PAST SERMONS
Sermon of June 21, 2009 by The Rev. Rosalee Glass
St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church
Third Sunday after Pentecost, June 21, 2009
Mark 4: 35-41
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Sermon by The Rev. Rosalee T. Glass
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then this this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Jesus said to them, “let us go across to the other side.” These words from the beginning of our Gospel story, on one level are simply Jesus telling the disciples where they were going next: across the Sea of Galilee. But on another level, because of the experience the disciples had on that trip, “going to the other side” for them turned out to be a metaphor for a journey to a new place of faith and understanding.
Yes, in this Gospel story, the disciples had an experience that would profoundly change them. They were in need of real faith and commitment to Jesus and his ministry before being sent out on their own to heal and save. But up until today’s story, they seem to have just gone along for the ride. They might even have been like groupies following a rock star. They were bystanders while Jesus preached, told parables, and performed miracles to save and heal others. But their own faith in Jesus was still shallow, for they hadn’t yet experienced his mercy and his saving power directly in their own lives.
So now for the first time, in the boat on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples go through their own personal experience with Jesus. They aren’t aware that anything unusual will happen when they follow his suggestion to go across to the other side of the Sea. They get into the boat and head out. But then, while Jesus is asleep in the stern, waves from a fierce windstorm threaten to swamp the boat. In their fear and panic, the disciples assume that they are drowning. They wake Jesus up.
The disciples then show how much they need to understand! They betray their lack of faith in who Jesus really is and the power he has to save. We can see that because they don’t express anything that says they think he knows what he’s doing. Neither do they ask for his help. The only thing they do is question his compassion during the crisis. They say, “Don’t you care that we are perishing?”
We shouldn’t fault them too much for this, because we sometimes react the same way in our own times of crisis. When we suffer great fear, anger, disappointment, or loss, for ourselves or for others, we at times begin to sink into a negative place of despair. At those times, instead of trusting and turning to God for help, we doubt and resent God, who seems absent or not to care.
So after the disciples more or less accuse Jesus of not caring, he wakes up, puts an end to the storm and the disciples are transformed. As the text says, the disciples were “filled with awe.” And here the word “awe” in Greek has the sense of reverence and shock. Jesus not only saved them, but he did it by having the unimaginable power to subdue nature. This would have been impossible for anyone who was merely human, so they have begun to understand.
The disciples crossed from one side of the Galilee—- where, so far as Jesus was concerned they had had inadequate knowledge and trust—- to the other side, a place where, when they arrived, they would have a real understanding and faith based on their personal experience. And now the disciples were not just the observers of Jesus’ compassion—-now they themselves were the recipients of it, the ones who experienced being saved by him. What a difference that made! Very soon after this life-changing event, they were strong and ready to serve, and Jesus sent them out to begin their own saving work as apostles.
Now of course not all life-changing learning happen as an immediate and dramatic events like the one the disciples experienced in today’s Gospel story, or like the conversion experience that St. Paul had on the road to Damascus. In fact, most learning probably begins with a nudge to understand something better, and then turns into an extended period of learning.
This is the case for many who enroll in the Education for Ministry Program. Today we honor and applaud them and others who have engaged in educational experiences that have taken place over a number of years. People who begin a course of study don’t know where it will take them or how they will grow and change. In this they are like the disciples when they get into the boat. We may have the opportunity to talk to the graduates who are here among us at coffee hour today and if we do, perhaps hear how they think their education may have changed them.
If we will believe it, all of us are in a life-long learning situation. As was the case for the disciples, the important thing is, that when we feel called to something, that we be willing to get into the boat and go to the other side. God calls us to step out of our present comfort zone and be open to growing in new ways; to exploring new ministries or enhancing present ones; to
welcoming new or deepened relationships; and to obeying the prodding of the Holy Spirit that may take us somewhere we never imagined we’d be. Amen.