Catching a light breeze with St. Thérèse
A post by Kris Vieira Coleman
This sermon was preached on June 23, 2024 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Park Slope. You can listen to the audio here.
Mark 4:35-41
When evening had come, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 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?” 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. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 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?”
“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Speaking as a person who is afraid of most things most of the time, I struggle with this passage. It seems to me that Jesus is really asking too much from his disciples. He has them set out on a boat in the evening, so I imagine it’s pitch dark out when this terrific windstorm occurs—a storm that quickly begins swamping the boat. Jesus is asleep–literally asleep at the wheel, since he’s in the stern where the rudder probably was that would steer the boat!
Presumably if the disciples had not been afraid, they would not have woken Jesus up… and then he wouldn’t have gotten up to calm the storm…and that’s the point of this passage, right? To show the disciples–and us– that Jesus has the power to command the sea and the wind?
Usually this event is titled “Jesus Calms the Storm.” Certainly one of the messages we receive from this story is that God is all powerful, that “even the wind and the waves obey him.” In our reading from Job [Job 38:1-11] we are also told of this power–God says to the sea, “'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped.” Like the disciples, and like Job, we are stirred to awe and wonder at this power.
There are many kinds of storms we face in this life–whether they are natural disasters like a windstorm, or some other great devastation like illness, suffering, addiction, war, famine, even everyday disappointments–we all face at least one of these storms in our lives–no exceptions. The destructive power of these storms is real and it threatens to sink us. And it is good, I think, to have faith that God is more powerful than all of these things. That’s true.
But I’m still afraid. Because so often in life, the storms seem to win. Jesus doesn’t wake up, no matter how loud we call for him. Maybe we could have courage, if we could believe that Jesus is definitely going to stand up on our little boats before the waves overtake us and say, “Silence! Be still!” While that miracle happened for the disciples, so often it doesn’t happen for us. We are left, like the disciples, to ask: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Jesus performs many miracles in the Gospel of Mark, more than any other Gospel. Mark definitely wants us to believe in the power of God. But at the same time, Jesus is almost always asking people not to tell anyone about these miracles. When he heals the leper, Jesus says take care to say nothing to anyone. (Mark 1:40-44) He exorcizes demons, and gives a “strict order” not to tell anyone. (Mark 3:12) He gives hearing back to a deaf man: “Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.” People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (Mark 7:31-37)1
If he came here to reveal the power of God, why wouldn’t he want to advertise it? It seems to really impress people! Why wouldn’t he want everyone to be amazed at what he can accomplish?
I think it’s because Jesus came to do more than demonstrate God’s power. He came to demonstrate God’s love and to call us into relationship and union with God. As theologian Rowan Williams points out, you cannot have a relationship with sheer power.2 We are being called into much more than amazement and wonder at a distant powerful God who controls the universe–we are called to love and be loved, to be reconciled and united with God. We are asked to trust, not in miracles, but in love itself.
The great Carmelite mystic and saint, Thérèse of Lisieux, references this Gospel story over and over again in her autobiography, Story of a Soul. Yet she rarely focused on the miraculous action of Jesus calming the storm. Instead, Thérèse focused on the image of Jesus asleep in her little boat.
Thérèse suffered many storms in her short life–the grief of losing her mother at a young age, suffering from severe illness most of her life (a life which ended at the age of 25) but perhaps most of all, she suffered from many years of spiritual dryness, times when she seemed to be abandoned by God.
She wrote:
My soul was like a fragile boat delivered up to the mercy of the waves and having no pilot. I knew Jesus was there sleeping in my boat, but the night was so black it was impossible to see Him; nothing gave me any light, not a single flash came to break the dark clouds. No doubt, lightning is a dismal light, but at least if the storm had broken out in earnest I would have been able to see Jesus for one passing moment. But it was night! The dark night of the soul! I felt I was all alone in the garden of Gethsemane like Jesus, and I found no consolation on earth or from heaven; God Himself seemed to have abandoned me.3
During these trials, Therese would frequently quote a line from Song of Songs (5:2): “I sleep but my heart watches.” Her faith taught her that although she could not hear or see God in the midst of her trials, the relationship was still intact. His heart was watching.
Maybe this is the kind of faith we are called to in this life–not a faith in power alone, but faith in a loving God that is always with us, though so often hidden by dark clouds, revealed to us in mysterious and subtle ways.
When hope seems lost, as it must have seemed that night on the boat, and as it most definitely seemed after the Crucifixion, when Jesus appeared to be asleep forever, laying in a tomb, even then–especially then–we can trust that God will arise and silence the storms of sin and death forever. Because in fact, he already has–in the Resurrection.
The storms we face are temporary, but they are real and they are powerful, and if like me, you are still afraid, I can’t say I blame you. The noise of these trials is so much louder than anything else, it can be hard to listen for the voice of God speaking out of the whirlwind, speaking into the storm: Be still. Silence!
St. Therese wrote,
My union with Jesus was effected not in the midst of thunder and lightning, that is, in extraordinary graces, but in the bosom of a light breeze…4
So, friends, in this season of Pentecost, so-called ordinary time, I hope you and I can find rest in the light breezes of faith. I hope we can listen for the still, small voice of God, speaking Be still! Silence! to the powers that seem to swamp our boats. I hope that we can search not for signs and wonders but for a relationship to this mysterious and hidden God, learning to trust that while Jesus seems to sleep, his heart watches. Amen.
Kristin Vieira Coleman is a co-founder and Program Director at the Center for Spiritual Imagination, assisting in developing the new monastic Community of the Incarnation's formation program as well as the Center’s public events. Kris has been an active lay minister for over a decade, leading small groups and teaching classes on contemplation, 12-step spirituality, and Scripture. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Jeremy and their cat Benedict.
There is an exception—when Jesus heals a man possessed by demons in Gerasenes, he tells him to “Go home to your own people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy he has shown you.” (Mark 5:19) This is probably because the population of Gerasenes were primarily Gentile.
Williams, Rowan. Meeting God in Mark: Reflections for the Season of Lent.
Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux. 3rd Ed., John Clarke, OCD, ed.
Ibid.
Thank you so very much! The storms will come and go, as I have a silent knowing all is well. Great to hear this from the heart.