A few days ago one of our students submitted a reflection on the homily that our bishop, Bishop James Johnston, had given at the recent FOCUS conference in Nashville. Following is the homily in full, reflecting on the Gospel passage from Mark 4: 35-41:
Today’s Gospel is short in length, but long on power. It’s a familiar Gospel story . . . “the calming of the storm at sea.”
I want to reflect some on the three times that Jesus speaks in this episode. Jesus’ words are spirit and life and so it is especially important to dwell on his words.
The first time he speaks, he issues an invitation, but also a subtle command, to those who are with him—his disciples: “as evening drew on, he said to them, ‘Let us cross to the other side.” We can look at this at face value and say, “Well, he just wanted to get across to the other shore line,” simple as that.
But, I suggest another, deeper meaning: Jesus wants them and each of us (who are his disciples too) to go with him to an unknown place; to set out with him into uncharted territory. By the way, notice that Mark also mentions the time Jesus issued this invitation: as evening drew on. You all know what happens in the evening don’t you? It gets dark. I know you knew that, you’re college students!
If you’ve ever been out on the water at night, it’s creepy and it’s dangerous. Boaters and sailors head to shore as evening gets near, they don’t head out onto open water if they can help it. So, when Jesus says they are heading out into the dark to open water to make a crossing to the other shore, it is significant. He is asking a challenging thing, and to their credit, his disciples get into the boat with him.
It’s a great image of faith don’t you think? Setting out with Jesus, in the dark, to an unknown place he wants to take you. He challenges his disciples, including each of us, to leave the stable, familiar, comfortable “shore” that we are on and set out to “the other side,” another shore. To get there, we have to pass through the dark uncertainty, and the choppy waves that come with leaving the solid ground we are accustomed to. It is unnerving. Jesus wants to take us to the other side, to an unknown place.
This is certainly an aspect of faith, and the passage today from the Letter to the Hebrews reinforces this by recalling the experience of Abraham: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; he went out, not knowing where he was to go.”
Like Abraham; like the apostles; Christ calls us to a place, currently unknown to us, but known to him. Our choice to go without fully knowing where it will take us is the adventure of faith.
I recently heard the story of Coach Mike Singletary. Coach Singletary was, until recently, the coach of the San Francisco 49rs. If you watched him on TV, you would notice that he always wears, quite prominently, a cross around his neck. When asked if he had been a Christian all his life, he responded, “No, only since the Super Bowl in 1985.” When asked to explain why the Super Bowl, he said that all his life he had dreamed of playing in a Super Bowl and winning. His life was consumed with this as his greatest aspiration. He believe as a young man that winning a Super Bowl would bring him happiness and fulfillment beyond anything he could imagine. When he reached the goal and won, he was left very quickly with a deep emptiness. He thought, “Is this it?” He fell into a depression. And, it was then that he found Christ, who in effect, said to him, “Mike, let us cross to the other side.” This was a profound crossing over in Mike Singletary’s life.
Each of us also has these moments. In fact, I would say, our lives are made up of a series of these “crossing over to the other side” experiences. Each of you is called; and believe me, I too am continually called, to do this again and again over the course of our lives.
Our choice then, is to decide if we will get into the boat with Jesus, to set out in a type of darkness to “the other side.”
And what is “the other side”? The other side is the part of our life that Christ wants us to have. It’s the life he wills for us, desires for us, as his disciple. We can even say that “the other side” Jesus wants to take us to is our vocation.
That’s what it was for Abraham, the apostles, and it is for us. Some are afraid to set out into the dark with Jesus to the other side. They prefer the solid ground and safety of what they know and control, however limited. And they miss “the other side” of their lives that Jesus calls them to discover.
I notice that your conference is entitled “answering the call.” How appropriate!! Just know though, that answering the call of Christ means going with him into unknown waters, often in the darkness, to discover the other side of the rest of your life that he wills for you.
The next thing Jesus says in the Gospel today is this: “Quiet! Be still!”
We can take this, as we should, to be Jesus’ rebuke of the wind and the waves. After all, they immediately became calm. I would suggest that we can also see these words of Jesus directed at ourselves and our hearts.
We often think of the storms in our lives as something outside of us. Sometimes that is true. But the greater storm that Jesus wants to quell is the one inside of us . . . the restlessness, the anxiety, the sadness that comes from living apart from God . . . the lack of peace that comes from doing it my way and living only for myself.
Jesus can calm the storm, but more than this, Jesus wants to be the calm in the storm. In fact, Jesus didn’t come to take away the storms in our lives, but instead to give us peace and strength in our hearts that will withstand any storm.
As he was able to sleep soundly on a cushion through the storm on the sea, he intends for us to rest in him as he leads us to the other side of our lives. “Quiet! Be still!” is meant for the storm inside us.
Jesus brings about this peace and calm by his authority—the authority to rebuke the forces of nature and his authority to cast out demons. It is significant that the other side to which Jesus leads his disciples is pagan territory; an unfamiliar place to the disciples. And, the first person they encounter on this new shoreline is a man afflicted with demons. Jesus’ words when rebuking devils is quite similar to the tone he uses to rebuke the wind and the waves. This is no coincidence.
We encounter this authority of Jesus in the sacrament of reconciliation. Hundreds of you will encounter the authority of Jesus, the power of Jesus over evil and sin, this evening in the sacrament of confession. You will encounter the peace and the calm that come from having your inner storm rebuked. “Quiet! Be still!” he says to our healed hearts.
The third time Jesus speaks he says to his disciples, “Why are you afraid? Do you not yet have faith?”
Again, the Lord’s words could just as easily be addressed to each one of us. Jesus is continually drawing us from where we are to where he wants us to go. Our lives are often a struggle between fear and faith. Faith is not static, it’s not a moral theory, or activism, or an intellectual system. Ultimately, faith is a life of complete cooperation with a person—Jesus Christ . . . it’s this life with Christ that defines us and involves our entire life.
Like the apostles, we can say to Jesus, “I believe, help my unbelief.” “I have faith Lord, but I need you to help me. Increase my faith.” Importantly, faith is increased in us when we act out of faith. When we set out, as Abraham did, to a land he knew not. Or, like when a virgin named Mary said “yes” to God in faith, not entirely knowing how his mysterious will would unfold. We’re just like them, each one of us.
Like them, we don’t have certitude as to where Christ’s will lead us; but like them, we have God’s promises—to be with us, to guide us, to love us always. Our reading today from Hebrews says, “[Abraham believed] the one who had made the promise was trustworthy.” In his will is our peace. In his promise is our confidence and hope.
“Let us cross to the other side.”
“Quiet! Be still!”
“Why are you afraid? Do you not yet have faith?”
These are Jesus words to those he has called to be with him.
The last little detail in this Gospel is also worth noting. It says, “[The disciples] were filled with great awe . . .”
Brothers and sisters, let us also be filled with great awe and wonder at Jesus, whom we adore in the Most Blessed Sacrament, who is with us always “until the end of the age” (Mt 28:20) . . . who comes to us now, wholly and completely in the Holy Eucharist . . . and who calls us to be with him and set out with him “to the other side” without fear.
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