PROPER 7, YEAR B

June 23, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Job 38:1-11

Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

II Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4:35-41

 

During my time away, I spent some time at two beaches, and I took one small sea voyage on the ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey. On all three occasions, the ocean was a pleasant, calm, and relaxing place to be.

 

But as any sailor can tell you, the ocean or sea can also be a dangerous and terrifying place. In ancient Hebrew cosmology, the ocean was a remnant of the primordial chaos that existed in the beginning, before God began his work of creation, making the sky and the dry land appear.

 

Some of God’s most spectacular exploits in the Old Testament take the form of dramatic victories over the primordial waters. In the story of Noah and the Ark, God sends the great flood but then makes the waters recede, so that the earth once again becomes habitable. During the Exodus from Egypt, God makes a way for the children of Israel through the Red Sea, with walls of water to their right and their left.

Psalm 107, which we just recited, describes the terror experienced by sailors during a storm, and their rejoicing and praise of the Lord who calms the waves and brings them safely to harbor.

 

In all these biblical passages, God stands forth as the Creator of life demonstrating his superiority to the waters of death. In today’s Old Testament reading, God firmly reminds Job of how he brought order out of chaos in the beginning, setting bounds for the sea and saying: “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

 

The Sea of Galilee is actually a medium-sized lake, thirteen miles long by five miles wide at its widest point. The one occasion I was on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, the air was completely still and the water’s surface was like glass. I remember thinking that it must have been like this after Jesus stilled the waves. But the Sea of Galilee is also prone to sudden violent squalls whipped up by winds funneled in through the surrounding high hills.

 

When Jesus rebukes the wind and commands the sea to be still, he’s exercising a power that properly belongs to God alone. The disciples are filled with awe—the Greek text says literally that “they feared a great fear”—and they say to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

If they were afraid before, they’re even more afraid now. But whereas their previous fear was a bad fear, arising from lack of faith, their new fear is a good fear, the fear of the Lord, because the only possible answer to their question is that the one standing in their midst is God incarnate.

 

The detail of his sleeping on the cushion in the stern reminds us of his two natures as true God and true man. Jesus Christ is one Person, fully human and fully divine. In his humanity, he shares with us the same physical needs we all have, to eat, drink, and rest. So, according to the dictates of his human nature he falls asleep after a long, hard day of preaching to the multitudes. But after the disciples awaken him, it’s by the power and authority of his divine nature that he commands the wind and the waves to be still, and they obey him.

 

Now, at this point, the standard homiletical move would be for the preacher to draw an allegory, likening the boat to the Church or the individual Christian making a way over the storm-tossed sea of life, so that just when we feel overwhelmed by our troubles and about to go under, Jesus steps up and commands, “Peace, be still!” Then, even if our problems don’t go away, they’ll at least become navigable.

 

I suspect that we’ve all heard that sermon on multiple occasions; I’ve preached it a few times myself. And it’s a perfectly legitimate application of today’s Gospel. But instead I’d like to quote from a sermon of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who lived in North Africa in the late fourth and early fifth century. Augustine likens the wind and waves to our temptations and sins. He says this:

 

When you have to listen to abuse, that means that you are being buffeted by the wind. When your anger is roused, you are being tossed by the waves. So when the winds blow and the waves mount high, the boat is in danger, your heart is imperiled, your heart is taking a battering. On hearing yourself insulted, you long to retaliate; but the joy of revenge brings with it another kind of misfortune—shipwreck. Why is this? Because Christ is asleep in you. What do I mean? I mean that you have forgotten his presence. Rouse him, then; remember him, let him keep watch within you, pay heed to him … A temptation arises: it is the wind. It disturbs you: it is the surging of the sea. This is the moment to awaken Christ and let him remind you of those words: “Who can this be? Even the winds and the sea obey him.”

 

Isn’t that wonderful? If Christ is asleep in us, this is the moment to awaken him! As Saint Paul puts it in our reading from Second Corinthians: “Now is the acceptable time; Now is the day of salvation.”

 

As the disciples awaken Jesus, they cry out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” I could be wrong, but my guess is that all they expect from him in that moment is to help them strike the sail and bail the water so that the boat won’t go under. Hence their amazement and awe when instead he stills the storm simply by his word of command. They’d merely wanted him to join all hands on deck, but he does almost infinitely more than they’ve asked of him.

 

Therein lies a message of hope and encouragement for us all. Perhaps, as Augustine suggests, we’ve let Christ fall asleep within us. Then, if we call on him in moments of crisis, he’ll indeed awaken and come to our aid. But he will do so on his terms rather than ours. He’ll insist on doing more for us than it ever occurred to us to ask, and he’ll expect far more from us in return.

 

This episode of the stilling of the storm takes place early in Mark’s Gospel, not long after the initial calling of the Twelve. For the disciples, the adventure is just beginning, and it will take them places they’ve never imagined they’ll go: not just across the Sea of Galilee but ultimately across real seas, and real oceans, to begin the Church’s mission of preaching the Gospel to all nations. Similarly, when we awaken Jesus within us, the adventure of the Christian life begins: an adventure that I wouldn’t exchange for anything else in the world. So, happy sailing!