ONE SUMMER NIGHT in 1985, I was sitting alone in a banged-up rowboat listening to trees creaking in the breeze, held in that sweet rocking motion made by night wind on water. Suddenly, the stars began to wink out and I was caught in a full-fledged squall. Water whipped up into whitecaps. Leaves and branches swirled overhead. The shore was yards away, so I wasn’t in danger, but the storm’s speed and ferocity were unforgettable. I’ll also never forget that it happened on the Sea of Galilee.
I remember this experience each time I hear the story, told in all three synoptic gospels, about Jesus and the disciples in a similar storm. Surrounded by crowds of suffering people and after several days of healing, perhaps Jesus felt the miracle was turning into a sideshow. He told the disciples to jump into a boat at the Capernaum docks and strike out onto the Sea of Galilee. Jesus led them from the suffering of the masses on the Jewish side to a confrontation with the demon Legion that was occupying a man on the militarized Roman side. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. But first, they must deal with a mid-lake tempest and a god who sleeps through it.
Some scholars say that Jesus, asleep in the boat while the sea rages, evokes a god who has already conquered chaos — and that it is the duty of Israel to wake the sleeping god when danger is near. In Isaiah 51, the exilic people are shaking Yahweh by the arm, “awake, awake” and help us! Now roused, God responds with reversal: Awake, awake yourself, O people! Robe your own selves in power! (52:1). When the disciples shake Jesus by the arm (“Lord, save us! We will drown!”), the now awakened god responds: Where is your faith? Why aren’t you awake!
Even though the disciples have just come off several days of seeing faith in action, and even though Jesus has pulled them aside to “explain everything” (Mark 4:34), they still think the “power” resides only in Jesus and not, through faith, in themselves. New Testament scholar Raj Nadella writes, “Faith is not an abstract idea in Mark’s gospel but a way of life — a capacitating force that leads to concrete actions.”
Why does Jesus sleep in the boat? Because it is what gods do. “The ability to sleep undisturbed was the symbol of the deity’s absolute dominion over the heavens and the earth and the underworld,” writes religious studies professor Bernard F. Batto. Of what shall we be afraid?
But we are afraid. I wake some nights with my heart pounding, anxious about all I can’t control but hold myself responsible for. I can’t control my parents’ aging — the inconveniences and suffering they endure. Suffering is part of life’s fabric, as is death. Each are “little apocalypses” in our lives — when one tiny world ends. They do not mean that God has abandoned us or simply lost interest. Instead, we are called to invigorate our faith. We can practice rousing the sleeping God and trusting in our own agency, no matter how small.
Buddhist poet Matty Weingast offers this image for surviving unruly water: “How do you cross the flood? / You cross calmly — one step at a time / feeling for stones.”
I recall that night on the Galilee. I’m still being discipled by a lake and a sleeping god. I’m still feeling for stones.
Rose Marie Berger, a Catholic peace activist and poet, is senior editor of Sojourners magazine. She is author ofBending the Arch: Poems.
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