Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Friday 21 June 2024
Dear Members and Friends of St. Paul’s,
This week, the fifth Sunday after Pentecost, our Gospel reading from Mark (4:35-41) is the story of Jesus calming the sea and winds. Jesus has finished teaching for the day, it is evening, and he says to the disciples “Let us go across to the other side.” We have no clue why Jesus wants to cross the Sea of Galilee in the evening. Perhaps he was truly tired and wanted to get away from the crowds that forced him into a boat to teach. Jesus must have been tired from the teaching. As the disciples set off to cross the lake Jesus gets comfortable in the stern (rear) of the boat and falls asleep.
Evening is not the greatest of times to cross a large body of water in a small boat. Nighttime winds can whip up the sea. We benefit from those evening winds with our summer delta breeze! That night the breeze became a mega wind which whipped up mega waves. The disciples, some of whom are fisherman and know that lake, have never experienced such a huge storm. They were sure that they were going to die and make their beds at the bottom of the lake.
And Jesus? Jesus was still asleep in the back if the storm-tossed boat. He trusted in the outcome. The disciples, frightened at the storm, wake Jesus. They are amazed he is sleeping through the storm with no care for anyone’s wellbeing. When Jesus wakes, he rebukes the wind and the waves – and from the mega storm a mega calm emerges. Jesus also rebukes the disciples for having “no faith”.
The disciples are in awe of the power. But instead of recognizing who this Jesus is they are left asking “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Who indeed is this Jesus? Jesus who travels where he shouldn’t – the lands of Gentiles. Crosses geopolitical boundaries, the Sea of Galilee. Calls the unlikely as close followers – fishermen, tax collectors, and women. Heals and casts out demons during the wrong times – the sabbath. Who is this Jesus and what is he calling us to do today?
Jesus is calling us to cross boundaries. To reach out to those society still casts as unclean. To reach out across political boundaries to work to build a beloved community. Jesus calls us to go from no or little faith to a faith in God. A faith that calls us out onto our stormy seas. Calls us to work to still the waves of injustice.
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