Mark 4:35-41
In the midst of all of the news coverage and abundant commentary on the shooting in Mother Emanuel church in Charleston this week, I came across an article on a different subject. It was published in the Christian Science Monitor online, one of my news sources. (The article is HERE.)
Sixth extinction: Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, says a new study.
The activities precipitating the collapse of many species and ecosystems are related to human [activity].
According to the researchers, if the currently elevated extinction pace persists, humanity will soon (in as little as three human lifetimes) be deprived of many biodiversity benefits. This means that the Earth's ecosystem is likely to lose much of its ability to provide important life-support systems, from pollinating crops to cleaning and recirculating air and water.
There are parallels, I think between the events that lie behind both of these stories. The horrific shooting in Charleston and the rapid increase in species extinction and loss of biodiversity. Both are evidence of deep, systemic human sin.
It is now very clear that racial hatred was what motivated the alleged shooter in Charleston. As one writer said, however, his was an extreme case, but not a unique one. Racism is not limited to one person or one state. Racism is a pervasive, systemic, social, institutional human sin, one of many that belittles the humanity of those who are different, and leads inevitably to the destruction of human life.
The loss of species diversity may not seem in the same class. And yet, at the same time that our hearts break for the lives lost in Charleston, martyred as they gathered to study God’s Word, and as we pray that God will comfort all who mourn, we must also remember the broad context of racism that is laid bare by this shooting.
And in the big picture racism seems very similar to the sort of sin that is causing widespread environmental degradation of the earth. Loss of species diversity is the result of big, pervasive, systemic human sin by which most of us are, through selfishness or indifference, killing not only, say, the spindly pine tree or the black footed ferret, but other human beings, including our own descendents. The article continues
Scientists in the new extinction study also warn that humans could be among the threatened species because in the aftermath of past mass extinctions, the ecosystem took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to rediversify. "If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover and our species itself would likely disappear early on…"
These are big, systemic problems. For me, the bigness makes them feel overwhelming, too big to even attempt to tackle. The bigness, also, I think enables us to live in denial of our individual responsibility and to ignore the consequences of our individual actions. It was not my racism that killed those people. It is not my indifference that is killing the earth.
Except that it is.
So what are we to do? And I don’t have a specific answer for myself or for you this morning. Certainly each of us can acknowledge and work on our individual participation or complicity in the sins of racism and selfish resource consumption. I know that racism is a part of me despite my fervent wish that it weren’t. We can work on our individual actions. But as followers of Christ I think we are called to do more. As disciples of Christ we must be active in efforts to address and change the larger systemic, social human issues… We cannot be passive; we must offer ourselves to these efforts.
Maybe there’s a connection between all of this and today’s Gospel.
It’s a story. Not a parable or a teaching, but a story. A story about discipleship. A story that illustrates what it is like to be a disciple of Jesus. Mark, who rarely uses any extra words in his Gospel, provides all sorts of interesting, unessential detail in the telling of this story. That detail makes it a vivid story. At the end of a long day Jesus calls the disciples to come with him to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. To leave “their” side, the land of Galilee, and go the “other” side. He went “just as he was,” just as they had known him with them. There were “other boats” as well. The depiction of the storm is vivid… waves crashing over the side of the boat… the boat beginning to founder. Jesus is asleep “in the stern” “on a cushion.”
I was at a meeting of diocesan Deans this week and we discussed this passage. There is the potential for all sorts of interesting sermons to be teased out of those details. Why was Jesus asleep? And in the stern… near the tiller? And who was in the other boats? What does the storm represent? What might the boat be a metaphor for? Interesting points, and I’ve preached that sort of sermon in the past.
But this week I see this passage as a story. A story to be read and pondered in its entirety. A story about discipleship. A vivid story describing the life of discipleship. A story that raises as many questions as it answers.
So. To be a disciple of Jesus is to follow. Without checking your phone first for a weather report. Without knowing exactly where you are going. It turns out they were headed for the land of the Geresenes, not a hospitable destination. And there will be storms. Fierce, dangerous, threatening storms. Does the storm mean something? Mark doesn’t say. It’s just a story. There will be storms. We should not expect the life of discipleship to be storm-free.
In the midst of the storm the disciples cry out to Jesus: “Don’t you care that we are perishing?” Why aren’t you fixing this, Jesus!? Don’t you care? That good people are perishing? That cry is part of the life of a disciple. It always has been. We long for understanding, but do not receive it. They had to wake him up.
After the disciples wake Jesus he quiets the storm. Peace. Why are you afraid?
And, at that point, they realize in some new and profound and awesome way that they are in the presence of God. The peace and the power of God is WITH THEM. To be a disciple of Christ is to have the very peace and power of God with you. With you.
The life of a disciple. Uncertain, often unclear, sometimes frightening, but shared with Christ. Sustained by the peace and power of God. It’s our choice. To follow Jesus as a disciple or stay behind on the familiar shore.
I’m reminded of a passage from Ephesians that the Prayer Book offers as one of the concluding doxologies for Morning or Evening Prayer. Listen to every word.
Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever [Ephesians 3:20, 21].
Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. But only if we get in the boat.
