Job 38:1-11; Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32; 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Mark 4:35-41

On Wednesday afternoon, I celebrated the Eucharist in our by then empty house in Spinningdale to provide Shane and two of his visiting workers with Sacrament to use at the Crask the following day. Crossing places and places of transition are very important in the Celtic spiritual tradition; they are seen as sacred spaces.  Moving house is of course very much a point of transition in our lives. In our spiritual lives, crossing places may offer ways across things that we are fearful of, or islands of solidity in a sea of doubt, anxiety or uncertainty. Unsurprisingly, given the proximity to the coast of the Celtic regions of Britain and Ireland, the spirit of the sea is central to the Celtic vision of life. Crossing an expanse of water is often a daily necessity, but can also be a sacred act, moving from theknown and familiar to the unknown and challenging.

As our Gospel today begins, Jesus has been telling parables of the Kingdom. Now it’s evening and He says to his disciples,

“Let’s go across to the other side.” 

They cross the Sea of Galilee, across into Gentile territory. Have you ever noticed that Jesus is often found at places of crossing? He crosses pretty much every social and spiritual boundary. He eats with unsuitable people, breaks Sabbath laws, associates with the unclean and heals then at the wrong times, and communicates with unclean spirits. Crossing over with Jesus can be a risky business, and in this passage, the wind and the sea give a vivid illustration of the dangers of being in a boat with Him.

Jesus spends a lot of His time at places of transition or risk. He chooses to go to marginal spaces, away from life’s regular patterns: near a graveyard, at a deathbed, or finally to Golgotha. The Sea of Galilee was a boundary in many ways beyond being a strip of water 12km wide. Different peoples, different government, different religious beliefs.

Boundaries and dividing lines allow us to keep what’s OK on one side, and whatever makes us anxious or fearful on the other. In His teaching, Jesus declares that those separations don’t work, or that if they do work he intends to tear them down. Jesus teaching opens His hearers minds to new possibilities, and if they trust Him, sets people free to enter into a new future in freedom and wholeness. He meddles with borders, not because he has a liking for chaos, but because the God’s reign and Kingdom extends divine holiness and human well-being to places that we might have thought were beyond it. To him, no place is desolate. No one is abandoned.

So, picture the scene in our gospel story: the disciples are out at sea, there’s a terrible storm, and the waves crash onto the boat so violently that it’s being swamped and in danger of sinking. And what’s Jesus doing while all this is going on? – amid the noise and terror and turmoil and the waves hurling the boat around and filling it with water? What’s Jesus doing? He’s sleeping on a cushion, in the stern of the boat. Asleep? How could anybody sleep through that? Very strange indeed. 

OK – let’s see how good your knowledge of the Old Testament is. Where in the Old Testament do we find a story about a boat journey, in which there’s a terrible storm – so dreadful that the boat’s about to sink – but the main character in the story is fast asleep. And the captain of the boat has to come and wake him up, saying,

“What are you doing, sound asleep? Get up, call upon your God! Perhaps he will spare us a thought so we do not perish.”

Answer? the Book of Jonah. So Mark’s telling us this miracle story, in a way that deliberately echoes the story of Jonah. Because he wants us to make a connection between them. And in so doing in only the fourth chapter of his Gospel, he’s bringing us face to face with a truth that’s so startling, and profound, that it’s positively terrifying. Because in the Jonah story it’s Almighty God who calms the storm, and saves the sailors from death. In our Gospel story it’s Jesus. In telling the story as he does, Mark shows us the astonishing truth in the most powerful and disarming of ways. No wonder the disciples are so utterly awestruck that all they can say is,

“Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Mark wants us to make a connection between the stories of Jesus and Jonah, but perhaps it’s the contrasts, rather than the similarities in the two stories that he really wants us to notice. If you think back to the story of Jonah, you may remember that the reason why Jonah was on board ship in the first place was because he was trying to escape. God had ordered him to go to Nineveh, to call its people to repentance – but Jonah had run off in the opposite direction, which is why God intervenes by sending the storm. In other words, the storm that was overwhelming Jonah’s boat was because he was trying to escape his calling. The challenge was just too difficult and he couldn’t face it – but he just ends up in a much worse mess.

And in that there’s a truth applicable to all of us. Because God has specific tasks that he wishes to entrusts to each of us, some (perhaps many) of which are not what we’d choose given free reign; and some of which may frighten the living daylights out of us. Whilst God may call us well out of our comfort zones to do his work, the consequences of ignoring that call also have a hefty price. Above all, it really can cost us our inner peace.

In Jonah we see a man trying to escape his calling; by contrast, in Jesus we see a man who embraces his vocation and his destiny wholeheartedly, to the point where it ultimately costs Him his life. There are, of course, times when we see Jesus struggling with that destiny – most obviously in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at no point do we ever see in him any of that profound dis-ease, and lack of inner peace, that mark a life lived at odds with God’s will. Prayer of course plays a key role.

Responding to God’s call isn’t always easy, most members of the clergy that you come across can vouch for that. But this doesn’t just affect clergy, this affects all who respond to God’s call in Jesus and try to live lives in accordance with God’s will. It will sometimes require hard things of us and those we love; it may sometimes leave us struggling with apparently thankless tasks; it may require profound sacrifices of us. But although the acceptance of our true calling may bring challenges, it’s ultimately the one thing that will bring us peace.

Jesus says to his terrified disciples in the boat on the sea,

“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

There are times when we really do have to learn to stop being fearful; to surrender our lives to God in faithfulness and integrity of heart; because if we do, in His mysterious and unfathomable way, he’ll heal our wounds, and make our lives complete in ways that we cannot begin to imagine. As St Augustine famously prayed to God:

“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”

So as Anna and I settle into our new house in Golspie, may this be for us a place of crossing also a sacred act as we start the next phase of our lives as village rather than country dwellers.  

Amen.