Each week one of a team of folk at St Andrews Episopal Church, Madison, WI writes a Justice Reflection based on the Gospel reading for the week from the lectionary. This week is my turn so I share here my submission for publication in the newsletter. #theology #faith
Mark 4:35-41
4:35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”
4:36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.
4:37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.
4:38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
4:39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.
4:40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
4:41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
For me, it is usually at about 3:00 in the morning, with the bed sheets wrapped around my legs, that I start to catastrophize… something. It could be a presentation I’m doing next week, the presentation I did last week, a conversation with my family, a bill that needs to be paid, a little pain I’ve noticed in my hip or perhaps the waves beating on the side of my little boat. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up Jesus and poof, the bill goes away.
Don’t get distracted by the special effects in this movie, This story is about the kind of trust that makes molehills out of our mountains. Our imaginations are very good at inflaming our worries and turning a candlelight into a conflagration. Once you get through whatever catastrophe you were imagining you will usually find it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you imagined it or, if it was as bad, you grew in a new way on the way through. “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith (or trust)? Getting twisted up in the bed sheets never makes it easier to pilot our little boats through the waves. Calm, trust, prayer and attentiveness to what is, not the disaster we might imagine, might just give this Jesus, who we are letting sleep in the boat with us, the opportunity to join us and help.
These social justice reflections, based on the Gospel for the week, normally have a direct reference to living a life that supports social justice. Today’s Gospel is not quite so obvious. It is not obvious because it is not about social justice but written for a people who practice social justice. Much of Christian praxis makes most sense when one is about the work of love, justice and caring in an uncaring world. Our community and our practices exist to support us and strengthen us as we together swim upstream in troubled waters, thus to those people who are about this business the word of the day is Trust.