Sermon for June 20, 2021 Pentecost 4 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Mark 4:35-41 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

I woke up in the middle of the night, the wee hours of Friday morning, because I heard a loud banging sound above my head. I thought, “What is that? Who’s making such a loud racket at this hour of the night?” Then I noticed the pitter patter of raindrops on the roof. “Oh, that was just thunder. That storm is finally rolling in, thank God!” It’s been so long since we’ve had rain that I was starting to forget what a storm sounded like.

I’m sure the farmers were thankful, too, because they need the rain even more than the rest of us do. Not everyone is thankful when a storm rolls in, though. If you’re out boating or sailing on Lake Michigan, you know how quickly the water can turn from calm to dangerous.

Like the mustard seed or the dandelions I was talked about in my sermon last week--or like a human being, for that matter--a thunderstorm is another one of those mysterious examples of things that can be both good and bad at the same time. This is simply a reflection of Christ himself, because as we know him, he is both crucified and resurrected. The good and the bad are all rolled into one within him. He carries his scars and suffering and death, as well as his healing and forgiveness and salvation. And through faith, we can do the same. We can offer to God every part of our lives--the good and the bad--that we carry within us. And we can trust that God is powerful enough to carry us through the storms of life and bring us to grace and mercy on the other side.

This is what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples as they got into a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and he said to them, “let us go across to the other side.” By having them sail through a storm on the lake, Jesus was giving them a lesson in God’s pattern of death and resurrection. Would they learn how to surrender themselves to Jesus, and trust him so he could lead them through the storm?

The way the Gospel of Mark describes what happens in this story is very interesting, too, and it’s not fully captured in our English translation. St. Mark writes that, as the great windstorm arose and waves beat against the boat, that Jesus was “asleep on the cushion.” The word for “asleep” in Greek is also a euphemism for “being dead”. Then when they woke up Jesus, the disciples said, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” The word for “woke up” is the same as the word for “resurrection”. We have death and resurrection right in that boat.

Being raised from his sleep, Jesus rebukes the wind and waves by saying “Silence! Be still”. Our translation has Jesus saying “Peace, be still” but Mark reports Jesus saying “Silence! Be still.” And this is where the disciples really start to become afraid. The way Mark puts it is “they were afraid with great fear”--not afraid of the storm, but afraid of Jesus! Afraid of how mysterious he is, and how mysterious his ways are. Right there on the lake, in the middle of a storm--as he’s in the boat with the disciples--Jesus is embodying God’s pattern of death and resurrection. And the disciples are learning that Jesus is farther beyond their ability to comprehend or control than they had previously imagined.

Now think back to the Easter gospel, the way Mark tells it. What happens when the women went to the tomb and discovered that Jesus had been raised from the dead? They were silent. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. The women at the tomb had a very similar reaction to what happened when Jesus calmed the storm with the disciples in the boat, and they all ended up learning the same thing, too, with the silence and the fear: Before you can share the good news of Jesus with others, the first thing you have to do is to be able to describe or feel how Jesus brings good news to you.

And there are questions Jesus asks of the disciples while they are in the boat, as things are silent and still. These questions will help them do this. These are not only questions for the disciples; they are also questions for us: Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?

It might be easy, or we might have a tendency to hear these questions as a rebuke or criticism from Jesus, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on. Notice how Mark says that Jesus rebukes the wind and storm; he doesn’t rebuke the disciples. I really think that Jesus was simply asking them honest questions: Why are you afraid? What’s getting in the way of your ability to truly live? What holds you back from putting your faith in Christ who wants to help you across to the other side?

If those are questions for the disciples, they’re also questions for us. So take some time today to answer these questions for yourself, and then lift your answers up to God in prayer. Your answers may be simple, or they may be profound. It doesn’t matter, just as long as your answers are honest--because with these questions, God can help you to tell a story that makes sense of life as it is now; and maybe even you could tell a story that helps you describe how Jesus “gets in the boat” (so to speak) with you when you’re in the middle of a storm; how Jesus brings good news to you--or at least what you think it might take for good news in Jesus to feel real to you.

But it starts with honesty. All throughout the Bible, we see that what God really wants from us is honesty and a humble heart. God’s not looking for perfection. And not even our fear or our lack of faith are obstacles to the God who is willing to climb in the boat with us when the waves and wind crash all around us. What the God who stills the storm simply wants from us is a willingness to be honest about the past and the present, and to have a humble heart that will allow enough room for God’s grace to bring you to new life in the future.

“Silence! Be still,” said Jesus to the wind and the waves. “Silence. Be still,” Jesus asks of each of us. And as the wind and waves of life, or health, or the pandemic, or the covid, or differing political views, or disagreements among family and friends, or whatever it may be; as those winds and waves are blowing all around you, when you allow yourself enough silence and stillness to listen--listen for God, and listen for what’s really going on in the many layers of who you are as a person (and those things are good and the bad. There’s a saint and a sinner that lives within each of us). But as you allow yourself to listen, then you can honestly and humbly offer those things back to God. And that’s when Jesus can really do the mysterious and transformative work of death and resurrection within you. Amen.