Sunday: 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Mark 4:35-41
Preacher: S. James Steen

The author of Mark loved the sea. The word "sea" appears 19 times in Mark and in Mark Jesus is constantly involved with the Sea of Galilee. This fascination with the sea is one that Christians have shared ever since. A few minutes ago we began with the Navy Hymn. And consider the words of an 18th Century hymn, composed in part by John Newton, of "Amazing Grace" fame, and clearly inspired by today's Gospel story.

The billows swell the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to thee I call,
My fears are great, my strength is small.

O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guide and guard me through the storm;
Defend me from each threat'ning ill,
Control the waves, say, "Peace, be still!"

Living on a huge lake, as we do, and having seen, if not experienced from a boat, the powerful waves that a storm will bring crashing over the barriers along the shore just a few blocks from here, we can imagine the terror of the disciples, caught in a small open boat, by a storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Years ago, I was one of the assistants in a parish whose rector was a kindred spirit of Mark. He was a sailing fanatic. His job was essentially an avocation that supported his real vocation, sailing. He was a gentle and supportive boss. But he became an autocrat when serving as captain of his boat. As I was game and available, he and I would sail up and down the east coast, from Massachusetts to the Chesapeake. Since there were often only two of us, I was often in the pilot's seat. And I can't begin to recall how may times he shouted at me, "Keep your hand on the wheel!"

In fairness, this was not unimportant, especially when storms would arise, as they did from time to time. I can sympathize with the strong reaction of Jesus' terrified disciples. Their cry, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" isn't hard to understand when you consider that he wasn't asleep on just any pillow - I love Mark's homey detail here, telling us that there was a pillow. This pillow - or cushion - was in the stern, so Jesus was at the tiller, a pilot asleep at the wheel in the midst of a storm.

On one level, this is all very human, including Jesus' rebuke of the disciples who had annoyed him by waking him up. He had just finished teaching a crowd so huge that he had to get into the boat to avoid being crushed. Speaking from the perspective of preaching three times on Sunday morning, which usually leads me to a martini, followed by a nap, he must have been exhausted.

But there is more to this story, much more. This crossing to the other side is not just a weekend outing across Lake Michigan to Saugatuck or New Buffalo. It's an event charged with meaning. In his book, A Reordering of Power, Herman Waetjen points out that this crossing begins a new phase of Jesus' ministry, and it's the first in a series of momentous events in which Mark unfolds for the reader the nature of Jesus' authority.

It's noteworthy that this nature miracle takes place on the sea. For in this story Jesus begins breaking out of the limitations others would place on him and on themselves. He is on the sea, where he and his followers are no longer bound by the confines of Land of Israel. And no longer bound by the confines of the Old Israel, he is going, as Mark states it, "across to the other side," across to the New Israel of justice and compassion that he has a growing sense of being called to create.

After calming the sea, Jesus reprimands the disciples, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" This is a story about faith, but it's a strange story about faith. Jesus reprimands the disciples for not having faith at the very moment when they have shown faith in him by waking him up in order that he might save them by taking charge again as the boat's pilot. At this moment, he shows them that he can and will do far more for them than they expect. But he doesn't just resume piloting the boat, he calms the storm; he meets the deeper need and solves the fundamental problem. And he saves not only those closest to him, but also those in other boats who are hungry for more of his teaching, and are following him on this journey across to the other side.

This story would have given us a great message if it had nothing more to tell us. But there is more. In Waetjen's interpretation, apparently the faith to which Jesus calls us isn't a matter of "turning to him in child-like dependency for the relief of adversity and misfortune...." He has already affirmed the disciples' transcending the old order when he allowed them to pick corn on the Sabbath, which, with the exception of those belonging to the royal priesthood, all were forbidden to do. He has told them that in the New Israel, family will be defined not by blood, but by a common commitment to doing God's will. So he has claimed them as his kin. He has even named them Apostles and given them the power to cast out demons. "Since he is building a new moral order in which relationships are family-like and power and privilege are shared, he must be expecting his disciples to appropriate and exercise the authority of royalty that is rightfully theirs."1

Whether or not they were ready to calm the storm, at least they might have assumed responsibility for guiding the boat by taking hold of the tiller. There is irony here. One might expect that - as we so often see - the more that disciples experience the power of Jesus, the more they should come to rely on his authority and the less they should rely on their own. But this remarkable story says the opposite.

It echoes other words of Jesus: "Take up your mat and walk." "If you have faith...if you say to this mountain, "Be lifted up and thrown into the sea," it will be done." "...the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these." That is how the story of the calming of the storm defines faith.

The disciples in the boat aren't there yet. Their identity, like ours - whether we know it or not - is bound up in his. They aren't yet sure who they are, because they haven't figured out who he is. But at least by the end of the story they are moved to ask the right question: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" My fervent prayer for us and for our community is that we become increasingly guided by that question and surprised by how the answers we discover will transform us: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Blessed quietness, holy quietness,
Blest assurance in my soul!
On the stormy sea, Jesus speaks to me,
And the billows cease to roll.
Amen.

^{1 Herman C. Waetjen, A Reordering of Power, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), pp. 110-113.}