From the Daily Lectionary for Tuesday in the Seventh Week of Easter
Matthew 8:18-27
Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Another of his disciples said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
Matthew shifts from his discourse regarding the practice of the faith to the issue of discipleship, in particular the cost of it. A scribe, presumably a frequent opponent of Jesus, has been so moved by Jesus’ teaching as to say that he will follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus immediately challenges the scribe’s good intentions by telling him that ministry is no part time occupation, that ministry is marked by sacrifice, that it will require his all, that ministry is a life detached from worldly comforts: always on the move, very little rest, something resembling homelessness. In ministry one is detached from one’s roots. It is telling that Jesus has directed his followers to go to the ‘other side’ of the lake. This is Gentile country, a province of the empire outside of Judea. Ministry then is also about crossing boundaries, getting outside the comfort zone, a willingness to endure the disorientation of new experience. Ministry calls us to the margins of life.
Matthew extends the metaphor by describing a violent storm on the lake. Stormy seas throughout scripture are a frequent depiction of the chaos of the world. One of the monikers for the emperor in Matthew’s day was “master of land and sea (also, Son of God).” So it strikes me that the chaos Matthew is describing is in no small way a reference to the chaos of Imperial occupation. To commit to ministry is to be buffeted by the forces of evil, and all that would oppose God’s egalitarian kingdom. To be a follower of Jesus is costly, and because it challenges the power of the status quo, it can be dangerous.
But Matthew ends the brief narrative with the calming of the sea. Inexplicably, in the midst of the rigors of service, one may find serenity. This is Shalom, or as we say in the tradition: “the peace which passes understanding.” To be detached from what we hold most dear (like the burial of one’s father, Matthew’s example), and to give ourselves over to serving the greater good, in God’s alchemy, there is peace and calm that comes with fulfilling our true humanity, which is sacrifice for the good of the other. Following Jesus is, in short, hard work, sometimes frightening…. It is not about comfort, but it is about peace, Shalom, that comes in spite of the storm. William Alexander Percy says it poetically (Hymn 661): “The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod; yet let us pray for but one thing– the marvelous peace of God.”
A Prayer in Times of Conflict (BCP p. 824)
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to engage one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
