12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A newly-wed couple were crossing a lake in a boat, when suddenly a great storm arose. The man was a warrior, and remained unflinching in the face of danger, but his wife on the other hand became a ball of nerves and was petrified with fear. She turned to her husband and asked him: “aren’t you afraid, do you not care that we could drown at any moment?” But her husband did not reply and instead took his sword out of its sheath and brought the naked sword close to the woman’s neck, so close that just a small gap was there, it was almost touching her neck, and asked her “Aren’t you afraid ?” She started to laugh and said, “Why should I be afraid, if the sword is in your hands? I know you love me.” He put the sword back and said “so it is with me, God and this storm: I know God Loves me, and the storm is in His hands.”

If there was one thing that Jesus wanted to teach his disciples, it was for them to have a child-like trust in God their Father. He was not asking the disciples to have faith in his own miraculous power over nature. Rather, he was asking them to be like the man in the boat with his wife, content that God who loves them would take care of them. Jesus modelled this trust for his disciples by being like a child asleep in the stern of the boat, content that the storm was in the hands of his Father, who loved him very much. Have you ever noticed how completely naively trusting children are when their parents are around. Even though they are mistaken in this perception, they think that so long as their parents are near, nothing bad can happen to them. This is what Jesus wants us to feel like. Just like the wife implicitly trusted her husband who held a sword against her neck, Jesus wants us to have the same trust in our Father in heaven.

The Sea of Galilee is normally calm, but because of its position – about seven hundred feet below sea level – it is subject to sudden windstorms which sweep down from the surrounding hills, rush through the narrow gorges that break upon the lake and whip up the sea. Being a native of Galilee, Jesus knew that such a storm could occur out on the lake. As moderns, we have a rather romantic view of lakes and love to spend time by the seaside or by a lake side. We find that the water has a calming effect on us, and it is a welcome escape from all the concrete, noise, hustle and bustle of the city. This was not the way that the ancients viewed the water. In the ancient world, the sea was the seat of all evil and the dwelling place of Leviathan – the great sea monster who was the nexus of all evil powers that frustrated God’s will. This is why, in the creation story in Genesis, God had to subdue the sea, calm it and bring order (land) out of the chaos of the waters. The water therefore was not a safe place to be for the ancients. It was a hostile place. Furthermore, Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus and his disciples were headed for the other side of the lake, which was pagan territory – the land of the Decapolis. This was how much Jesus and his disciples wanted to get away from the crowds that were hounding them. We are told that there were other boats that accompanied Jesus’ boat. We might imagine that some of the crowds Jesus had been preaching to decided to follow Jesus in the boat.

Jesus is therefore venturing into dangerous territory. The Sea of Galilee is unpredictable and can at any moment break out into a storm. They are heading to pagan territory, where they will not find the welcome that they would have come to expect in the Jewish towns of Galilee. Yet Jesus seems unperturbed by all of this, and is content to fall asleep on a cushion in the stern of the boat. Sometimes we might feel that we are headed into stormy and dangerous periods in our life, and Jesus seems to be asleep in our boat. Someone recently said to me that that they wish they could live like a child again – I asked them what was stopping them – they replied – well I am not that naïve anymore. There is something enviable about a child’s trust in their parents – we need to recover that with God.

A close reading of this story will reveal striking parallels with the story of Jonah in the Hebrew Bible. When Jonah boarded a ship to escape the mission that he was given by the Lord, he also fell asleep in the boat like Jesus. The ship that Jonah sailed on also encountered a violent storm. The manner in which the disciples rouse Jesus is reminiscent of the way in which the captain of the boat wakes Jonah: “what do you mean by sleeping. Get up! Call on your god. Perhaps he will spare us a thought and not leave us to die.” But this is where the parallels end – for when Jonah is roused by the captain, he concludes that the storm has been sent by his God to punish him for trying to escape from his mission. So Jonah has the sailors throw him overboard and the storm calms down. In sharp contrast, Jesus remains perfectly calm before the storm and rebukes it in much the same language that is used in the gospels for exorcisms – and calm is restored on the sheer authority of his word. We must surely be envious of Jesus’ calm in the face of the storm. We might admit that when we encounter storms in our own lives, our response is far more akin to that of Jonah, we think about what we might have done wrong to deserve such calamity. Often when we face a storm in life, one of our first instincts is to think that we are responsible for the calamity and this makes us lose our peace – we get worried and regret having brought such a crisis on ourselves. Often before the storm even begins, we are thinking of what might go wrong and preparing ourselves for the worst. We are unable like Jesus to simply go to sleep on a cushion, trusting that God will help us weather any storm that might come our way.

Jesus’ control over the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee symbolizes his power to bring order out of the chaos of our own lives. We are called into a relationship with Jesus that trusts that he has the power to do this. Like the disciples we must journey from a position of knowing Jesus as a good teacher to that of seeing that Jesus is the one calms the storms of our lives. There is a real sense in which we can say that we do not really know someone until we have gone through a crisis with them. There is nothing like a crisis to show us who are true friends are, those people who stick with us through thick and thin. It is precisely through weathering this storm with Jesus that his disciples come to a deeper appreciation of the kind of friend he is to them, much more than just a teacher, much more than just a mere human, but rather someone who brings them face to face with God’s awesome saving power. In a very real way then, we might also say that we do not truly know Jesus until we have let him save us from a storm or two in our lives. We might in some bizarre way give thanks for the storms of our lives as they give us the same opportunity to be filled with awe at the saving power of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

Questions for reflection

1. Where have I recently seen the power of God to calm a storm in my life? Did I relish the opportunity to marvel at the awesome power of God?
2. Who is Jesus for me? Is he just a good teacher of morals, or is he a friend I can count on when the chips are down?
3. Do I show a child-like trust in God my Father, or do I freak out and stress myself to no end in the midst of storms? What measures might I take to remain calm in the storm?