Jesus calms the storm—not
dominating nature but restoring a relationship of peace!
Care for Creation
Commentary on the Common Lectionary—Year A 2011
By Dennis Ormseth
Readings for:
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost: Psalm 85:8-13
1
Kings 19:9-18 Romans 10:5-15 Matthew 14:22-33
Following “immediately” on the story of the “feeding the
five thousand” as this Sunday’s Gospel does, the text provides opportunity for
extending our consideration of the relationship between Jesus’ care of humans
and the ecological contexts in which that care occurs. There we saw how
placement of the story in “a deserted place” illuminates Jesus’ care for human
well-being as part of his care for the whole of creation. And we made a few
suggestions about how this relationship might be reflected in the life of a
congregation. The narrative of today’s Gospel redoubles the learning, except
that now it moves in the opposite direction. Here the movement of the story is from
mountain wilderness to the disciples on the sea and it illuminates the
significance of Jesus’ relationship to creation in his care for human
creatures.
Jesus sends his disciples out on the sea to meet him on the
other side, while he moves more deeply into wilderness and then ascends “the
mountain by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23). Jesus’ movement, Warren Carter
suggests, “evokes Moses’ ascent of Sinai, where he prays (Exod 32:30-34;
34:8-9). It also alludes to worship on Mt Zion (Isa 2:2-3)” (Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading,
p.309). Of course, this is not the first time Jesus ascends “the mountain.” Just
as the story of the feeding of five thousand in “a deserted place” reminded us
of his first temptation in the wilderness, so also does this ascent to a
mountain recall the third temptation, in which Satan took Jesus “to a very high
mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.”
Jesus’ faithfulness to God’s purposes for the creation, affirmed by that story,
may be assumed here also, as the ascent recalls not only the mountain of
temptation but also the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount (5:1). Indeed,
as Carter notes, this is the first scene involving a mountain ever since Jesus’ descent in 8:1 at
the end of the Sermon on the Mount (Carter, p. 309).
We have argued earlier in this series that Jesus’ frequent
“return to the mountains” carries much significance for care of creation. Our
comment on the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount is relevant here as
well:
What exactly is it about mountains
that renders them appropriate sites for divine epiphanies and revelations? Why
does one expect to encounter God there and to obtain guidance as to how one
should live? That the mountains manifestly transcend the plain where life is
normally lived is obvious, as also is their seemingly eternal duration through
time. . . . [S]tanding before them is an impressive experience; and awareness
of their enduring presence greatly enhances their credibility as witnesses on
God’s behalf. Additionally, their remoteness from human community is also
surely significant. They are part of that “wild nature” that compels us to
“quiet the thunder of our own ambitions, our own worship both of God and of
idols” (in Christopher Southgate’s phrase), so that the mountains’ praise of
God “can be itself without our distorting it.” Ideally, their witness can be
counted upon to be free of human taint. Southgate comments: “We should long to
hear that praise as the earliest humans heard it, and make space in our lives
and our world to ensure that we do” (p. 114). (For Southgate’s observation that
such places need to be protected as part of our responsibility for care of
creation and the reference of this quotation, see our comment on the Third
Sunday after the Epiphany).
Jesus joins in the
mountains’ praise of God.
Jesus’
return to the mountain at this point thus underscores his intimate relationship
with God, for which the remoteness of the mountain from daily life provides
social space and psychological distance. Jesus, as it were, joins in the
mountains’ praise of God.
In Matthew, the
mountain stands for all creation
Jesus’
ascent of the mountain serves an additional purpose, however, in that it
reintroduces the mountain to the narrative as a complex metaphor for creation,
understood as an entire living system. As we noted in our comment on the
assigned lessons for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, for today’s readers
of the Gospel,
a mountain
constitutes a special, whole ecosystem that incorporates in a representative
way many biotic subsystems—ranging in some instances from arctic to subtropical
and tropical—into a life-giving and sustaining whole that passes through the
several ranges and seasons of life. What one learns from reading that ecology
is relevant not only to the immediate site under examination, but can be
extended to other regions as well, indeed in some measure to the entire globe,
for example, by the measurements taken by ecologists of the decline of mountain
glaciers and the river systems that flow from them in their search for
understanding the dynamics of global climate change. To those who know how to
listen, the mountain speaks, as it were, about the well-being of the whole
Earth.
What was Jesus praying on the mountain?
Jesus’
ascent of the mountain at this point in the narrative of the Gospel thus
underscores his relationship not only to God but also to the mountain and the
creation that it represents. Again Carter insightfully points to Jesus’ action
as obedience to “his own teaching on secret prayer (6:5-6). Presumably from
6:7-15, he prays for the hallowing of God’s name, the coming of God’s empire,
the doing of God’s will, the provision of food and forgiveness, and for trust
that God will accomplish God’s purposes. The subsequent miracle derives from his
relationship with God (cf. 11:25-27), hallows God’s name, and expresses God’s
empire and will” (Carter, p. 309). We would sharpen the point, because we think
Jesus’ prayer for the coming of God’s empire would specifically include the
request that God’s “will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”—in conformity
with his role as Servant of Creation. Indeed, his very presence on the
mountain, understood as the representative of the entire creation, already
represents something of a realization of that prayer. And the encounter that
follows upon his descent does so even more dramatically.
God’s presence is in the silence.
The
text admittedly says nothing of Jesus’ time on the mountain, other than
emphasizing his solitude there. The reading from 1 Kings 19:9-18, however,
suggests a pattern of action that is supportive of our interpretation. When
Elijah, also alone, on the mountain of Horeb, encounters God in the silence
after wind, earthquake, and fire, his conversation with God spells out God’s
will for Israel. As Carol Dempsey points out, as Earth quiets itself, “God
gives Elijah a series of directives that offer the prophet hope (vv. 15-18)
and, more specifically, that deal with the problem of covenant infidelity”
(Dempsey, New Proclamation, Year A, 2002, p. 160). What follows in the
narrative of 1 Kings is a working out of those directives. Similarly, we would
suggest that what happens upon Jesus’ descent also serves to respond to the
problem of faithfulness (considered somewhat more generally than covenantal
fidelity) as a crisis in the relationship between God as creator and human
creatures.
In
the Elijah narrative, we note that God’s presence is emphatically not
identified with the wind, the earthquake, and the fire, but rather with the
subsequent silence. So also, when Jesus rejoins his disciples and finds them in
peril, the sea similarly quiets itself. In both narratives, the presence of
God—for surely Jesus here stands in for God, as the disciples confess him to be
“Son of God”—is signaled by the quieting of creation’s turbulence. So also, in
both narratives, the resolution of the crisis comes as a restoration of faith.
The relationship of God to the creation is
typically characterized by the quiet after the storm.
Why
is this significant? It suggests that the relationship of God to the creation,
in such moments of decisive significance as these epiphanies are, is typically
characterized by the quiet after the storm, or a state of rest like that which
followed God’s creative activity on the seventh day of creation, or like the
peace that followed the raging of the storm in the narrative of the great
flood. In the moment of that stillness, the people are freed from their fear of
the God they encounter in the experience of creation’s awesome energies. Jesus’
approach breaks the power of the fear that so easily casts our relationship to
nature in a conflicted, oppositional mode. Thus, in his descent from the
mountain, Jesus brings with him the state of peace between himself, God, and
the creation, a state of peace for which he might well have appealed in his
prayer on the mountain.
It is important to emphasize that the storm
and the quiet are complementary aspects of one experience of God’s presence.
There is a tendency in the interpretation of this text to view the wind and the
seas as representative of chaotic forces in opposition to God, which, because
they endanger the humans in the narrative, Jesus must subdue. Carter, for
example, writes that “walking on the
sea is something God does, expressive of God’s sovereignty over the sea
and creation. . . In walking on the sea, Jesus does what God does. He manifests
God’s presence and demonstrates God’s reign over the sea and all the opposing
forces it represents. He removes what impeded the disciples, enabling them to cross
the sea” (Carter, p. 310). Carter emphasizes God’s power over the forces
of nature and, so here, what will commonly be understood as the supernatural
power of one who can “walk on water.”
We would stress Jesus’ calming of
creation’s turbulence as a sign of his right relationship with all the forces
of creation, . . . the dynamic harmony he knows from his visit to the mountain.
While
Carter appropriately notes that Jesus’ “presence is responsible for the calm,”
and acknowledges that the episode “is another in a series of references to
restoring creation under God’s reign: the notion of rest in Matt 11:28, Sabbath
(12:10), the abundant yield (13:8, 23, plentiful food (14:20), [and, alas!] the
subdued sea,” the characterization of
that presence as effective domination is typical: “For the fifth time in the
scene (walking on water, talking as God, extending hand, saving from water,
calming the storm), Jesus does a Godlike act, manifesting God’s reign over the
sea. The sea is subdued and set in its place as God intended it (Gen 1:6-13)” (Ibid.,
p. 312; our emphasis). By contrast, we would rather stress his calming of
creation’s turbulence as a sign of his right relationship with all the forces
of creation, a relationship into which he would draw the disciples, even as he
“rescues” them from their alienation from the sea into the dynamic harmony he
knows from his visit to the mountain.
Jesus is not the controlling and dominating
Savior who willfully alters creation for the sake of his own power.
In
the era of climate change into which Earth is entering, it serves the cause of
the Lord, the Servant of Creation, better, we are convinced, when we take care
to present him as one whose relationship with the Creator serves to inspire a
peaceful, cooperative relationship with the creation. He is not the controlling
and dominating Savior who willfully alters creation for the sake of his own
power or for the power of those who believe in him. Phrases from the Psalm for
the day underline this interpretation:
Steadfast love and
faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down
from the sky. The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its
increase (85:10-13).
Jesus the Lord, the Servant of Creation,
restores a dynamic harmony to the creation.
The
vision of Jesus walking on the sea at first terrified the disciples and then
inspired Peter’s own boldly over-confident adventure out over the troubled
waters. As such, the story therefore ought not be understood as a legitimation
for faith to seek transcendence over nature. On the contrary, it serves to
illustrate how faith contributes to the maintenance of the right relationship
between human beings and the energies present within the creation. Jesus the
Lord, the Servant of Creation, restores a dynamic harmony to the creation. Let
the sea roar: it need not be destructive of faith in the Creator, whose voice
is heard in the silence after the storm.