| Sermon for Sunday, August 7, 2005
WHO IS THIS MAN??
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Scripture: Mark 4 1 Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. 2 And he taught them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: 3 "Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it had not much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil; 6 and when the sun rose it was scorched, and since it had no root it withered away. 7 Other seed fell among thorns and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. 8 And other seeds fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." 9 And he said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." 10 And when he was alone, those who were about him with the twelve asked him concerning the parables. 11 And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables; 12 so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand; lest they should turn again, and be forgiven." 13 And he said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown; when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word which is sown in them. 16 And these in like manner are the ones sown upon rocky ground, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among thorns; they are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things, enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. 20 But those that were sown upon the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold." 21 And he said to them, "Is a lamp brought in to be put under a bushel, or under a bed, and not on a stand? 22 For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. 23 If any man has ears to hear, let him hear." 24 And he said to them, "Take heed what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you. 25 For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away." 26 And he said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, 27 and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come." 30 And he said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." 33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. 35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care if we perish?" 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?" 41 And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?" We are faced with so many rich opportunities as we look at this fourth chapter of the gospel of Mark today. Here are very familiar stories to some of you: the parable of the sower sowing seed that Cindy Bates treated so well in her sermon of a few weeks ago; the image of the good news of God as a light that is to be shared with others and not hidden under a basket. Here are these uncomfortable words about what we receive will be like what we give to others: the measure you give will be like what you get back. Here is the verse about the God movement being like a mustard seed that looks very small at first and then sprouts and grows into a large, impressive bush. After Jesus takes this time teaching his friends about God, he gets into a boat with them and goes to the “other side”. What does this mean? The other side of what?? It is more complicated than you think. They are going to the other side of the Sea of Galilee from the Northwest shore where they have been. What is significant about that is that the people who lived on the other side were not like them. They were not their people. Who were they? They were pagans! Gentiles! And Jews were not to associate with Gentiles because Gentiles were unclean, unfit to become friends with. Jewish religious law said that Jews could not be with Gentiles and especially to eat with them. But here is Jesus, taking his friends with him to the other side, breaking the rules again, and about to do something in the next chapter that is really scandalous. We will let that be a preview for next week’s sermon. They get into a boat—one that was not very large. Archeologists have found a few years ago, a boat like the one they would have used. It was dug out of Lake Galilee during a drought when the water level was quite low and has been restored now. We have a picture of this boat and the group who travels with us next February to Israel will see this in a museum.
It would be the sort of boat Jesus and his friends were in. And the Sea of Galilee was famous for the storms that could blow up in a hurry and become very threatening and dangerous. This is a story that was important to the early church and it is one that has been painted many times. The painting that we will see here was done by Rembrandt, and it is unique because Rembrandt painted himself into the picture—he is in the boat with the disciples as one of the ones whom Jesus was talking with about his faith.
When we look at some of the miracle stories in the Bible we can ask the right questions about them or the wrong questions. One of the misleading questions is about how this could happen; how could Jesus have power over the elements. This will take us in directions that are not always as fruitful as asking a different question, the questions like what this story meant for the Jesus movement when they repeated it and when Mark wrote it down, and the question of what faith is which is the most important point for today. We have to look at what a stormy, raging sea meant for the people who heard this first. The sea was the most frightening part of the universe. It meant chaos and danger and death. The stormy waters showed up in the first book of the Bible in the first creation story in Genesis. When God began to create the heavens and the earth, there was only a formless void and the spirit of God, the wind of God, was moving across the face of the watery chaos. And what God does in that story is to conquer the chaos, to tame the out of control universe and to separate the scary stormy deep and bring it under control. That is chapter one of Genesis. God puts a dome (the sky) over us to keep the scary waters away and create dry land to cover over the chaotic waters below us, but there is a chance they can get out of control and overwhelm us again—and just a few chapters later, they do get out of control and the earth is overwhelmed by a flood that only Noah and his family escape from. Later on in another Old Testament book, the book of Job, God speaks at the end of that story and reminds Job that it is God who is able to control the awesome sea monster and who is able to tame the stormy waters. God is able to bring order out of chaos, calm to the storm, peace to the turmoil. Mark says when Jesus spoke to the storm and wind, they stopped and there was a dead calm. This is not a story about what happened a long time ago in Israel. It is about what happens when we look to the living Christ to bring order to the disorder and turmoil and fearful chaos of our lives. You don’t have to be in a physical storm to be helped by this story. We can remember times when we felt out of control in our lives—when it was clear that we were not in control. Perhaps we were fired or laid off, or we faced illness, or we were grieving the loss of someone we love. Every Tuesday morning in our staff meeting when we pray for the people on our prayer list, a list that is usually forty or fifty persons, there are people there who feel like the disciples felt—abandoned, alone, afraid. And if we cannot remember times in our
lives when we have felt that, let me tell you that there will be
times like that for reach of us here. Jesus promises it. In the
gospel of John he tells us. “In this world you will have trouble.
But be of good courage for I have overcome the troubles of this
world.” Tim Hansel in his classic book on our book shelves that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, a book about his own struggle and pain after a tragic accident says that God promises us four things in life: PEACE, POWER, PURPOSE, AND TROUBLE! But the peace and the power and the purpose will sustain us in the storms and in the trouble. There will be times for each of us when we can put ourselves in the boat like Rembrandt did, when life is a threat and when we wonder if we have been abandoned. Jesus says to them, if you trust in God and look to me, you do not need to be afraid. You do not need to be controlled by fear. In fact, he says here, fear is the opposite of faith. This is important. In this story doubt is not the opposite of faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. In the Bible we can have doubts and questions. A man comes to Jesus and asks for his son to be healed and he asks Jesus to help him with his combination of faith and doubt, belief and unbelief. Faith is usually a mixture of belief and unbelief and it is OK, in the Bible, to bring doubts and questions to church and to have them accepted and respected. Doubt is not a problem. Fear is the problem. We will have troubles and stormy times and chaos and disorder and feel like life is out of control. If we trust in the living Christ and look to him to bring us calm, the calm will come. We will be able to weather the storm. Why are you afraid, Jesus says to his friends? Where is your faith? And then he calms the chaos. There are some comforting words we hear as we approach the communion table today as well. The host at this table is the one the disciples are in awe of at the end of this story. WHO IS THIS!! they wonder, who has this sort of power over the chaos of life? It is the living Christ who can still calm us and bring us a peace that passes all human understanding. He is the one who invites us to his table and who orders our lives and gives us peace. |
