2 Corinthians 6: 1-13 Mark 4: 35-end
‘Do you care about other people?’ might be a good question to ask candidates in the forthcoming General Election. We tend to ask them another question albeit indirectly: ‘Are you a worker of miracles?’ They are likely to answer both questions with a persuasively framed ‘Yes!’ but the former might be easier to prove than the latter – although even that question is not without its challenges.
Do you care about other people? might actually be a better question to ask of ourselves just before we cast our vote. But charity begins at home and, if you’re struggling to make ends meet or are worried about your health, you may not have the time or the inclination to vote in a way that might benefit others. What about me?
In the forthcoming General Election, the main parties are all offering a utopia: a European-style welfare system with an American-style taxation. The two don’t add up so it seems we will need a worker of miracles to take the helm after 4 July.
Today’s Gospel presents us with God who cares for us and who is a worker of miracles and, while Our Lord is not a candidate in the forthcoming General Election, it would be good to think that his proclamation of the good news about God might influence the way we vote as well as influencing those whom we elect.
And what is fascinating about the calming of the storm in St Mark’s Gospel is that it is a test of God’s concern for us rather than a test of his ability to work miracles. The disciples don’t ask Jesus calm the storm. They simply ask him if he cares that they are perishing.
It’s a selfish question but, as the election campaign demonstrates, people are – on the whole – pretty selfish. And it’s an unfair question. Even though we have only reached Chapter Four of St Mark’s Gospel, we have already been steeped in the healing ministry of this man of God with whom the disciples have thrown in their lot. And he has also defended them in the face of criticism from that most unattractive of sources: the clergy! When they’re being accused by the Pharisees of breaking the Sabbath laws.
But, when the chips are down for them, they still need convincing. It was all theoretical up to the point when the storm arose. And, as so often, Jesus responds by underlining his point in exaggeration mode. It’s a colourful and almost humorous approach to teaching that I think we often miss in our rather po-faced reading of scripture.
We see it earlier in this Gospel when the sower wastes vast amount of precious seed by chucking it about all over the place – like Henry Cooper’s aftershave – in the hope that some of it will land in the right place. We see it in the Wedding at Cana when Jesus doesn’t just turn a modest little carafe of water into a pretty decent bottle of Sauvignon but instead whisks up 180 gallons of the stuff – and it’s more likely to be Chablis than Sauvignon.
And exactly the same thing happens in the stern of this boat when the disciples frantically ask Jesus if he cares that they are perishing. Instead of stroking the disciples and their neuroses, Jesus turns on the wind, gives it a right ticking off, and then orders the sea to calm down – right then and there. You can almost imagine Jesus turning back to the disciples, folding his arms, giving them a long hard stare and saying, ‘Now do you believe me?’
The Gospel is not about miracles. It’s about the depth of God’s love for us.
And God loves politicians too. That alone must require a worker of miracles. But, at the end of the day, they’re just a bunch of folk no better or worse than those of us gathered here this morning. I wish we’d let them be a bit more human and give them more than three minutes on the Today programme to develop a vision for a more just and equal society and I wish that this is what we would have the imagination to vote for: a more just and equal society in which we care so much that people are perishing that we follow Christ’s example and rebuke the wind of inequality and calm the sea of despair.
Let’s make sure we vote on 4 July – come rain or shine. Even if we decide to spoil our ballot paper as a protest for whatever reason, let’s make sure we are one of those numbers that the Returning Officer reads out at the count in the early hours of 5 July.
Even if it doesn’t appear to make much difference and even if nothing appears to change, it will show that we care that people are perishing and we care because we are followers of Jesus Christ whom even the wind and the sea obey.
That is the depth of God’s love for us.