June 19, 2009
Sunday Scripture
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
BY FATHER DONALD DILGER
Jesus just finished proclaiming a series of parables that depict the meaning of the term “kingdom of God.” With his disciples he is still in Capernaum on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee. He says to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side.” While they were crossing the water, a storm came up. Waves were breaking over the boat, and it was filling. Jesus was sleeping in the stern (rear) of the boat. They woke him up with an unconcealed reproach, “Teacher, is it no concern of yours that we are perishing?” Jesus stood up. He rebuked the sea, “Be silent! Muzzle yourself!” the same expressions Jesus used to silence and tether demons elsewhere in Mark. With complete calm Jesus asks disarmingly, “Why are you terrified?” Then a slight reproach, “You still don’t have faith?” His clueless and fearful disciples wonder, “Who is this, whom even wind and sea obey?”
That question is Mark’s challenge to hearers and readers to come to terms with the identity of Jesus, the same Jesus whose identity he revealed in the first sentence of his gospel, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Messiah (Christ), Son of God.” The aroma of the Old Testament pervades the whole story. Today’s liturgy recognizes this fact by using Psalm 107, “Those who sail the sea . . . saw the works of the Lord and his wonders in the abyss (the sea). His command raised up a storm wind, which tossed its waves high . . . Their hearts melted away in their plight. They cried to the Lord in their distress. From their dangers he rescued them. He hushed the storm . . ., and the waves of the sea were stilled.” Psalm 107 just about sums up Mark’s story. We can hardly doubt of the influence of this psalm on Mark’s formation of the story.
Mark’s story of the calming of the sea also echoes Psalm 89:8-9, “Who is mighty as you are, Lord, with your fidelity surrounding you? You rule the raging of the sea. When its waves rise, you still them.” Also Psalms 65:7, 93:3-4. The poetry of today’s first reading, Job 38:1, 8-11, sings of the Lord’s control of the sea.The very first verse, Job 38:1, echoes the clueless question of Jesus’ disciples after the storm, “Who closed up within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb . . ., when I set limits to it, when I fastened the bar of its door, and when I said to it, “This far you may go but no farther. Here your proud waves are stilled?”
This look into the Old Testament reveals that too often the primary meaning of Mark’s story of the calming of the sea is unrecognized or ignored. The story is a revelation of the divine identity of Jesus. In the Old Testament God alone stills the waves, calms the sea. In the New Testament, Jesus, Son of God, is the same God who calmed the sea as described in the poetry of the Old Testament. John Chrysostom wrote, (died 406), “His sleeping showed that he was a man. His calming of the sea declared him God.” But this does not exhaust the meaning of the story. The Fathers of the Church quite correctly saw in the storm and its calming by Jesus a depiction of the Church in trouble. Only when its representatives awaken, that is, turn to Jesus, does the Church return to safety and calm.
Another interpretation rests on Jesus calmly sleeping in the boat, which may or may not be understood as the Church. The emphasis is in his sleeping during the storm — an example to Christians who are consumed by the storms daily life. Yet Jesus said, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” The sleeping Jesus shows complete confidence in God, in the sense of Psalm 4:8, “In peace I lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in security.”
The major theme of the book of Job, which is best understood as a stage drama, is an investigation of a problem as old as the human race, “Why do good people suffer?” A direct answer is never giving in the book. After the various debates, comments and Job’s questions addressed to God and accusations against God have been exhausted, God comes on stage in chapter 38, part of which is today’s first reading. He addresses Job with questions intended either to be unanswerable or to be answered with a simple act of faith in the power and mercy of God. Job chooses the latter, although not in today’s reading, when he replies to God, “I spoke in ignorance. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Should we be satisfied which such an answer or dare we look beyond it? A better answer is found in Colossians 1:24, which tells us that unavoidable suffering does have meaning.
Paul begins, “The love of Christ impels us.” To what? To a new standard of judgment. Paul recognizes that in his former life as a learned scholar, teacher and persecutor of Christians he had misunderstood Jesus, “Once we knew Christ according to the flesh.” But no more! Paul is now a “new creation,” as is every Christian and from that point on must live for others just as Jesus lived and died for all.