Mark 4:35-41

I preached on this text July 19, even thought it was actually the lectionary reading from earlier this Spring. I preached on it because I was so disappointed with the way the preacher handled the text in the Spring that I decided I had to see if I could do any better. It tells a familiar story--Jesus, while crossing the sea with his disciples, falls asleep in the boat on a cushion. A storm arises, the disciples are worried, they awaken Jesus and protest his lack of care for them. He rebukes the waves and, then, the disciples. The text, before I get going too much further, is here:

"On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ 36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37 A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ 39 He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40 He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ 41 And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’"

The Standard Way of Handling this Text

Almost everyone I have heard preach on this text concludes that the text is about the disciples and that the focus is either on the disciples' lack of faith or on their recognition of the glory of Christ. If the former is preached, as it almost always is, the message is something like--'Jesus' disciples showed their dullness and lack of faith, right after having seen Jesus teach and show his miraculous powers. We ought not to be similarly unfaithful.' The message thus becomes a sort of chastisement to us all for our shortcomings and a gentle encouragement to "do better."

This reading won't do for two reasons. First, it ignores the larger "drift" of the narrative in which 4:35-41 is embedded, and second, it ends up being a moralistic "try harder" type of message which really resonates with no one today. This kind of reading is unimaginative, textually suspect and ultimately wearying.

Coming at the Text in Context

So dissatisfied with the just-described reading of this familiar text was I that I went home after church, opened the text and began to ruminate on it. It took me about 5 minutes to see that this passage needed to be examined in the context of Jesus' activities from 4:1-6:6. When looked at in that larger literary world, I began to see that the major issue in 4:1-6:6 was Jesus' gradual exhaustion, an exhaustion which culminates in one of the most unusual verses in the Gospels;

"Now he could do no might work there (his hometown), except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them," 6:5.

The verse is unusual because it suggests that Jesus' power was limited--and limited not simply because of lack of faith in the hearers. Both Matthew and Luke, probably embarrassed by Mark's questoinable theology, "clean up" this passage. Note, for example, Matthew's words:

"Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief," 13:58.

Sounds like he is trying to sweep Mark's bold statement under the rug a bit...

My point, however, is that Mark 6:5, the "embarrassing" verse for us all, is actually the key to understanding the entire narrative from 4:1-6:6 and is especially useful in guiding our interpretation of 4:35-41. Let's turn to that narrative now.

Understanding the Flow of Mark 4:1-6:6

In the verses before our text, 4:1-34, Jesus is preoccupied with teaching crowds and interpreting his teachings to the disciples. While one way to read these verses is to focus on the content of Jesus' teaching, another is to look at the effort expended to teach. Note he was sitting in a boat while speaking to an assembled crowd in 4:1. Mark calls it the "whole multitude," which means that there was quite a bit of effort expended in speaking, if people were to hear him. Those who have spoken to large groups of people without a microphone know that this kind of speaking saps everything you have. While speaking you are energized; after you finish, however, the exhaustion hits. In addition, he was speaking under the hot Palestine sun. It drains a person much more quickly than the sun in the northern or central parts of the United States; it simply exhausts. Well, Jesus spoke to the crowds for some time. Then, he spoke to the disicples in private about the meaning of his parables. If there is any task more difficult for a teacher than speaking without amplification to large multitudes it is interpreting the message to "slow" hearers. What is so clear to you just doesn't seem to grab them; the continual and patient clarification takes away your energy.

Thus, when Jesus climbed into the boat with his disciples in 4:35, he was, no doubt, exhausted. That's why he fell asleep. Preachers interested in the "romance" of the Gospels point out that it was "on a cushion" as if a gentle chorus of the lullaby "Schlafe, mein Princhen, schlaf ein" was playing in the background, but we miss the point of the text unless we see that Jesus was asleep because the day had enervated him.

The next essay speaks more about this exhaustion.

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