Sermon by Pr. Sharai Jacob on the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 12b + June 23, 2024
Jesus said, “let’s go across to the other side” and the followers of Jesus took him in the boat “just as he was”. No preparations. He was teaching the crowds and then he just got into a boat and sailed off. Imagine if right now I said “I want to go to Michigan.” and I just left church, went straight to the lake and got into a boat? Where would I go when I get there? I don’t even know how to sail! What if something happens along the way? I don’t know the tide patterns or what the weather will be like… What a dangerous thing to decide to do on a whim!
But here we see Jesus and his followers sailing away on a much bigger body of water - unprepared, and seemingly ignorant of the coming storm. I’m sure many of us have experienced the feeling of running into a situation or phase of life, feeling unprepared. Maybe we see it in little things like when you’re assembling Ikea furniture and you skip reading the instructions, so now you can’t tell which way the desk is facing and you’re sure that there must be some parts missing. That feeling of suddenly being in a situation you weren’t prepared for comes in bigger moments too - I hear having a child can sometimes feel like you’re sailing in uncharted waters.
This whole chapter Jesus has been teaching crowds at the shore by telling parable after parable. Now at the end of this chapter we are told this story of Jesus and the disciples setting sail - it’s as though Mark the author is giving us the readers a parable to ponder for ourselves. A story of disciples who are sailing off on a whim, but Jesus is with them.
And then a storm comes. The waves climb higher and higher until they start to crash over the boat and fill it with water. The disciples are terrified. They came out onto the water with no plan, no preparation, and now they were caught in this terrible storm. These moments appear in our lives too - often jolting us out of our routines and safe places: Suddenly losing a loved one can leave us feeling directionless and lost, traumatic events that leave a shadow in our minds and leave us feeling constantly in danger. And then there are larger, shared moments. We experience them together - 9/11, the world wars, global pandemic, ongoing genocide. We experience these storms together - whether we are in the same boat or not.
In the chapter before our Gospel reading today, Jesus appoints the twelve disciples. The word that is translated as “to appoint” in that text is actually a Greek verb that means to “make or construct”. Jesus took each disciple as an individual and “made them the twelve.” So when we see the disciples in this story, we must recognize that they are more than just 12 individuals. They were intentionally made into a community. There are many things we can weather better as a community than we would alone. Things like life’s daily stresses, like suddenly losing your job and needing to find a new one, like tackling moving day, like dealing with a break up. And then there are things that community can help with, but that just can’t be fixed or healed as easily. Things like grief, a terrifying medical diagnosis, the scars of a traumatic event or racial trauma.
In this particular story, the disciples are facing something much bigger than they can handle as the twelve- and not just the disciples in their one little boat, but also the many boats in the storm alongside them. Maybe they notice a turning point in the storm when suddenly they cannot see any of the other boats, and the sea seems to be swallowing up the deck. This storm represents something more apocalyptic, something that only Jesus can combat. Any sailor or fisherman would know that the sea can be a deadly place. And here is a boat full of fishermen afraid for their lives because they’ve seen storms before, and they know this one means the end.
In their great faith they turn to find their teacher. They know that Jesus is capable of amazing things. They go to find him and have to wake him up. It is already shocking and angering to know that the guy who demanded they set sail immediately, was asleep and contributing nothing during a deadly storm. But what’s more shocking, is that Jesus gets up with sleep still in his eyes and tells the raging ocean to hush. And it does!
Suddenly the towering waves have turned to ripples, and the rolling thunder clouds have disappeared. The wind is now a gentle breeze and the other boats are just there next to them. As if the storm had never started. Then Jesus asks a question that seems callous - “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” While these fishermen had enough faith to know that Jesus might be able to save them. I doubt that they knew Jesus had this level of power. But they had good reason to be afraid. And isn’t it only human nature to fear for your life in a deadly situation? Maybe we are getting too general in understanding this parable…
What if this storm isn’t our daily struggles, or the evil we face in the world? What if this storm is more specific and even further beyond our control? Maybe this storm represents death, our own mortality. We all face it, like uncharted waters, and there is often no time to prepare. But Jesus is in the boat with us, and unlike the disciples we will have the comfort of the end of the Gospel story. We will have witnessed time and again the life-giving Grace of God. And when the storm reaches it’s peak, when we reach the point when our humanness cannot manage anymore - our faith declares to us that death has been defeated. That Jesus will be there to calm the wind and still the waves even if we are afraid.