Crossing Over

Mark 4:35-41

Rev Monte Marshall

Today at Travis Park United Methodist Church, three of our youth are being confirmed into the membership of our church.  Even more than that, they are declaring themselves followers of Jesus Christ.  Today, they’re stepping into Mark’s gospel story.  They’re getting into the boat with Jesus and embarking on a lifelong journey of crossing over great divides of hatred and alienation that separate people so that the life-threatening, chaotic storms spawned by such divides might be quieted and stilled by the powerful good news of God with us in Jesus Christ, and in the lives of the people who follow the Christ.  They’re joining us in the boat and sailing with us as we cross over together the challenging seas that separate us, to then land on unfamiliar shores and to work among diverse and sometimes hostile peoples, as instruments of healing, mercy and peace.  And make no mistake about it, the journey that we are on with Jesus is fraught with risk.  In fact, it’s a downright dangerous undertaking!  

Mark’s story makes this clear.  In fact, Mark’s story is like a parable of discipleship.  The story begins with nighttime approaching.  Darkness is falling, adding drama to the story.  Jesus has been teaching a crowd of people, including his disciples, at the Sea of Galilee.  He’s gotten into a boat to teach the people on the shore.  He’s been teaching about the reign of God, and even explaining his teachings privately to his disciples so that they might know what Mark calls, “the secret of the kingdom of God.” 

Jesus says to his disciples:  “Let’s cross over to the other shore.”  The geographical reference is to crossing over the Sea of Galilee.  But in the ancient world, the sea is a metaphor for chaos, and also, for Mark, a metaphor for the demonic and a boundary marker dividing Jews and Gentiles.  As one commentator notes, for Mark, “the sea…is far more than a geographical notation; it is where discipleship is challenged, where boundaries are impassable, where life always hangs in the balance, and where evil lurks as a formidable foe.”[1]

In Mark’s story, Jesus proposes to “cross over to the other shore.”  Jesus intends to move from Jewish territory to Gentile territory.  He intends to breach the barrier of alienation and hatred between these two peoples, but in an unexpected way.  Brian Blount writes:  “In answer to the zealous belief that God was about to exorcise all Gentile presence and influence from Palestine, Mark offered a controversial, alternative answer. Not only did God not desire the expulsion of Gentiles from Israelite land, God intended that Gentiles would become full participants in God’s expansive coming reign.”[2]  In other words, outsiders were to become insiders, the excluded, included.

So in response to Jesus’ desire to “cross over,” the disciples put their oars into water, raise their sails, and set off to the far shore, leaving the crowd behind.  Jesus is in one boat with some of his followers.  The story also notes that several other boats also put out to sea, presumably carrying other disciples.

It’s then, as Jesus and his disciples are crossing over this watery divide that separates two peoples that all hell breaks loose.  A storm erupts.  Gale force winds toss the boat around.  Waves come crashing over the sides of the boat.  The boat is in danger of sinking.  The disciples are terrified, but Jesus is sound asleep in the stern of the boat.  The disciples wake him up:  “Teacher, doesn’t it matter to you that we’re going to drown?”

As the story goes, Jesus wakes up, rebukes the wind and says to the sea:  “’Quiet!  Be calm!’”  And the wind drops and everything is perfectly calm.”  This is Mark’s way of saying that Jesus embodies the very power of God to bring peace out of chaos.

But get this, Mark’s story also implies that this same divine power is also available to us as followers of Jesus, but trust is required.  “Have you no faith?” Jesus asks.  It would seem that in Mark’s story, trusting God in the midst of the storm is the only way to deal effectively with the chaos that threatens to overwhelm us both inwardly and outwardly. 

And speaking of this inward chaos, Jesus identifies the one emotion that most threatens to swamp the boat when it comes to faith, and it’s not doubt—it’s fear.  Before Jesus asks about the faith of his followers, he asks about fear:  “Why were you so frightened?”

And it’s here that the story takes an unexpected turn.  The wind and the sea are now quiet and calm, and yet, the text says, the disciples become even more afraid.  They are “filled with fear and say to one another ‘Who is this, whom even the wind and sea obey?’”

This is how Brian Blount interprets the disciples’ intensified fear:  This fear comes “when Jesus answers the storm with his actions, when he exorcises its power of ethnic separation by embodying in his ministry a seeking out of, a crossing over into, Gentile land.  This boundary-breaking reality is where the calm carries them.  Jesus’ actions kill the separatism and open up the possibility of a peaceful, rule-of-God kind of ethnic coexistence, the future possibility of which must be made a present reality.  That, I think, is why they are afraid.  They are afraid of what his miracle of calm represents for them and their ministries.”[3]

Now I mentioned a moment ago that our confirmands have stepped into Mark’s gospel story today.  I pray that our confirmands and all of us who enter this parable of discipleship, might learn how to cross-over every chaotic divide with Jesus and confront the storms that will surely come with faith rather than fear, in the same way that our brothers and sisters in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston, South Carolina have done.

In case you don’t know, this predominately African American church—the oldest AME church in the South—made the news last week.  A “violent storm” erupted in the Emanuel church this past Wednesday evening as the congregation was engaged in Bible study and prayer.  A 21-year old young man—a white man named Dylann Storm Roof—was welcomed into the Bible study with open arms.  At his request, he was seated next to the pastor of church. 

Dylann Roof was there to do violence, but he had second thoughts because of the hospitality he had received that night from the people of Emanuel church. After spending an hour with the congregation, the young man made up his mind to act.  He stood up and unleashed a storm of bullets that claimed nine lives, including the life of the pastor, Clementa Pinckney, who was also a South Carolina state Senator.

By all accounts, Dylann Roof is a racist; a white supremacist; a segregationist; a young man filled with hate.  He once complained to a friend that “’blacks were taking over the world’ and that ‘someone needed to do something about it for the white race.’”[4]  So this young man acted to unleash this “violent storm” in an effort to harden the divide of hatred between the races.

But he underestimated Emanuel church.  This congregation has been in the boat with Jesus since its founding in 1791.  This church has been on the journey with Jesus, striving to cross over racial barriers from slavery to segregation, and every manifestation of the chaotic sea that divides people with hate and fear.  And the truth is, unfortunately, that last Wednesday night’s violent storm was not the first to afflict this congregation in its long history.  As a CNN reporter wrote:  This church “was borne of discrimination, burned to the ground in hate, and rose again.”[5]

As the turbulence of the storm’s aftermath continues, the followers of Jesus at Emanuel church have not yielded to fear.  As far as I know, there are no plans to arm the parishioners, as some have advised.  And as near as I can tell, the folks at Emanuel are not returning hate for hate.  Instead, they’re acting out of faith.  They’re following Christ and trusting God.  And in the process, folks are actually finding peace enough to offer forgiveness to Dylann Roof. 

This was plain to see on Friday when the young man made his initial court appearance by video feed from the jail.  Relatives of the shooting victims were able to look at the young man and speak to him.  In the grip of what surely is unspeakable grief, listen to what these Christ-followers said: 

The daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, one of the nine killed in Wednesday’s massacre, said this to the young man:  “You took something really precious from me.  I will never talk to her again.  But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul.  You hurt me.  You hurt a lot of people.  But God forgives you.  I forgive you.”

Anthony Thompson, the husband of 59-year-old Myra Thompson, said this:  “I forgive you, and my family forgives you….But we would like you to take this opportunity to repent.  Change your ways.”

The grandson of 74-year-old Daniel Simmons said:  “Although my grandfather and the other victims died at the hands of hate, this is proof, everyone’s plea for your soul is proof they lived in love and their legacies will live in love….So hate won’t win.”[6]

I find it interesting that name of the church, Emanuel, means God with us.

So today at Travis Park United Methodist Church, three of our youth are being confirmed into the membership of our church.  Even more than that, they are declaring themselves followers of Jesus Christ.  Today, they’re stepping into Mark’s gospel story.  They’re getting into the boat with Jesus and embarking on a lifelong journey of crossing over great divides of hatred and alienation that separate people so that the life-threatening, chaotic storms spawned by such divides might be quieted and stilled by the powerful good news of God with us in Jesus Christ, and in the lives of the people who follow the Christ.  They’re joining us in the boat and sailing with us as we cross over together the challenging seas that separate us, to then land on unfamiliar shores and to work among diverse and sometimes hostile peoples, as instruments of healing, mercy and peace.  And make no mistake about it, the journey that we are on with Jesus is fraught with risk.  In fact, it’s a downright dangerous undertaking!  But God IS with us—Emanuel—and it is enough.  Thanks be to God!