The Fourth Sunday after
Pentecost
Psalm 107 1O give thanks to the Lord,
for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. 2Let the redeemed of
the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble 3and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. 23Some went down to the sea in
ships, doing business on the mighty waters; 24they saw the deeds of
the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. 25For he commanded and raised the
stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. 26They mounted up to heaven, they
went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity; 27they reeled and staggered like
drunkards, and were at their wits’ end. 28Then they cried to
the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their
distress; 29he made the storm be still, and
the waves of the sea were hushed. 30Then they were glad because they
had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. 31Let them thank
the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to
humankind. 32Let them extol him in the
congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders. Reading: Job 38:1-11 |
A reading from the book of Job
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2“Who
is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird
up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you
have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements—surely you
know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its
bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7when the morning stars
sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 8“Or
who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?— 9when
I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10and
prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, 11and said,
‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be
stopped’?
The Word of the Lord
Reading:
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
A reading from the second letter to the Corinthians
As we work
together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in
vain. 2For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to
you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable
time; see, now is the day of salvation! 3We are putting no
obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our
ministry, 4but as servants of God we have commended ourselves
in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships,
calamities, 5beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless
nights, hunger; 6by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness,
holiness of spirit, genuine love, 7truthful speech, and the
power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the
left; 8in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We
are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9as unknown, and
yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not
killed; 10as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet
making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
11We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to
you. 12There is no restriction in our affections, but only in
yours. 13In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts
also.
The Word of the Lord.
Gospel
Verse:
Alleluia! Now is the
acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. Alleluia!
Gospel Reading: Mark 4: 35-41
A reading from the Gospel of Mark
35On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to
the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him
with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A
great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was
already being swamped. 38But 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?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said
to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He
said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And
they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this,
that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
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Sermon
“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
·
Maybe no one
but me noticed this: when the disciples are faced with Jesus calming the storm,
they ask each other Who then is
this…? When Job is faced with God coming to him in the whirlwind,
God asks Job the same thing but in a way that seems to be rhetorical or as a
question for all of creation: Who
is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your
loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
(God seems to be almost sarcastic here.)
·
Basically, if
we translate both questions into more modern terms, God ask Job “Who do you
think you are?” while the disciples ask each other “Who do we think he
is… because he’s not who we thought he was.”
·
Job was faced
with losses beyond imagining – he lost his lands, his fortune, even his
children, and finally his bodily health, all as sort of a test. The disciples
were faced with the test of a terrible storm, one that threatened to swamp all
the boats. Jesus was asleep on the part of the boat used to brace the tiller
(not some sort of nice soft cushion) when the disciples woke him in fear. After
Jesus calmed the storm, their fear of the storm turned to terror in the
presence of a great mystery.
·
Both Job and
Jesus’ disciples were faced with the tremendous mystery of God, each in their own
way. Quite often, we are as well. Job faced God in the whirlwind, something
found in the Hebrew Bible as a carrier of God’s presence. (and in the Acts of
the Apostles at Pentecost for that matter.) The disciples faced Jesus in a
conflict between God and sea-storm. The seas, even the Sea of Galilee which we
might call a lake, were mysterious places to the ancient peoples, the place
where chaos ruled and sea monsters lived. In that, Jesus’ stilling of the storm
is seen as a cosmic and divine act by many.
·
In the
troubles we’ve faced and continue to face in our lives, have any of us asked as
Jesus’ disciples did Teacher, do
you not care that we are perishing? The answer, were we to hear it,
is always “I care.” It is still possible that any action or response might not
be what we expect. Sometimes the response is a reminder that God is with us in
all our troubles, a merciful presence seen best in the cross of Jesus… but that
still might not the answer we might want.
·
We might be
surprised at some of this. God tells Job to Gird up your loins, which was a usual prelude to battle
back then. It’s as if God were inviting Job to contend with him. In the Gospel
reading, Jesus seems to take his disciples to task for not believing (Why are you afraid?), even
though they’d just seen something that could boggle the mind and terrorize the
spirit. Their reaction was confusion and fear. Our reading says “awe” while the
original Greek says they “feared a great fear”, an awkward phrase in English
but it drives home the point that they felt more terror than respect.
·
Fear in the
face of the presence of God would be expected, but Jesus’ friends did not
expect that. He got in the boat with them and Mark notes that Jesus was just as he was. They knew him
and yet discovered that they didn’t know him. To them, he was ordinary… until
he wasn’t and then fear, terror, and awe set in.
·
In our own
days, we may see and know Jesus among us in some very ordinary ways. We are quite
familiar with the Bible and still it carries God’s Word to us. We’re used to
the Sacraments and still they remain the “means of grace” among us. We might
take the community of the church for granted although we may have come to see
and value it differently through these days of pandemic. We may never meet God
in the whirlwind or experience Jesus as the master of storms. Still if his word
could rebuke the wind and quiet the waves, his grace can do even more for us…
and already has.
·
We can ask
the same question as Jesus’ disciples, and by God’s grace seen through our
faith, we have an answer.
Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
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