disciples “took Jesus with them”, as if he wouldn’t have come otherwise, or without an invitation. And then come the words that stand out most for me: They took him “just as he was.” It reminds me of something from my childhood where we had “just as you are” parties. One of your so-called friends would surprise you at home to take you to their house for a party, but you had to drop everything and go just as you were. The kicker was they almost always came early in the morning while you were still in pjs and your hair had not yet connected with a brush. Mortification for a pre-teen girl.
So, they take Jesus, apparently in his pjs and still quite sleepy, to the boat. At least I’m guessing he was in his pjs, because the next thing he did was fall asleep. He knew where they were headed and this was not a pleasure ride. Shouldn’t they be talking about what the plan was when they arrived in not-so-friendly territory? They’re going over to a place where pretty much people only go if they are taking with them weapons and armor. And they brought Jesus along “just as he was”: which was tired; probably a little disappointed in people for not “getting in”; maybe weary; and of course, resolute about heading into dangerous waters with only himself and his words.
From where I sit, I have to say Jesus leaves them all very vulnerable. And sure enough, the storm hit and Jesus was sleeping away below.
Now, believe the storm the disciples encountered was less like the Perfect Storm George Clooney and his friends battled in that epic move years ago, and more like the storms we all battle from time to time in ourselves and in the world. One person called them “monsters of chaos”. For the disciples, getting into the boat and heading toward this Roman city unleashed the monsters of chaos and uncertainty for them, both internally and, as we know from the rest of the story, externally as well.
These disciples were leaving their land, what they knew, and crossing a kind of border from the known to the unknown, from comfortable to great discomfort. They would have to wrestle their own demons and fears – face their limitations and find their courage. They would also face the external monsters of violence and oppression. In this one decision, storms began brewing on multiple fronts.
There’s a reason people stay in their own neighborhoods. There’s a reason we maintain borders, build fences, equip armies. We’re trying to keep the chaos monsters away. Most of us don’t feel equipped to deal with these monsters, whether they be internal or external.
But there’s Jesus suggesting they take a ride, and then getting into the boat “just as he is”; no weapons, no gear, no strategy, setting a course for confrontation. And then, he goes to sleep. Pretty odd even for Jesus, don’t you think?
Well, of course we know he does step up. When the disciples are totally overwhelmed, they seek out their leader and ask him to make it all better. And Jesus does. The truth is, I think this is a really tender moment. As I said before, Jesus was probably exhausted. He likely really did want to just rely on these sea-worthy friends to get him from one side to the other. He knew – even if they didn’t – that they were perfectly capable of dealing with all kinds of storms, literal and otherwise. They let him down. But, here’s where we see that he really did love these people – not in some abstract way, but as one loves their closest frieds. Although he may have trusted their abilities to face the storm more than they did, I think he was filled with compassion. He sees their anxiety, their uncertainty, the terror in their eyes as they slowly realize what he is really asking them to do. He gets up and he calms their storms…those places inside of them of chaos and uncertainty.
The gospel tells us Jesus calms the sea, and the image is wonderful of him standing on the boat and miraculously affecting even nature itself by speaking three words. But, the threatening sea, deep and wide, is better understood as a source of the unknown, home of demons, the abyss. And, the extraordinary image of Jesus commanding the elements has less to do with managing nature than with compassion and love – and a tinge of disappointment mixed with the continued belief in the potential of his friends.
The gospel of Mark is about identifying the powers that destroy and distort and endanger and then seeing salvation as the overcoming, the liberation from such powers. Mark often uses the metaphors that speak more to people in antiquity than to us. Mark often uses the language of demons and exorcisms. These things can make the message seem remote. But don’t we, today, experience powers that destroy and distort? That doesn’t feel remote. And seeing salvation as liberation from these powers can make sense – and can apply to us and our world. Some of us have experiences of just such a liberation, and most of us yearn for it in some way.
This battle between Jesus and the demons, between liberation and oppression, has both personal and political dimensions. For Jesus, salvation is the coming of God’s reign, the kingdom of God. If the world were to shift in this way, it would liberate both individual people imprisoned by their demons and entire nations seized by powers that build oppressive, violent and unjust systems. Remember where they were headed. Immediately upon his arrival “on the other side”, Jesus would cast out more demons in individuals, but in doing so, he was noticed by the Romans – it was political as well as personal.
So, how did Jesus face the demons, these monsters of chaos, the threatening storms? Directly, yet armed with only the good news. Jesus was not, as much as it might be hard for us to think, sweet and passive. He spoke directly to the storm, and the storm responded. He says, “Peace! Be Still!” This peace is not the peace that is absence of war. Jesus is not saying “peace, man”, in a hippie kind of a tone. He is saying “Hold your peace! Shut up!” He said things throughout the gospel in such a direct way, he was killed by those who thought his words subverted their world and incited revolt among the people.
Jesus goes straight toward monsters, sails right into the mouth of the beast, and he faces them directly. And he does so without violence, sword, or armor. He believes that the power of his message, the power of his healing and forgiveness is enough. He does not need to bring anything with him…he is enough just as he is.
When Jesus is offered a choice between flight and fight, he finds a third way. He goes with direct engagement. Jesus will talk to anyone: members of opposing parties, hostile foreign heads of state, sinners, Samaritans, people who are out to destroy him. Anyone. He doesn’t take up arms against violent enemies – he doesn’t fight. And he certainly doesn’t retreat, no matter how difficult and dangerous it was to not opt for flight.
His words are greater than the winds, greater than the waves, greater than our fear of conflict, greater than our drive for power and dominion, greater than sin, greater than death. His is the word that is able to bring calm where calm seems out of the question. This is how Jesus faced storms: Directly and armed with only the Word of God.
So, how does this help us? God knows, we’re not Jesus. Most of us can’t even master the smaller, internal, non-global monsters of chaos unleashed when we set out from our safe surroundings into unknown, even hostile, territory. We’re safe on land, nicely snuggled in to our well known community. For example, living near my own family, I feel safe knowing they are always there for me and Lydia when we need them. What kind of monsters would be unleashed if something happened and I didn’t have them any more? That is a monster I can’t face.
If I can’t even do that, how am I supposed to deal with the “big stuff” – hostile nations and going where it’s not safe? Jesus is taking these disciples into the “big stuff”. These are the storms that could kill, not just the ones that make us uncomfortable. I don’t know about you, but I would wake Jesus up! Surely they brought him along for this reason. Jesus may have gone along just as he was, but the disciples brought Jesus, because they didn’t believe they could manage “just as they were”.
There is a Buddhist expression: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That doesn’t quite translate into Christianity, because of course when the world did meet Jesus, they killed him; which is definitely not what this quote is about. But it is an appropriate quote for this passage. It speaks to the very human tendency to fall in love with our mentors, and set them on pedestals, refusing to see their flaws and regarding them as bigger than life. In the process, we lose ourselves and stop believing that we are capable of living without a master – always ready to take over when it gets hard.
I think we see in the gospels that one of the things Jesus tried to do was to “diminish” himself to avoid this sort of projection and to let the disciples be free of their mentor. The disciples had projected the entire messianic baggage on Jesus, as well as a load of personal needs and longings. Jesus was gracious enough to carry these projections, but he also attempted to get the disciples to withdraw them. Jesus knew he wouldn’t always be there. That’s just one of those consequences of being human.
A storm threatened to engulf tem. Jesus was asleep in the stern. They might have reproached him with, “don’t just lie there – get up and help with the bailing!”This is what you would say to a friend, a companion on the journey. Instead, they attack him personally: “Teacher, do you not care that we are dying!?!?” They personalize the storm, almost as if he has sent it against them spitefully. They address him not as another available hand in a crisis but as their master. Jesus is with the disciples as a friend, taking a break down below after a tough week, and they treat him like a ready-made savior akin to a genie in a bottle.
The good news for hapless disciples like us is that because Jesus is who he is, we’re enough too. He takes us just as we are. He doesn’t wait for us to be ready. If he did, we’d never set foot in the boat. And, Jesus being who Jesus is – the Holy Spirit being filled with compassion and love for us just as we are – there are times when the Spirit will show up when we call to calm the storms of chaos so we can move forward in our boats on the uncertain seas of life. But, the Spirit comes as a cohort. God comes as partner – an ever-present, ever-loving companion on the journey.
Because Jesus shows us the third way, we can, if we so choose, face those storms directly, trusting that the words and actions of the gospels are the only thing that will ultimately calm the storm and tame the monsters – both internally and externally. And even though it doesn’t feel like it, even though it feels like the storm could swallow us up at any moment if we don’t retreat while someone else handles it, we can do this – without any further training, without being any more that we are right now, without a more perfect faith and more trusting spirit. We are ready to join Jesus as partner; to get in the boat and head out on the mission. We are ready, just as we are. Amen.
