Be Still: SALT's Lectionary Commentary for Fourth Week after Pentecost

Fourth Week after Pentecost (Year B): Mark 4:35-41 and 1 Sam 17:1-49

Big Picture:

1) We’re in the midst of a seven-part portrait of the early phase of Jesus’ public ministry, exploring seven chronologically selected passages from Mark’s Gospel. Jesus has emerged on the scene as a celebrated healer and teacher — and now, with this dramatic story, the vast scope of his work comes into view.

2) Mark was likely written during or just after a period of intense, almost unimaginable upheaval in first-century Palestine, near the year 70 CE: a Jewish revolt against the Roman imperial occupation rises up, and the empire’s might comes crashing down, desecrating and destroying the Jerusalem Temple — which is to say, from the Jewish point of view, desecrating and destroying the heart of the world. To put it mildly, the atmosphere of Mark’s world was full of fear, grief, lamentation, and dread. Death-dealing forces were swirling through everyday life, like a chaotic storm at sea.

3) As we’ve seen, Mark figures death-dealing forces as “demons,” and heralds Jesus as the “Son of God” sent to heal and liberate human beings (Mark 1:1). One of his first acts of public ministry is to drive out a man’s “unclean spirit”: Jesus commands the intruder to “Be silent, and come out of him!”, and the crowds are astonished, whispering about how Jesus “commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:25-27). As we’ll see, this week’s story reprises these basic themes — though now at an even larger scale.

4) The story from 1 Samuel is the well-known tale of David and Goliath, a legendary turning point in Israel’s war with the Philistines, and in David’s rise from obscurity to the throne. Reading these passages from 1 Samuel and Mark side by side makes their similarities stand out: each takes place in a context full of intense conflict, and each features an apparent underdog who triumphs over what initially appears to be an overwhelming adversary.

Scripture:

1) Jesus has just told several parables about the “kingdom” or “reign” of God, and now, that very evening, instructs his disciples to take him across the Sea of Galilee by boat. It’s as though the parables flow directly into the journey, as if to say, God’s reign has come, and this is what it’s like in parable form (sowing seeds, graceful growth, a weed subversively taking over a field) — and now, this is what it’s like in the form of action. Though night is falling, we’ll head across the sea into Gentile territory, where we’ll confront even more death-dealing adversaries. Even tonight’s journey itself will take on this death-defying character of adventure and struggle: we’ll sail into the shadows of a storm, with the wind and sea against us…

2) As the waves bear down on the boat, Jesus is asleep in the stern, an ancient sign of equanimity and trust in God (compare Job 11:18-19 and Psalms 3:5 and 4:8). The disciples are understandably distraught, and their cry, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” echoes the ancient Israelite tradition of lamentation (compare Psalms 35:23; 69:1-2,14-15; 107:26-28).

3) The disciples’ lament elevates this episode beyond a mere “complaint” story about the disciples’ lack of faith, or even a mere “miracle” story about Jesus’ power. There’s something deeper here. The essence of God’s mission is distilled down into a single scene: the apparently invincible adversary of the storm (a kind of “Goliath”); an apparently clueless central character (Jesus sleeping like a kind of “David,” a shepherd boy without armor, shield, or sword); and then a jaw-dropping reversal of fortune, itself reminiscent of the Psalms: “he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed” (Psalm 107:29).

4) And then there’s the way Jesus stills the storm and hushes the waves. As Mark puts it, he “rebukes” the wind — the same term, epitimaó, “rebuke,” Mark uses to describe what Jesus does to the “unclean spirit” in Mark 1:25. Likewise, what Jesus says to the sea — pephimōso, “be muzzled,” translated “be still” in the NRSV — is exactly what he says to that “unclean spirit” (Mark 1:25; here the NRSV translates pephimōso as “be silent”). Finally, in case we missed it, Mark underscores the point by having the onlookers react almost identically in the two stories: in Mark 1, the crowds whisper, “What is this?… He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him”; and in Mark 4, the disciples whisper, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (Mark 1:27; 4:41).

5) The upshot of these connections is that what happens on the Sea of Galilee is no ordinary miracle story, but rather a kind of exorcism or healing story writ large. The reign of God has come near; it will meet with fierce, overwhelming opposition; and yet, the new world will prevail. The world’s death-dealing forces are no match for the God of life.

Takeaways:

1) At the beginning of a musical or film, sometimes the orchestra plays an “overture,” a kind of preview of the main themes we’re about to hear in the production. That’s what this story is like in the Gospel of Mark. It boils everything down to one dramatic episode: the powerful opposition, the disciples’ fear and doubt, and Jesus’ serene triumph. Viewed this way, the story also foreshadows Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection.

2) Mark clearly wants us to understand this episode not as just another “miracle story” (as in, There he goes again, doing something amazing!), but rather as a kind of exorcism or healing story writ large — and this has at least two implications. First, the story suggests that the world’s death-dealing forces aren’t limited to afflicted individuals; they are also much larger, interpersonal, communal phenomena, more like enveloping storms than personal maladies. And second, the story suggests that the essence of Jesus’ mission is to confront such forces — not with military might, but with a calm, courageous campaign of healing and liberation.

3) In a world still reeling from a global pandemic, rife with racism and other forms of communal inequality, poisoned with rancor, conspiracy theories, and despair — we all know a thing or two about how death-dealing forces take communal, enveloping forms. Mark’s world was full of fear, disorientation, and lament; and in its own way, so is ours.

4) The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus is with us in the boat; indeed, one of the earliest symbols of the church was a boat or an ark (it’s why a cathedral’s central section is called a “nave” — as in, “navy”). But please note, Mark strikingly adds that there are also “other boats” in the storm with us (Mark 4:36). In his time and in ours, when Jesus proclaims the words of healing and liberation — Peace! Be still! — he calms the wind and waves not only for our sake, but for the sake of the life of the world.