Peace! Be Still!

Pastor Dave is about to confess an embarrassing childhood secret – one of my favorite TV shows growing up was Gilligan’s Island. You know the setup – a small group on a pleasure boat for a 3 hour tour encounter a storm – “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed, if not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost” – and get washed up on a remote island. It being a kid’s show, in watching it one often had to suspend disbelief – why exactly did the professor take his entire chemistry lab and Ginger and MaryAnn their entire wardrobes along for a 3-hour tour, and where did they put all that stuff – the pleasure boat would have had to have been the size of an aircraft carrier - but anyway the show was a relatively harmless way to pass the time between the end of school and my parents coming home from work.

I was reminded of this guilty pleasure from my childhood by today’s Gospel reading (Mark 4:35-41). Jesus had just concluded a long day’s teaching the crowds, speaking from inside a small boat on the sea of Galilee. He wanted to cross to the other side, and when indeed, when he got there, he was accosted by the demon possessed man from Gerasa, who lived among the tombs. But that’s not part of today’s Gospel – today’s Gospel is about how Jesus got from one side of the sea to the other. We’re told that while on the sea, a great windstorm arose. The tiny ship was tossed; if not for the courage of the fearless crew….sorry, wrong story. Actually, far from fearless, the crew was scared out of their wits, and the boat had taken on so much water that it was on the verge of going down. Jesus had missed all the drama to this point; tired out from teaching, he’d taken the opportunity to get some sleep. So in their panic the disciples woke Jesus up, saying, “Don’t you care that we’re about to die?” Jesus stilled the wind and waves, and chided the disciples for their lack of faith – “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

It is notable that accounts of this miracle appear in all four gospels. The early church considered this miracle so important that none of the Gospel writers could omit it. And it has been noted that perhaps this story of Jesus ministering to his disciples with a miracle is also the story of Jesus and the church throughout its history, from its fragile beginnings under Roman persecution to the present day, as the church periodically finds itself caught up in storms, nearly swamped by the waves, and wondering whether God notices their struggles, or whether maybe God has abandoned them. And yet, despite all, somehow Christ always arrives at just the right time to say, “Peace! Be Still!”

In Mark’s Gospel, this miracle comes at the end of an account of Jesus’ teaching, which included a series of parables in which the Kingdom of God is compared to a seed – something that looks small and unimpressive, but which has great life and vitality far beyond its size. So Jesus’ parables told his listeners that the Kingdom of God, while outwardly small and unimpressive, had great hidden power. And then today’s Gospel begins a series of miracle stories that demonstrate this hidden power of God in Jesus to tame the powers of nature, cast out demons, and overcome the power of disease.

At Emanuel UCC, we recently concluded a study of Mark’s Gospel during the church school hour. We saw that often, after his miracles, Jesus would tell those around him, “Don’t tell anyone.” Theologians call the “messianic secret,” and it’s a strong theme in Mark’s Gospel. We wonder why Jesus would have wanted to keep his miracles a secret. Maybe he was using reverse psychology – the surest way to get a message out is to tell someone to keep it a secret. But I think another reason for Jesus’ desire for secrecy was that his miracles could easily be misunderstood. If all we know about Jesus is the miracles, we can easily think of Jesus as a cosmic Dustbuster, waiting to vacuum all our troubles go away. And, indeed, this is exactly how many TV and radio evangelists preach about Jesus, telling their followers to “name and claim” God’s miraculous power to shower prosperity upon them, and to make all their problems vanish - Poof! - just like that!

But that was not Jesus’ message. Remember that when Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus’ very next words were about suffering and death, about the cross. The cross is an inescapable part of the Gospel – the path to the Kingdom of God goes through the cross. So it is not God’s plan to remove all suffering from our lives, but rather to give us hidden power to bear up and overcome – like seeds who have to push up through the rocks and soil to bear fruit, like a small boat making its way through troubled waters. God surely did not remove all suffering from the lives of the early disciples – nearly all of them ended up as martyrs to the faith – and he doesn’t promise us calm waters either. There will be times when our lives, like small boats, nearly capsize amid the wind and waves. But he does promise that he will not abandon us, that even during those times when it seems as though God has fallen asleep, that when we’re nearly overwhelmed by our circumstances, God is still powerful and stands ready to say “Peace! Be Still!”

In the words of an old hymn – “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way; when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’” So may it be well with our souls, in this congregation which for roughly 150 years has kept afloat in waters calm and stormy, and in our individual lives as believers. Amen.