Pentecost 5 – 2018
Mark 4:35-41
Marian Free
In the name of God who takes us where we do not want to go, accepts our fears and lack of faith and loves us still. Amen.
Today’s gospel is a great example of some of the differences between Mark’s gospel and those of Matthew and Luke. All three tell the same story but Matthew and Luke have made significant changes in their re-telling of the event (the website “Five Gospel Parallels, places the accounts side by side. Look for Mark 4:35, Matthew 8:18 and Luke 8:22 ). Both, in slightly different ways, have pared back the story with the result that their accounts are much less detailed and therefore less colourful and dramatic than that of Mark. The changes made by Matthew and Luke also significantly change the ways in which Jesus and disciples are depicted. They have, for example, omitted some of the dialogue between Jesus and the disciples that has the effect of making the disciples less petulant and Jesus more harsh.
As I’ve said before, most scholars agree that Mark was the first person to write an account of Jesus’ life and teaching. Matthew and Luke used Mark’s gospel as the basis for their own and added material from a common source as well as material that was unique to each of them. In the process they removed much of the detail that brings the stories and the characters to life. Matthew and Mark rehabilitate the disciples and depict Jesus in such a way as to emphasise his divinity over his humanity. Mark’s gospel is much shorter than either Matthew or Luke and it has a sense of urgency. The Greek of Mark is less refined and less polished than theirs but (perhaps as a consequence) his story-telling has an immediacy that the others do not.
Mark’s account of “the calming of the storm” is the most dramatic of the three. The author tells us that it is a “great” windstorm and adds that the waves beat against the boat. (The word “great” is repeated three times, great windstorm, great calm, great fear). Mark provides the rather intimate detail that Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat on a cushion. In Mark, Jesus doesn’t simply rebuke the wind; he also speaks to the waves saying, “Peace! Be still!” The wind ceases and there is a great calm.
According to Mark the disciples are sullen and accusatory: “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?” (Don’t you care? Don’t you love us? How can you sleep when we are all about to lose our lives?) Jesus response is more direct – to the point of insult: “Cowards! Have you still no faith?” Mark’s Jesus is also more authoritative, the word “θιμοω” that we have translated as “be still” has the more emphatic meaning of “to put to silence” and could be translated as strongly as: “be muzzled” or more crudely as “shut up.” When all is calm, the disciples do not respond (as might be expected) with faith or even relief. They were “frightened with a great fear” and despite what Jesus has done, and what he has taught they are none the wiser as to who he might be.
Not only does Mark provide colour and detail that Matthew and Luke omit, he is not afraid to present the disciples as fallible and weak (whiney even). Jesus is depicted as vulnerable and human. Jesus is asleep – on a cushion, he is impatient and not as tolerant of the disciples than Matthew and Luke would have us believe.
There is so much more to this apparently simple miracle story, than a human Jesus and pathetic, frightened disciples. In re-telling the story, Mark has filled it with symbolism and hidden depths that are clear only in the context of the gospel as a whole.
As an example, there is no reason for Jesus to cross the sea. It is evening, (not an ideal time for a sea crossing) and Jesus has been teaching all day (neither he, nor his disciples have made any preparation for a journey). The sea, like other locations in this gospel is a literary artifice, used by Mark for a particular purpose. It is here (after Jesus’ teaches the crowds and after the two occasions that Jesus feeds the crowds) that the confusion and ignorance of the disciples is most clearly revealed. Here, even though the disciples have been privy to personal teaching, they still have no idea whom Jesus is or what his purpose might be.
Mark also uses boundaries to great effect whether social, geographic or political. Over and over again Jesus breaks through or ignores the boundaries between Jew and Gentile, the boundaries created by purity codes and the boundaries presented by geography. In this instance the sea is the boundary between Jewish Palestine and Gentile Gerasene. It is an in-between place in which a person need not be bound by either culture and in which anything is possible. Jesus is not bound by convention or religious tradition; he knows that the Gentiles will not contaminate him.
So much more than a miracle story, Mark’s account of the calming of the sea gives us an insight into the foolishness of the disciples, their incomprehension and their lack of faith. It moves the story forward, demonstrating Jesus’ power over nature, before revealing his power over demons and his authority over death. It reminds us that Jesus was not afraid of in-between places or of people and situations that had the potential to make him unclean and that he was as comfortable on a stormy lake as he was in a home. As the gospel progresses, Mark will use these and other literary techniques to expose the true nature of Jesus and to reveal the gradual comprehension of the disciples.
All of this is very well, but of what relevance is it to us – 21st century Christians who have the advantage of knowing who Jesus is and how the story ends? Among other things, I think this story tells us that miracles are just as likely to raise questions as they are to provide answers; that Jesus exists at the boundaries and in the in-between places, refusing to see the world in black and white; that even if Jesus is frustrated with us he doesn’t lose hope in us, and that an absence of faith is not a reason for Jesus to abandon us.
Like the disciples we take Jesus in the boat with us, we expose our fallibility and lack of faith and in the process we learn who Jesus is and discover what we can be.
Swallowsrest 