“Be Still” by Rev. Paul Berghout

“Be Still” by Rev. Paul Berghout

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Piety

The Lord addressed Job out of the storm and said: Who shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made the clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling bands? (Job 38:1, 8-9) 

(Jesus) woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet! Be still!” The wind ceased and there was great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” (Mark 4:39-40)

Study 

The boat was 26.5 feet long, 7.5 wide and 4.5 feet high, the fore and aft sections were decked.

Jesus had gone to the back of the boat to catch a nap, and then a storm hits. 

“Why doesn’t he intervene?” “Do you not care that we are perishing?”

Glen Scrivener says that a few years ago he prayed to God that he would get to know God better. Within a week of that prayer, Glenn’s employers transferred him from England to Australia, his longtime girlfriend broke up with him, and parents announced they were divorcing. In the midst of all these painful events, Glen had a revelation: God was using these storms to answer Glenn’s prayer. He realized that Jesus often leads to challenging pathways, into a storm because we can’t understand the power and the peace of God UNLESS we encounter it a storm. The best way to know is to be caught in a storm with Him.[i]

That is a lesson the disciples had to learn, and they could not learn it any other way. --“Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” 

All of us will encounter storms.

The question is whether we have faith for the storms. 

A few years ago, a woman named Chastity Patterson lost her father. After his death, Chastity continued to send daily text messages to his old phone number. She just wanted to feel like he was still there, still sharing the ups and downs of her daily life. It was her way of dealing with a storm of grief. For four years, she sent daily text updates to her father’s old phone number. And then one day, she got a reply. [ii]

Just before the fourth anniversary of Chastity's father’s death, she received this text from his old number: “My name is Brad and I lost my daughter in a car wreck August 2014 and your messages have kept me alive. When you text me, I know it’s a message from God.” 

Chastity posted their text exchange on social media to show her friends and family “that there is a God it might take 4 years, but he shows up right on time!”

In the Bible two other people were also asleep in a boat during a storm: Jonah and a drunk person in Proverbs 23:34. But only Jesus got up and said “Be Still” (it was actually more like Shut Up) because linguistically there is a linkage between exorcism and rebuking the sea.

The waves are akin to persecution whose source is Satan’s implacable hostility to Jesus’ mission. 

Jesus is overcoming the demonic element it was his purpose to destroy, because that element is at enmity with God, and therefore with God's creature, man.

"The breakers of death engulfed me." or “The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.” (2 Samuel 22:5) 

“He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemies." (2 Sam 22:17-18).

One writer suggests that “maybe he was inviting the disciples to reflect on what it means to be alive on the other side of a situation they thought would kill them. For us, that situation might be a divorce, an illness, the death of a parent or even a child, the loss of a job, depression, or middle school. It can feel as if it’s going to kill us. 

Maybe, if we survive the situation, we are being encouraged to ask questions. Where was my faith? Where was God? What did I fear?”[iii]

There are several Old Testament verses in which sleeping peacefully is a sign of trust in God’s provident care (Psalms 3:5, 4:8, Proverbs 3:24). 

Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?

Faulty thinking, that God does care instead of believing in God’s Provident care. 

Action

Be still, you are exactly where you are supposed to be. The Lord is master even of those things.

St. Therese says that Jesus was sleeping as usual in her little boat, saying, “Ah, I see very well how rarely souls allow Him to sleep peacefully within them.”

Divorce is no real solution for many stormy marriage problems. Hang in there and make it through the storm. 

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain” (Anonymous).

“Greater is He that is in you” than any force trying to overwhelm you.” (1 John 4:4) 

Amen.

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[i] Dynamic Preaching]

[ii] Dynamic Preaching]

[iii] Ordinary #12B (Mark 4:35-41) by Nadia Bolz-Weber June 12, 2012