The 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park is memorable on many levels:
For example, it established beyond a reasonable doubt
that the director of Jaws and ET fame
was an enduring force to be reckoned with;
it also settled any questions about Spielberg
as a premier financial investment, since Jurassic Park
was one of the first movies to take in over 1 billion dollars.
For the purposes of this homily, however, I find Jurassic Park notable
because it introduced chaos theory to the public
through the self-styled chaotician Ian Malcolm
played by Jeff Goldbloom.
Chaos theory did not originate in the fertile mind of Stephen Spielberg
but rather in the research of the celebrated meteorologist Edward Lorenz,
revered as the father of chaos theory.
In the early 1960’s, Lorenz was trying to understand the
chaotic behavior in weather
and was having problems creating a model
that could accurately predict the weather.
In his experiments, he found that the divergence
of even 1000th of a decimal point
would render vastly different results,
famously summarized in his 1972 lecture entitled:
“Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil
Set off a tornado in Texas?”
Unpredictable weather patterns only appear to be increasing;
by the end of this May, there were 862 confirmed twisters in the US,
43 of them touching down in Texas.
Seems like butterflies have been unusually active in Brazil.
You don’t have to live in ever-shifting Tornado Alley
to be concerned about the weather,
be that because of an impending vacation, outdoor wedding,
or just trying to calculate the best day to cut the lawn.
In 2023, one government poll found that
over half of Americans check the local weather
at least once a day.
No wonder WBBM radio with traffic and weather on the 8’s
Is consistently rated
as one of the most popular stations in Chicago.
Threatening weather and gospel storms
with Jesus apparently asleep at the wheel
are pointed metaphors for the turbulence and squalls
that cloud over our lives
with too much frequency.
I often listen to Pandora music: stations from Bach to Bowie.
Since I have the free version, commercials abound.
Recently, I have been surprised by the number of Pandora ads
addressing issues of mental health.
There are chatty commercials between girlfriends, for example,
in which one is lamenting not having a good therapist
and the other just happens to know the best website for this.
Then there are the constant ads for Dr. Sanjay Gupta
and his “chasing life” podcast,
recently featuring the author of the NY Times bestseller:
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
and co-host of the “Dear Therapists Podcast.”
Sorry, didn’t even know it existed.
And the title of Gupta’s recent podcast?
“Should everyone consider therapy to be happier?”
According to some estimates, almost 56 million Americans
received mental health treatment or counseling in 2022:
almost double what it was 20 years ago.
We are an anxious people, me included.
A recent mental health poll shows that 43% of US adults
feel more anxious than we did a year ago.
No wonder one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time
has been Allstate Insurance’s “mayhem” commercials
effectively feeding into our collective anxieties.
So maybe this is mayhem Sunday
with a liturgy that impertinently asks:
“What’s the weather like in your life?”
And, more pointedly, wonders,
is God asleep in the bow of your boat,
and do we too frequently join the disciples in crying out:
“Don’t you care that we are perishing?”
It is easy to consider today’s gospel story
as one of the more impressive miracles
in the Jesus repertoire.
Next to raising someone from the dead
which Jesus accomplished as a gospel three-peat,
rebuking the winds and stilling the seas is pretty impressive.
So much so that it has been the subject for world class art,
including a painting by no less than Rembrandt himself.
Without in anyway downplaying the miraculous gifts
of the Only-begotten,
we do get a decidedly different perspective on this story
if we pivot from rescue to resurrection,
and then from miracles to mission.
While it might seem a stretch moving from sea-quelling to resurrection,
Mark himself gives hints that he intentionally crafted this
as a resurrection tale.
It is well-recognized that Mark draws an unflattering,
even abysmal portrayal of the disciples.
Time and time again they miss the point,
often demonstrating less insight than the masses.
In the words of one celebrated scripture scholar:[I]
–Mark has a unique description of the disciples;
–rather than idealize the first followers of Jesus, He seems to highlight their weakness and failure.
–They often appear confused and baffled; they misunderstand Jesus and recoil before the message of the cross.
Now one could suggest a case of sour grapes here.
After all, Mark was never part of the inner circle,
so was he just a grumpy non-apostle?
On the other hand, as the inventor of the gospel genre,
this gifted theologian was probably much craftier than that.
As one blogger observes,
maybe by portraying disciples as blind and inconsistent
during Jesus’ earthly ministry,
he reveals that their heroic stature and accomplishments
– already known to his readers –
were entirely post-resurrectional developments.
And if such dramatic vocational growth was possible
for the consistently inept and bumbling chosen,
maybe others who heard Mark’s gospel
could imagine their own similar evolution.
Furthermore, there is no explicit story of Jesus rising
in the best manuscripts of this first gospel.
Instead, as best that can be determined,
Mark’s gospel ends with women fleeing the empty tomb,
too frightened to say anything to anyone (Mark 16:8).
That doesn’t mean that Mark did not believe in the resurrection,
but weaves his resurrectional tales into the gospel
instead of saving them for the end.
One of them is the story of the transfiguration;
another is this sacred storm tale.
While I only recognize the Greek language half the time,
those who are fluent
point out that Mark intentionally mislabeled
this largest freshwater lake in Israel as not a lake but a sea,
explicitly evoking memories of God’s liberation of Israel
as they were guided through the Red Sea.
Jesus is asleep in the boat, a common metaphor for death;
he is then awakened … so he rose!
Life and death are at stake in the story
as is the fear that marks the women’s experience
of the empty tomb.
The 94-year-old mother of her dear friend heard
that her mother was breathing her last.
She rushed to the hospital.
There she found a fully intubated woman
moving her head back and forth in nervous distress.
The doctor offered a pad of paper
on which she scrawled the word “Water.”
The doctor asked, “Do you want something to drink?”
Instead of a pathetic but certain yes
he got an angry shake of the head: no!
They returned the paper to her
and with even great effort she wrote:
“Water the plants.”
She wasn’t looking for a final sip at the end of her life
but caring for others who still needed life-giving waters.
What an amazing image of someone
rebuking the storms in their own life,
demanding that roiling waters be stilled,
understanding that even the turbulent waters of death
do not absolve us from hydrating others.
So maybe this apparent miracle-
probable resurrection story-
is actually a missionary imperative.
Our personal lives as well as our siblings across the global village
are experiencing hurricanes of violence in Gaza,
tornadoes of destruction raining down upon Ukraine,
cyclones of starvation wreaking havoc on
the Congo, Afghanistan, and Yemen.
Getting into the boat we call Christianity
is not simply an insurance policy that allows us to wake
the sleeping redeemer
and trigger the necessary miracle.
Our baptismal boarding card for embarking on
what ancients called the “Barque of Peter”
is not a free boarding pass to a ship of safety
in which a sometimes-sleeping redeemer
will awake to save us from every storm in our lives.
Rather, it is a commission for the baptized themselves to wake up-
to rebuke the hurricanes of antisemitism and islamophobia;
to stand in the bow of the barque of Peter
and rebuff the winds of divisiveness and polarization;
to assess the storms of racism and homophobia and declare
as did our Lord and Savior:
“Quiet, be still; quiet, be still.”
A sometimes-overlooked sidebar in the gospel
is that there were other boats in the lake.
And, when Jesus rebuked the storm,
he didn’t just save his own disciples.
He created a calm for unnamed travelers caught in the same storm.
Our baptismal commission is not simply to rebuke the turbulence
that affects our family and friends and community,
but to recognize that there are other boats in this storm
and to stand up for stillness and peace for all.
So with the poet we offer this blessing:
For our city
our country
our world:
I cannot claim
to still the storm
that has seized you,
cannot calm
the waves that wash
through your soul,
that break against
your fierce and
aching heart.
But I will wade
into these waters,
will stand with you
in this storm,
will say peace to you
in the waves,
peace to you
in the winds,
peace to you
in every moment
that finds you still
within the storm.
[i] Donald Senior, The Passion of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark (Wilmington DE: Michael Glazier, 1984), p. 36.