June 20, 2021 – Mark 4:35-41
Mark 4:35-41
With Us in the Boat
Lectionary 12B – June 20, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Jesus is always pushing boundaries.
He has a sense of the power of God at work in him – the loving energy we call the Holy Spirit.
We have seen in Mark’s Gospel how Jesus is at work in his ministry struggling against
the forces that would bind people and make them less than they were created to be.
And so wherever Jesus goes,
he struggles against those forces and frees people so they can flourish.
Even though we’re only in the 4th chapter of Mark’s Gospel,
already Jesus has overcome unclean spirits, heals people from life-threatening illnesses,
and repaired damaged bodies.
In today’s story, the sea threatens the lives of the disciples – but Jesus stills it.
Shortly after this story,
we will continue to see Jesus enabling life to flourish
In just the next chapter he will overcome demons, illness, and even death!
Jesus pushes boundaries, pushes ever onward,
because he is determined to supplant the binding reign of the Adversary (Satan)
with the freeing reign of God.
Nothing will deter him.
What attempts to deter him today is a storm –
a great tremendous storm that appears to come out of nowhere.
Well, we all know about great storms that appear to come out of nowhere.
Our current pandemic is certainly one of those storms.
The scourge of racism is certainly another –
although we can no longer say that appears to come out of nowhere.
Often our storms are more personal ones, like illness, divorce, job loss, death – and grief.
None of us has been unaffected by the storms of life.
Good thing Jesus is undeterred in his quest to bring peace
and make spaces for us where life can flourish.
He is crossing the Sea of Galilee today in order to cross “to the other side.”
And what was on the other side?
Gentiles! That is, non-Jews.
So far, Jesus has seen the power at work in him for life be effective among his own people.
But, as Jesus is curious and Jesus loves to push boundaries
(not an easy child to parent, I wouldn’t think),
I think he goes to simply see if he can free Gentiles, too,
from the things that bind them and seek to make them less than they were created to be.
He invites his disciples into the boat with him, to be his helpers on the other side.
But this is dangerous work.
Their lives are in peril.
The storm threatens.
But the good news is that Jesus is with them.
And Jesus brings peace into the very violence of the storm.
The church Mark wrote his Gospel for lived in violent times.
They were attempting to continue Jesus’ boundary pushing, life-giving work.
But their context was not very hospitable.
Mark’s Gospel was written right around 70 CE,
just when some Jews were in violent rebellion against the Roman Empire –
a rebellion that was ruthlessly crushed at the cost of many lives.
It was written when Christians and their boundary pushing was not welcomed
by those determined to maintain the status quo – for whatever reason.
Paul was imprisoned, Stephen was stoned, Peter himself was crucified.
It was not easy to follow Jesus to the other side.
But Mark’s resounding good news in this story is that Jesus is present:
in the boat (a symbol of the church), in the storm, in the crossing.
Jesus is with us.
And Jesus will not be deterred.
There is nothing that can deter Jesus and his love from the Triune God’s mission
to enable creation and all its inhabitants to flourish.
That is great news.
And even greater news: there is nowhere he is not determined to go in order to do this.
He does away with harmful spirits, welcomes outsiders, restores people to community,
and overcomes death.
Jesus is present, in the storm, bringing and peace and enabling life.
Debie Thomas writes this in her commentary on this story this week:
I think I will spend the rest of my life seeking this one grace – the grace to experience God’s presence in the storm. The grace to know that I am accompanied by the divine in the bleakest, most treacherous places. The grace to trust that Jesus cares even when I’m drowning. The grace to believe in both the existence and the power of Love even when Jesus “sleeps.”
My prayer is that you – and all of us together – will know this grace:
that even in the fiercest storms of life, Jesus the peace-bringer is present.
But to know it, we need to keep getting in the boat with Jesus,
pushing boundaries as we continually seek the other side.
Amen.
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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