Peace be still - how to go on sabbatical

Passage for reflection: Mark 4.35-end

I used a poem by the poet Brian Bilston for devotions at some of my Church Councils this week. He writes about the reality of January: 

Thirty days has September,

April, June and November.

Unless a leap year is its fate,

February has twenty-eight.

All the rest have three days more,

excepting January, 

which has six thousand,

one hundred and eighty-four.

It feels like with a lot of bereavements this month - eight funerals have been arranged in this area since 1 January -  and some quite serious illness and worry, the cost of living rising, threats of war in Eastern Europe and anger about boozy parties and birthdays and Prime Ministers pictured “near bottles” and then Covid still being about with a major scare happening in one of my churches this week, that life is like being in a storm at the moment. 

The last storm we were in was Arwen on Holy Island. We lost power and had to hanker down in our cottage with just a few nightlights and candles but luckily also a log burner, not that it was easy venturing outside to get the logs as you couldn’t stand upright. All night the wind howled and it caused great damage. To be out in it would have been dangerous even life threatening. 

To be engulfed by madness, can mean that madness is all consuming, physically but also mentally. All you can think about is the thing that is making you uncertain. So when we are bereaved, we hurt and we lose purpose for a bit. When we are unwell, we can’t cope with doing very much. When the world presents us with challenges, we wonder how we are going to cope. Energy prices rising will be a huge challenge to many people. And when so called leaders don’t give us any confidence because we don’t trust them anymore… well, I’ll not comment about that. I’ve spent ages since a Covid scare at church sorting things and trying to keep people safe yet again has been draining and time consuming and other things I need to do have had to wait. The storm is all there is.

Or is it really all there is? In our reading we are in a severe storm on the Sea of Galilee. How strong can we surmise this storm was? The disciples were fishermen who were accustomed to storms on the Sea of Galilee and this one must have been fierce for them to fear for their lives. They are horrified as the storm worsens that Jesus falls asleep! “Don’t you care we are all going to die?” This reading is set in the lectionary for this Saturday. Saturday, Sunday and Monday will see me rushing about (unless I test positive for Covid!) as there’s so much to sort before I can go on sabbatical on Tuesday. The last month has been especially tough. I’ve not done anything very well as stuff has battered me from all directions. So there’s three words from Jesus I need to hear for myself which come as he awakes, see the disciples petrified and sees the wind and the waves out of control. 

“Peace, be still.” 

Isn’t that what we need at the end of a difficult January? Jesus won’t take the pain of bereavement away, or stop us getting ill or stop people behaving as they do (though he will forgive them) and nor will he write all my membership tickets or update my pastoral lists or tidy my desk or write a service for May 1, but he will give peace to our situation if we just recognise he is there. Haven’t we lost the sense he is just there in the storm? An old hymn said I think “with Christ in the vessel I smile at the storm.” 

I sat in a meeting the other night trying to get us to think a bit bigger about plans. Instead we didn’t want to think about other than what we know. Why? Because we are fearful. So we can only just cling on. We haven’t the answers to how we might grow and we haven’t enough energy to take on more. But if we spent more time giving our concerns to him, surely our storms would calm, wouldn’t they? 

“Peace, be still.” 

Two other things strike me from this reading:

After their brush with death, Jesus doesn't comfort, but rather scolds His disciples.
Why is He so hard on them?
Is there evidence in the passage that Jesus meant to enter this storm as a test of the disciples' faith? Jesus suggested the boat trip himself, and promptly went to sleep. The application to our lives is that even when Jesus leads us "through the valley of the shadow of death", we should fear no evil, for he is with us. We too can rest in faith during the storm. Our boat isn't going down, because Jesus is on board.

And note this too: the disciples at the end are scared of the storm, but Jesus! Someone in a commentary writes “ This fear was not produced by the storm, but by the calm. The sudden storm and sudden stillness caused brain overload.” How would it be if we let God be God and just were just awestruck by what he does again? 

The Breton fishermen’s prayer reminds us of this constant need to reach out:

“Dear God, be good to me; the sea is so wide and my boat is so small.”  

So what’s my message this week? I guess I pray for stillness and peace. I will miss my eight communities but I will use every moment of the next three months to find God, hear Jesus’ story, and find some balm for my battered soul. All will be well. And when it doesn’t feel well, it’s then I need to up my prayers, listen and look harder, for the divine calm and solace and reassurance that this will pass will be there. 

“Peace, be still.”