The Third Sunday After Pentecost I Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32 – 49

Sunday, June 21, 2009 2 Corinthians 6: 1 – 13

The Rev. Bambi Willis Mark 4: 35 – 41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

Mark 4: 35

The violence of the sea threatens to overwhelm the disciples this morning in our reading from the gospel of Mark. Battling high winds and rough water, the disciples struggle to keep from drowning in the waters of the sea of Galilee. Desperate to save themselves, the disciples wake up Jesus who is asleep, screaming: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And Jesus calms the sea, rescuing the disciples from a watery grave so that they can continue their journey “across to the other side” of the Sea of Galilee. The sea will not defeat God’s purposes.

Up until now in the gospel of Mark, Jesus has been preaching, teaching and healing in Galilee, a predominately Jewish environment, amazing the crowds and threatening the status quo. Now, for the first time in Mark’s gospel, Jesus takes his message to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, into gentile territory, into a land deemed unclean and beyond the pale of God’s love. When Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee, Jesus breaks down the barrier between Jew and gentile, between the chosen people and the not-so-chosen people, between those who are “in” and those who are “out,” proclaiming his message of the advent of the kingdom of God to all people, not just to the people of Israel. The disciples are on a mission, a mission to reconcile the world to God and strangers to one another.

And the mission is almost swamped by the sea.

The sea, in Jewish imagination represented all the forces of chaos and destruction, a fury once unleashed which took pity on no one. Way back in Genesis when God saw the evil humanity was wrecking upon God’s good creation, God used the sea to blot out created life, leaving only Noah and his “floating zoo,” in the words of one theologian, to carry on. And when Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, God stirred up the sea, causing the sailors to throw Jonah overboard and into the belly of a whale. And when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in 2005, you and I like our ancient forbears saw first hand the power of the sea to wreck death and destruction and utter havoc on all of life.

And now the sea threatens to thwart the mission of God to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the Jew first and then also to the whole world. So Jesus rebukes the wind, and says to the sea: “’Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.”

And in that dead calm, Jesus accuses the disciples of cowardice, saying: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” The disciples, on that night in the Sea of Galilee, were blinded by their fear, seeking only to preserve their own lives, unable to see themselves as a part of the mission of God which not even the sea could overcome. The sea threatened them and they drew back in fear.

The disciples respond to Jesus’ rebuke but not in the way our translation would lead us to think. Our translation reads: “And they were filled with great awe.” The Greek reads: “And they were afraid with a terrible fear.” The disciples are not struck dumb in the presence of this man who has authority even over the sea; rather the disciples are filled with terror that Jesus may be asking of them more than they want to give.

Our gospel reading this morning is not primarily a story about a miracle rescue in the midst of stormy seas. Our gospel reading is an exhortation for courage in the face of the inevitable challenges we will face as we take our place in the mission of God. As we work for justice, freedom and peace, the seas will rise up against us. Whenever we challenge the status quo, speak truth to power, and labor on behalf of the poor, we will meet storms on many fronts, some without and some within. But the sea will not thwart the mission of God.

In our gospel reading this morning Jesus sleeps while the disciples desperately try to save themselves. Later in the gospel of Mark, we will meet Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and this time Jesus is the one awake and the disciples are asleep. In the garden of Gethsemane, on the night before Jesus dies, Jesus prays: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” In Gethsemane, Jesus prays that God’s will be done, even if that means Jesus must suffer.

This is the Third Sunday After Pentecost, the beginning of a long liturgical season in which we seek to live into the truth of Easter by the power of the Holy Spirit. We, each in our own way, will be challenged by the Holy Spirit to go places which will make us uncomfortable, maybe even threaten our very existence. Our boats will be swamped, probably multiple times before we get to Advent. We can pray to be spared or we can pray that God’s will be done. We can trust that God can and will accomplish God’s purposes through us or we can ignore God’s call and hope to avoid all fear and discomfort.

The boat, in Mark’s text this morning, came to be for the early Christians, an image of the church. Persecuted by Roman Emperors, ostracized by the synagogues, proclaiming a message that defies all reasonable explanation, seeking to reconcile every nation, race and people, the boat has yet to go down. We often have been blown off course, weighed down with ballast that simply slows us up and often viewed as a life raft rather than a ship on a mission that needs all hands on deck.

God has a mission and invites us to participate in it. And the waters will get rough. When Rembrandt painted this scene, the boat is pitched at an absurd angle, the sky is dark and foreboding, the water swamps the boat with a demonic fury and those on board are either struggling with the sails or grabbing on to the stays. One sailor is leaning over the side, sea sick. And all the while, Jesus rests peacefully in the stern. Only One who is absolutely assured of the goodness and faithfulness of God could possibly sleep through such a storm. The rest of us will be afraid.

“Mission” comes from a Latin word meaning “to send.” Just as the disciples are sent “across to the other side” this morning, God sends us out in any number of directions to proclaim in word and deed the good news of God in Christ. Two weeks ago, God sent some of us to Lee County, the poorest county in the state, to repair homes. Several years ago, God sent many in this parish to offer hospitality to a number of Sudanese refugees, helping them to begin their lives anew here in the States. Every month, God sends us to the Food Bank with food for those who cannot afford to shop at Ukrops. For the past several summers, God has sent some of us to organize a choir camp for the kids at the Peter Paul Development Center. And regularly throughout the year, our outreach team opens our eyes to the countless opportunities we all have to serve, to be sent, to “go across to the other side.”

Mission has only one limit and that is our fear. If we take Mark’s gospel seriously, and I would suggest we do, each of us must wrestle with Jesus’ rebuke. In what way are our fears holding us back, keeping us from doing what God would have us do? If the sailing is smooth, are we doing the work of God or simply finding ways to feel good about ourselves? If what we do, individually and collectively, does not lead us to pray for strength and courage, then maybe we are not hearing God’s call to us clearly. The disciples this morning are sent across a storm tossed sea, to bring good news to those on the other side. And the disciples are afraid they will drown. And to the wind and the waves, Jesus says “Peace! Be still! Why are you afraid?”