12th Sunday of the Year
Gospel of Mark was the first of the four gospels to appear. Consequently, it served as a source for the authors of Matthew and Luke when they wrote their Gospels. It was written either shortly before or shortly after the fall of Jerusalem in 70ad. The gospel is written for a persecuted community. It is written for a community in the grip of fear, a community exposed to the danger of death daily. Hence Mark's gospel concentrates disproportionately on the sufferings of Jesus. Mark presents Jesus as the Son of God whose destiny it was to suffer and to die. However, Jesus suffers innocently and is therefore vindicated by God. Likewise, although believers suffer unfairly at the hands of their oppressors, God will vindicate them as well. Suffering is central to Mark's gospel. In fact Mark's gospel has been known as 'a passion narrative with an introduction'.
In Mark, faith is a gift of God; characters in the narrative either have it or they don't. Furthermore, miracles do not lead to faith (compare the Gospel According to John), but rather, faith is required in order that miracles can take place. They are as puzzled as ever after the calming of the storm: 'Who can this be? Even the winds and the seas obey him.'
Mark presents the disciples in a negative manner. They come across as dimwitted, misguided, and selfish, rather than as great apostles of the church. Perhaps Mark meant to depict them as "fallible followers" and thus give his readers hope when they struggle to understand and follow Jesus. On the other hand, some scholars maintain that Mark may well have had an axe to grind with the leaders of the church in his day!
Christian faith begins with the present, not the past. All people experience the same parallel sets of circumstances. All share a common humanity. We all move around this world in a human body. Human experience is what makes us all alike and equal. But the way we interpret that experience will distinguish us one from another, one community from another. Christians for example will interpret the ordinary components of our daily lives from a different perspective. We view it with the conviction that Christ has risen. This is a very different world to that of non-believers. This is the new world about which Paul writes in today's second reading: "For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old creation has gone. And now the new one is here."
This is the perspective form which Mark wrote his gospel. Mark knows that the Jesus in the boat is also the resurrected Jesus. Even at this early stage, the Church is seen as a storm-tossed boat. The waves of persecution are lashing against it, threatening the passengers with extinction. They are a fear-filled community. Mark is saying to them: don't forget that the resurrected Christ travels with us. We think him to be asleep but prayer brings his conscious protection.
But again, the main point of the story in today's gospel is simple enough: when we encounter storms and upsets, Jesus appears to be asleep, uninvolved. But if we alert him to our plight he will be a calming influence and, because he is travelling with us, we will arrive safely at our destination.
The disciples of Jesus, as portrayed by Mark throughout the Gospel, never believe. Mark does not think that healings and miracles are reasons to believe. Therefore, any healings or miracles that the disciples witness do not lead them to faith. For Mark, the spoken word of Jesus should be enough for a person to believe.