TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME — B
Job 38:1,8-11
2 Corinthians 5:14-17
Mark 4:35-41
In the study of philosophy one of the first things we studied was the Socratic Method – named after Socrates, of course. He would ask questions not so much seeking information or to get an answer but to challenge his dialogue partners to examine what they believed, to see if it really made sense. By pushing deeper into the questions, a greater understanding of the truth arose. Jesus did not use the method in quite the same way, but he was constantly asking questions. According to one accounting, across the four gospels Jesus asked 339 questions. Like Socrates, Jesus was not expecting to learn something he didn’t know but rather was challenging his hearers to think, to look more closely at what was going on. “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” “Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket, or under a bed, and not on a stand?” This is different from the catechism method. In a catechism you are supposed to come up with the right answer. Who made you? God made me. Send me in coach, I know, I know. The questions of Jesus weren’t like the catechism because they poked at something, not proved something. Nor should we ignore the fact that people flipped the tables and asked Jesus questions. He seldom gave a direct answer – by my count only eight times. For example, Which is the greatest commandment? You shall love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. More often than not instead of providing an answer he told a parable with the implied message, “you figure it out.” “Who is my neighbor?” A man was going down Jericho when he was set upon by robbers and a Samaritan came to help him when the priest and Levite didn’t. Who do you think is the neighbor? Maybe what all this tells us is that asking questions is as much a part of the Christian life as having answers.
The story of Jesus calming the storm in St. Mark’s Gospel is punctuated by three questions. The first question is addressed to Jesus by his disciples. “Teacher, do you not care?” We have all asked some variation of this question at some point in our lives. Do you not care that cancer is threatening my life? Do you not care that my family is in turmoil? Do you not care that I am feeling depressed and alone? Do you not care that war and racism and poverty exist? Like the disciples it sometimes seems as if God is sleeping on the job, is not moving needle at least a little more in the direction of peace and justice. Did you notice the first reading for today from the Book of Job? The first thirty-seven chapters of the book are one long lament by Job – why has all this bad stuff happened to me? I’m a good person. The passage today is taken from chapter 38 where God finally answers Job basically saying, look around you. See the grandeur of the universe, see the patterns of nature, see the circle of life. God tells Job, I’m smart and really good at my job. You’ve got to trust that I know what I’m doing.
Which leads into the second question in the passage, the question Jesus asks his disciples. “Do you not yet have faith?” After all that you have seen me do, why is it so hard to trust in me? Think about faith for a minute. The opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty. You don’t have to have faith that two plus two equals four, you are certain about it. But most of the important things in life demand faith, not certitude: the brakes will hold, the elevator will go to the top, the supermarket is selling healthy food, the bus driver knows where she’s going. Husbands and wives have faith in each other, not certainty. Faith means living in this world with all of our hopes fixed on the next, as St. Paul put it in the epistle. Those who know about physics will have to forgive my inadequate understanding but I love it that contemporary science has included the Uncertainty Principle into the contemporary understanding of how things work. As I understand it, at the most foundational level of being uncertainty is built into the system. How wonderful that science has confirmed that absolute knowledge is beyond us. Jesus spent three years trying to get his disciples, trying to get us, to have faith, to trust that God loves us, that God is always with us, that God’s will for us is life, life to the full no matter what storms are threatening us.
That leads naturally to the third question in the passage, this time from the disciples: “Who then is this?” Who is this storm-calming Jesus inviting us to faith? The short answer: Jesus is the one beside me in the boat, the one helping me in the midst of the storm. Yes, the storms of life can cause me to wonder whether God cares about what I am going through. Yes, my faith gets shaky at times when I am battered by forces that seem beyond me. But we have the blessed assurance that we are not alone no matter what we are enduring. Jesus is in the boat with us. Jesus can calm any storm. God is not found on Mount Olympus, nor in the Holy Temple, nor in St. Peter’s Basilica. God is with us in our shipmate, Jesus, who shares a storm-tossed life with every human being. This day, when you come to Holy Communion, remember that Jesus is really present to us as we gather around this table. He really companions us as we ride the crashing waves that life throws at us. He really assures us that no matter the Good Friday we are enduring, Easter is coming and all will be well. Who then is this? That is really the one question worth answering.
