Stories within stories
Trinity 3 (Proper 7B)
Mark 4.35-end
Acknowledgement: This short sermon is based on chapter 14 of Nico ter Linden's The Story Goes ... ( 1999, SCM Press). A brilliant retelling of Mark and Matthew that should be in every preacher's library.
What story do you hear in this tale of fierce winds and smashing waves?
Do you hear the terrors of the child who knows deep inside herself how scary scared can be. The loud tick of the clock becomes the footsteps of a monster coming to get you. There’s so much to terrify you when you’re small. Tell me a story to make me feel safe as I fall asleep. Tell me a story that reassures, that cures, that overturns what’s scary. Tell me the story of a storm suddenly stopped. Of someone I can trust to calm my fears.
What story do you hear?
Do you hear the story of Jonah – a prophet like Jesus who was called by God to go to the unbelievers? But unlike
Jesus, Jonah went in exactly opposite direction. A storm came up, but Jonah slept. In terror the sailors shook him, “How
can you sleep? Get up and call on you God to save us.” Only when they had thrown Jonah overboard was the storm stilled. You know the rest, the great fish that swallowed him, his eventual preaching amongst the unbelievers of Nineveh – well preaching? Tirade really. Jesus could have done the same, but he didn’t. He gives form to a God who gracious, merciful, long-suffering and of great kindness. “Be still; know what peace with the world, with others, with yourself, with God, really is.
What story do you hear?
Do you hear the fears of a tiny Christian community in Rome? A fragile little group set in a mighty imperial city of intrigue, power-plays and hostility. A tiny community afloat in a world of threat, persecution and violence.
Do you hear their story, as they cry out from a puny coracle of faith in an ocean of turmoil? In their desperation they remember the old songs of Israel, the verses of the Psalmist:
Rouse yourself!
Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake; do not cast us off forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction? (Psalm 44)
But when they sang the blues of another generation, they heard too their paean of confidence:
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he
brought them out of their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves
of the sea were hushed. (Psalm 107)
The perils were real, but with Jesus they felt safe, secure, despite it all.
What story do you hear?
The story of some men –fisher-folk mostly, who thought it was exciting, and adventurous, and exhilarating when they were called to fish for people in the footsteps of this wonderful, wondrous character Jesus. But then to their alarm they discover that people fishing is even riskier than fish fishing! They are soon in trouble and Jesus has gone to sleep – all too literally, he sleeps the sleep of the dead, he is crucified. Arise, arise Lord, is their fervent prayer. Arise, don’t you care that we are perishing? And he rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Silence, be still,” the very words he had used to calm the raging demons in the synagogue in Capernaum. The wind and the sea, like the demons, obey. But the
disciples don’t get it – despite everything they are still outsiders, still beyond the kingdom of the real: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Jesus trust is still beyond them. “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Who indeed?
What story do you hear
in this tale of fierce winds and smashing waves? One of these, or another? Or do you hear the story addressed to you?
I feel sure that’s what Mark meant by his telling of it. Who could this Jesus be? he asks. He asks you? And he asks
again and again if you read his little book closely. For Jesus it is fear not unbelief that is the opposite of faith. If you know who he is you’ll know that for yourself. Why be so afraid when it’s stormy? With God aren’t we in good hands? These are the hands that mysterious wove in our mother’s womb, the hands that hold us up every single minute of every single day, the hands that will one day lead us to the other shore, the haven or our longings, the harbour of our deepest desires.
What story do you hear?
What story do you hear in this tale of fierce winds and smashing waves?
Do you hear the terrors of the child who knows deep inside herself how scary scared can be. The loud tick of the clock becomes the footsteps of a monster coming to get you. There’s so much to terrify you when you’re small. Tell me a story to make me feel safe as I fall asleep. Tell me a story that reassures, that cures, that overturns what’s scary. Tell me the story of a storm suddenly stopped. Of someone I can trust to calm my fears.
What story do you hear?
Do you hear the story of Jonah – a prophet like Jesus who was called by God to go to the unbelievers? But unlike
Jesus, Jonah went in exactly opposite direction. A storm came up, but Jonah slept. In terror the sailors shook him, “How
can you sleep? Get up and call on you God to save us.” Only when they had thrown Jonah overboard was the storm stilled. You know the rest, the great fish that swallowed him, his eventual preaching amongst the unbelievers of Nineveh – well preaching? Tirade really. Jesus could have done the same, but he didn’t. He gives form to a God who gracious, merciful, long-suffering and of great kindness. “Be still; know what peace with the world, with others, with yourself, with God, really is.
What story do you hear?
Do you hear the fears of a tiny Christian community in Rome? A fragile little group set in a mighty imperial city of intrigue, power-plays and hostility. A tiny community afloat in a world of threat, persecution and violence.
Do you hear their story, as they cry out from a puny coracle of faith in an ocean of turmoil? In their desperation they remember the old songs of Israel, the verses of the Psalmist:
Rouse yourself!
Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake; do not cast us off forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction? (Psalm 44)
But when they sang the blues of another generation, they heard too their paean of confidence:
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he
brought them out of their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves
of the sea were hushed. (Psalm 107)
The perils were real, but with Jesus they felt safe, secure, despite it all.
What story do you hear?
The story of some men –fisher-folk mostly, who thought it was exciting, and adventurous, and exhilarating when they were called to fish for people in the footsteps of this wonderful, wondrous character Jesus. But then to their alarm they discover that people fishing is even riskier than fish fishing! They are soon in trouble and Jesus has gone to sleep – all too literally, he sleeps the sleep of the dead, he is crucified. Arise, arise Lord, is their fervent prayer. Arise, don’t you care that we are perishing? And he rebukes the wind and says to the sea, “Silence, be still,” the very words he had used to calm the raging demons in the synagogue in Capernaum. The wind and the sea, like the demons, obey. But the
disciples don’t get it – despite everything they are still outsiders, still beyond the kingdom of the real: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” Jesus trust is still beyond them. “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Who indeed?
What story do you hear
in this tale of fierce winds and smashing waves? One of these, or another? Or do you hear the story addressed to you?
I feel sure that’s what Mark meant by his telling of it. Who could this Jesus be? he asks. He asks you? And he asks
again and again if you read his little book closely. For Jesus it is fear not unbelief that is the opposite of faith. If you know who he is you’ll know that for yourself. Why be so afraid when it’s stormy? With God aren’t we in good hands? These are the hands that mysterious wove in our mother’s womb, the hands that hold us up every single minute of every single day, the hands that will one day lead us to the other shore, the haven or our longings, the harbour of our deepest desires.
What story do you hear?
