"Trouble, Trouble", (Mark 4:35-41)

A Sermon Preached By

Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 22, 2003

PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt, NY  13214  Phone:  446-0960

phillchu@twcny.rr.com

Normally most folks don’t look for trouble. Who needs it? Why bring trouble to yourself or others when it can be avoided? It’s only prudent to avoid trouble.

It seems that it was the trouble of the second kind that Jesus and disciples got into that night when Jesus said to push out from the shore for a boat trip across the Sea of Galilee. When the cool winds from hills north of Galilee blow down and mix with the warm air that comes in from the Mediterranean Sea, that combination of warm air and cool air has a way of setting off some pretty bad storms in a very short time. It wouldn’t have seemed prudent to the fishermen among the disciples, I would think, to risk it in the dark. But they did, and the storm came. They were going to "the other side" of the Sea of Galilee, which was Mark the gospel writer’s way of demonstrating their intent to carry the message and the mission of the expanding kingdom of God to the predominantly Gentile region of Decapolis (the "other side"). It wasn’t just for his own people that he came, but for those who were thought to be cut off from the promises of God, outside the realm of God’s love and favor. The realm of God was not to be confined to only a certain group of people, but rather the good news of God’s salvation was to go to all the world. And it is the disciples of Jesus who are to carry it.

This little story has so many levels of meaning within it. Its symbolism is so rich, and it has spoken deeply to Christians throughout the centuries. It speaks to individuals in the "storms" that befall us, and it speaks to the church as it seeks to carry out its Great Commission to "go into all the world," to "make disciples of all nations." I’d like to try to tease out a bit of how "going across to the other side" might speak to us as a church, Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, today. How do we see it? What does it mean for us?

The first thing to notice (and I’ve already referred to it) is that this trip wasn’t the disciples’ idea. They didn’t initiate it, Jesus did. Sometimes, maybe to avoid trouble, we get the order reversed. That is, we choose the way that we’ll go, and we invite God along for the ride, so that maybe he’ll be there for us when the going gets tough, be there to calm the storms that inevitably come. Every path we take in life - the paths we take out of life’s transitions, like graduations, vocational choices, marriage, retirement - all of them involve risk and uncertainty. We’re pretty clear about that. But when it comes to matters of faith, to life together as the body of Christ, it seems that we often envision it more as a safety net and a comfortable place to land when the paths we have chosen or the life we are living comes into stormy times, than we do an adventure into the dark with Jesus as we follow his command to expand the realm of God in our "world." You see the difference? - the difference between us inviting God along on the path that we have chosen, and us getting into the boat, fears and all, and pushing out with Christ to where he would have us go.

The next thing to notice as the disciples were in the boat heading toward the other side is how they acted as if they were alone out there. When the storm whipped up and the waves were swamping the boat and they started to panic, they woke Jesus, who was asleep in the stern, and yelled "Don’t you care...?" - someone has suggested, because they needed another pair of hands to help them bale out the water. They didn’t realize the kind of help he would actually give. It turns out they didn’t know who he really was. They needed a little extra help, hopefully enough to get them out of trouble. They didn’t expect their world to be transformed.

This is characteristic of the disciples in Mark. They are a pretty "thick" group, never quite understanding the things that Jesus said and did. We’ve got the more complete picture, but that doesn’t mean that we automatically trust more than they did, does it? When we get nervous about how we are called to change and to grow, anxious about how we’ll find the resources and the reserves to get to the other side - to carry the message of the kingdom to an ever-widening circle of people, and to reach out more broadly and more deeply with works of justice and love - we act as if it’s all on us. We’ve got to make it happen ourselves or it won’t happen at all. We forget who is with us. And when we do, because we do, we are more paralyzed by our fears than we are freed by our faith. When we do so, we act as if Jesus doesn’t care. We may give lip service to his saving power, but to truly look to him, to truly trust in him, requires us to admit the deep trouble we are really in, and maybe that’s what we’re reluctant to do.

The earliest readers and hearers of Mark’s gospel - the earliest readers and hearers of this story, didn’t need to be reminded, as the disciples didn’t need to be reminded, that the world around them was one enormous storm. But perhaps we do need reminding, we whose comfort is seemingly assured - a dry place to sleep, more than enough food to eat, and despite recent events, relatively secure. We have worked to make it that way, and work to keep it that way, but at what expense? How easy it is to let ourselves be fooled into believing that this world’s values really aren’t so different from those of the gospel. The gospel has some pretty clear and direct things to say about revenge, about judging others or ourselves by how we look, or how much money we have, about what makes for justice between people. The gospel has some things to say about gaining more and more while others have less and less, about how we are to treat enemies, about meeting the needs of those who lack for physical comfort. The gospel has some pretty clear and direct things to say about the reality and the power of sin and evil, about envy and jealousy and greed and fidelity to one another - and finally, about how we cannot save ourselves. And are we not surrounded by powers and forces that say and promote and demonstrate just the opposite of these things - sometimes in very subtle ways, couched in smooth words and wrapped in attractive and appealing packages? There is a storm around us, but I guess you really have to be in the boat in order to see it.

Seeing the storm for what it is would seem to be a critical step for us today, but it is just a step - awareness of the world’s need and of our own sin, our powerlessness to save ourselves. For the disciples in the boat the situation changes when they came to the realization of their total vulnerability in the face of the storm - and they fearfully called out and questioned whether Jesus cared at all that they were sinking. It was because they really don’t know who Jesus is that lay at the root of their fear.

And so who is he? That remains a critical question for us, no less so than for those earliest disciples. Jesus was asleep in the middle of the storm not because he didn’t care, but because he was the only one who trusts completely in the Creator God, the one who created with a word at the very beginning. Jesus is the Creator God’s word spoken to his world - his word, made flesh. God’s word in the flesh speaks, and even the wind and sea obey him: "Peace, be still." The disciples were more afraid after the stilling of the storm than they were when it raged around them. "They feared with a great fear," is what Mark actually says. "Who is this?" That’s how the story ends. So the question hangs there for us to take up. Who we think he is will have the greatest impact on our efforts to expand the realm of God through the life and ministry of our church. Who we think he is will determine if we’ll be stifled by our fears or led by faith. Who we think he is will tell us if we are looking only for a little help, or for true transformation. Who we think he is will decide how far from shore we’re willing to let him take us.

Jesus Christ is more than our helper and our friend. He is the one whose power is the power of God - the power that does not respond in kind to the great evils - not by crushing evil and chaos, but by transforming it. It is the word of God that Jesus speaks, that brings peace and calms the storm, that empowers us not to be afraid. We live by the Word of God, that same powerful, creative Word that created the world out of watery chaos in Genesis, that preserves us through the watery chaos even now, that brings the kind of peace that we can only know as we push out into the deep with him.

Amen.  

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