storm, be still

 

SERMON PREACHED at St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN,

St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN

ORDINARY SUNDAY 12 (June 23^rd) 2024

 

READINGS

 

Psalm 9: 11-14

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

Mark 4: 35-41

As I read this famous scene from the gospels I am time and time again staggered by its vividness, either as a metaphor or as an actual, demonstrable if you like. event that took place on a like in the Holy Land 2000 years ago.

When it comes to reading these great nature miracles I will tend to lean to metaphor, and yet these events must be deeply consistent with the experience of those who saw and knew Jesus in the flesh.

So I have long since discarded the idea that the miracles were merely metaphor, not least because it seems to me the biblical writers are telling us that something greater than our comprehension is happening here.

So whether or not we were able to time travel and grab the weather details for that 24 hour period in Middle Eastern meteorology, there is something clearly vast going on here in the Jesus story. And, strangely enough, there is an even greater focus on the story of the disciples slow awakening to Jesus.

The critical ingredient of the passage is the overwhelming fear that those who are still awake in the boat are experiencing. I mentioned  only a couple of weeks ago, that in recent years I have experienced a seismic shift in perspective on world affairs. This was to do with the schematic conversion of truth into lies and lies into truth, and since that time I have found myself in a shaky “I don’t know who to trust anymore” world.

Almost.

Prior to that, as someone who worked in media, I more or less trusted reputable media sources. I don’t of course mean disreputable sources like the infamous New Zealand Truth newspaper or the more sensational and breathy tabloids of the Daily Mail genre. As a reader it is always our task to evaluate, to test information around us on the balance of probability. Aliens probably did not eat my cat and there probably isn't a tunnel through which children are smuggled from the USA by paedophile rings.

The balance of probability is a difficult thing to speak about when confronted by Jesus in a boat, stilling a storm. But here is a deeper philosophical probability. CS Lewis refers to a “deeper magic” and it is hinted at here. If there is a God who is the source of all creation, then that God at least has the option of stilling storms, of feeding thousands, of curing illness.

That it has not been my experience is a litmus test to which I need sometimes to hold lightly. Occasionally, in any case, we need to remind ourselves that there is enough food on planet earth to feed 8 billion people. There is just not enough compassion.

Being a news junkie, there have been times in recent years that I have become deeply fearful for the state of the world. Prior to that, destructive chaos was an abstraction, one that I naively thought had begun to be laid to rest with the cessation of Cold War, the crumbling of walls, and the steady dismantling, so it seemed, of injustices.

How wrong I was.

I now live in a world where most days I find myself in a boat on a lake during a storm, metaphorically speaking. (I need to add that since I drive along the shores of a magnificent lake each day).

The disciples were frightened by physical manifestations of nature. Fear is one of those words that covers an entire range or feeling. The disciples in this scene undergo a transition in fear, from what we can assume was terror for their lives to deep, immeasurable awe at their experience of Jesus’ authority over the elements.

Once I had come to believe in a creator God I had to remind myself to be open to the possibility that God has mastery over creation. That mastery unfortunately is not at my beck and call, and I cannot, on demand, expect God to still a storm or to provide me with 153 fish, or the infamous Mercedes-Benz of Janis Joplin’s acerbic song.

Mark wants us to know that the God we experience in worship and fellowship and prayer and meditation in scripture and in nature is far greater than we can ever imagine.

The disciples were shell-shocked, in a sense, when they saw the authority revealed in Jesus. But this is no longer the terror of the elements, but the deep, immeasurably deep awe of encountering divine authority. Although I never went to Sunday school I believe children used to sing a song that says “my God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do.”

I have loathed that song for years, and still do. Yet I am forced to admit its truth once I have admitted the existence of God. But God doesn’t do dramatic things on demand, and such an elusive God is an inconvenience to my thought processes. God can, God has, God does, though never on demand. God will do the inconceivable.

Even prayer is not demand, no matter how heartfelt.

Mark wants us to grasp one other idea. He wants us to notice that this Jesus in whom the fullness of God is revealed is utterly immersed in human experience. He may be confident enough to doze through the terrifying storm, but later, in the crucifixion scenes, we’ll see that he too is not impervious to the horrors of suffering.

Mark wants to hold those two ideas in tension: Jesus utterly divine, and Jesus utterly immersed in the whole range of horrors experienced by humankind –  indeed I would add, by what I shall call “naturekind.”

Mark’s account of the gospel will ultimately go on to explain that it is precisely because the unmoved mover in the back of the boat is willing to become the victim on the cross. He is willing to become the history-transforming saviour. He is even willing to entrust his story to a terrified group of women fleeing an empty tomb on Easter morning. He does so because the integrity of the resurrection is so great that lives have been changed and hope has dwelt in human hearts ever since.’