The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Job 38:1, 8-11
In chapters 28-41, God asks Job a series of questions about the limits of what Job can do and understand. Today’s reading comes from a section around God’s creation – was Job even present at creation?
Up to this point in the book, Job’s friends have made a series of arguments to dissuade Job from ever trusting God again. It is in this context that God begins to speak. In a way, God is putting Job in his place (“who the heck do you think you are anyway?”). But in another sense, God is removing from Job the impossibly heavy burden of trying to play god. Notice that God does this not by stating a series of truths about who God is and how we should behave in light of that. Instead, God takes a Socratic approach, asking questions that invite Job to see himself for who he really is as well as who God really is. The questions invite Job to see the variety of creation as well as the care with which God holds it all. We might also look to the end of God’s speech, in 42:5 where Job says, not that he can answer the questions or understand God, but rather that he has seen God.
God speaks to Job of the natural world, which sometimes makes no sense to us. And yet, there is an implicit order in it which we can perhaps begin to understand. God is saying it’s the same with God’s actions: some things seem not to make sense, and yet….
In 29:1-31:4 Job brings a “lawsuit” against God. God here makes the case that Job is an unreliable witness – he can’t even seem to answer the most basic of questions, so how does he expect a lawsuit against God to stick?
Think about the sea or the ocean or even a lake. Picture the waves lapping against the shore. See the tide dutifully coming in and going out. Imagine a storm rising over the water. In what ways can this image or other images from nature draw you closer to God?
2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Paul begins this passage by speaking of the love of Christ. For Paul, this love is the driving force of everything he does. The NAB translates it as “The love of Christ impels us.” The Greek word means to control, to be the unifying action. We could read this both as the love Christ has for us and the love we have for Christ. He goes on to say this insight is born of the knowledge that Christ died for all, therefore, “all have died,” in the sense that we have all died to sin. Jesus did this so that we might live in him.
In verse 16 Paul says this is his motivation for the outlook he has. He doesn’t view the world and others through old eyes of sin and competition and greed, etc. Rather, he views everyone and everything through the eyes of Christ’s love.
He finishes the reading by telling us we are a new creation: whoever is in Christ is a new creation. A more literal translation of the sense of the Greek would be “If you want to become a new creature, you must be in Christ, since only those in Christ are a new creation.”
In what ways does love of Christ control what you do?
We live in the tension of the now-but-not-yet. We are a new creation, yet we live in a world still influenced by sin. In what ways has Christ’s love made you new? In what ways do you experience the tension of being made new in a world still influenced by sin and death?
Mark 4:35-41
Most of chapter 4 is Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom. Chapter 5 is Mark’s collection of material that proves Jesus’ authority behind the teaching. Today’s reading is a segue into chapter 5 that gives us a glimpse of who Jesus is.
4:35-5:43 are miraculous actions that illustrate Jesus’ power over Satan in nature:
- Stilling the storm 4:35-41 this week
- Possession 5:1-20 not in the lectionary
- Disease 5:25-34 next week
- Death 5:21-24, 35-43 next week
These all follow a pattern:
- An obstacle to overcome
- Jesus’ mighty action
- Confirmation
We live in a world that is always seeking understanding. We want to know how something happened and our culture rarely asks why. For the ancients, the question was always why. How something happened was not at all interesting to people who assumed a porous veil between worlds. That unseen forces could cause visible actions in the human world readily supplied the how for Jesus’ audience. Anytime you read a “miracle” story in scripture, assume that the original audience would have been asking the question, “Why did this happen? What purpose did it serve?” rather than the how question.
In the Near East, stories abounded of images of churning water and storms being the domain of the gods. These gods ruled over and controlled chaos, represented by the storm. This is an important context for today’s story. In that culture, the sea symbolized all the powers of chaos and evil. That Jesus is able to control the sea represents his control of the powers of evil, something that only God can do. Time and again, we see that Mark presents us a very human Jesus, while, at the same time, assuring us of his divinity.
In this story, Jesus (God incarnate) models for us how to weather the storms of life. He has articulated the need for rest in the press of demands. He takes action to get away. And then, Jesus not only sleeps but he grabs a pillow to get comfortable. He is so embedded in God’s loving care that he can sleep through a storm.
Mark’s original audience were persecuted and oppressed. Perhaps at times, they felt that Jesus was asleep and not paying attention to their plight. This story would have given comfort that Jesus had power over the storm.
This story would have evoked the story of Jonah to its original audience. Jonah, too, slept in a ship amidst a fierce storm. Like Jesus, he gave himself up to save those around him. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus himself will point to Jonah several times to illustrate his own work. Mark doesn’t name Jonah specifically but this story seems to imply that story.
Paul tells us that we are a new creation, that the old things have passed away. It doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes we get stuck in old patterns and ways of being and that stuckness can feel like a mighty storm. Are you living in old ways in some part of your life? Is Jesus calling you to newness? Where is Jesus in that process?
These disciples were fishermen and had likely crossed this lake many, many times without trouble. But now they have Christ with them and it is on this journey they are faced with a monumental storm. We can often look around our world and find people who live utterly without Christ and who seem to be perfectly at ease. In Psalm 73, the psalmist laments:
For I envied the arrogant
Psalm 73
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
They have no struggles;
But here we are – sailing along with Jesus and what do we get in return? A lot of struggles and storms! The New Testament tells us time and again that, as disciples, we should expect struggle, that it’s part and parcel of the way to God. It’s a message that often gets neglected. We would rather hear a prosperity gospel: just follow Christ and everything will be easy, but that is not an accurate rendition of the Biblical message.
Verse 36 says the disciples “took him along with them.” In other places in Mark, this verb is used of Jesus taking a select group of disciples aside for deeper teaching (5:40, 9:2, 10:32, and 14:33). This is the one instance of Mark’s use of the word where Jesus is being taken along. It’s an interesting choice of words – in the previous verse it’s Jesus who says “let’s get away,” but here it’s the disciples taking Jesus away.
I love the little detail in v37: Mark tells us that Jesus was in the stern, asleep. On a cushion. We associate Mark’s gospel with being terse and to the point. But it is also full of little details. This detail suggests that this story comes from an eyewitness, a witness who noticed things and articulated them. I wonder what it was about that cushion that warranted its inclusion!
Verse 39 says “the wind ceased.” The literal translation of this word in Greek is “to grow weary.” The wind grew weary. It’s as though there’s this cosmic battle between the wind and Jesus, and the wind is fighting hard but can’t match Jesus’ stamina. The wind grows weary and cedes the battle.
In v41 the disciples try to make sense of what they’ve witnessed. It says they were in awe, literally “they feared with great fear.” And they ask “Who is this?!” On one level we might read it as them being among those who see but don’t understand. They thought they understood who Jesus was but now they’re not so sure. Throughout his gospel, Mark will portray the disciples as such.
I think a deeper reading tells us that the disciples did, in fact, understand. They thought they knew who Jesus was: a great teacher and miracle worker. Now they’ve seen Jesus do something only God can do. They’re looking at Jesus with new eyes, realizing they are in the presence of someone far greater than they initially perceived. Maybe it’s at this point they realize they don’t really know this man they’ve been following. And this rightly fills them with great fear.
A theme that runs throughout this gospel: who is this man? Follow the theme: 1:27, 2:7, 4:41, 6:2,14, 8:27, 11:27, 14:61-62, 15:2, 15:31-32. Only the centurion in the last reference will rightly name who Jesus is.
Imagine you are in a boat that is being tossed wildly about. Everything in you says you must take action to still the storm. But how?! You know Jesus is near so you go search for him. And you find him sound asleep. How do you feel? The disciples voiced their fear and anger. Can you do the same?
In this story, Jesus gets up and takes action to immediately calm the storm. You might want to pray with that version of it. I can offer an alternative version from my own experience. In my imagination, rather than getting up, Jesus patted the cushion next to him and invited me to lie down with him. I have to be honest and say, I did so, not out of faith but resignation – I felt like the storm was going to overtake me so I figured I might as well get comfortable before I drowned. Instead of stilling the external storm, Jesus stilled me internally and filled me with peace in the midst of the storm. If you feel that Jesus’ actions in today’s gospel are a little far-fetched for your experience, try praying with it differently: lay down beside Jesus and ask him for peace in the midst of the storm.
Connections
In the gospel, there is a great storm. Although Job is not in the same setting, we could well say that his testing by God was a great storm. And God speaks to Job out of that storm. The sea is another connection – a place that can violently toss us about. Water is one of those primal images in the religious imagination. It can represent death and destruction, and it can also represent new life and deliverance. That is why the story of the Exodus plays such a big role in Jewish imagination: they are threatened with destruction by reaching the sea, but that same sea opens up a way of deliverance for them.
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© 2024 Kelly Sollinger