NOTES for Mat 8:23-27

When the disciples wake Christ, who is sleeping during the storm, and ask for rescue, He rebukes them for fearfulness and little faith - but only for those. Believing people should not have been afraid, but they certainly should have turned to God, which in this case meant waking Christ. This is an important detail: of course the disciples should have awakened Him; what else were they to do? What they should not have done was fear and panic, rushing about in anxiety.

We often think that trust is expressed by curling up beside the Teacher on the same cushion in the boat and also trying to fall asleep, pretending that nothing is happening. No, that is not the disciples' task. We are called to conquer fear in our hearts and not give in to falling apart. Only in this way can we present our life to God, so that He may work His miracles and save us.

These words simultaneously rebuke and carry hope on the fond of the catastrophes persecuting humankind. Is it possible that the horrible disasters falling upon the world explain such an easy thing? Is it possible that people’s death and suffering are the result of God’s wrath to our little faith? And why the Lord says this, is it to make us scare?

And what if we were not of little faith? Christ’s words about our fearfulness imply that causes of catastrophes depend rarely on us – if not, what would we have been scare of? Consequently, the Lord doesn’t say at all that disasters are been sent as a vengeance. But, nevertheless we are summoned to this type of faith, so that we can take our responsibility for the world in which we are lodged, and withstand disintegration forces. And our little faith is in essence a denial of this summon.

It is equally important that the Lord says these things not so much about already happened things, but for the “future”. It means in practice to us that faith, which is confidence in God, can make us immune for these groundless entropic disasters; we have in our hands the means to withstand them – it is confidence, prayer and love. It gives hope, since these means are accessible to us.

The miracle accomplished by Jesus did not remain unheeded to people. And this is already not bad, because most of the time people prefer not to notice miracles, especially if these miracles don’t concern them directly. Something is miracle –when it concerns me, but in other cases – miracle is just fortuity or coincidence. Let’s go forward: people were surprised; it is a positive sign too; People are often boggled or apathetically shrug shoulders. Thirdly people give their selves the most important question – about the personality of the One Who made that. We are usually interested on how it is done.

So, people have made three very important steps, it remains to do just one step again: To answer to ourselves this question, recognize that the winds and the see are most likely controlled by the One Who created them, and it means that Jesus is particularly related with God, not as each of us. Unfortunately it is more difficult to make this step: it was so two thousand years ago, and so today.

The miracle Jesus performed did not go unnoticed by the people. That is already no small thing, because most often people prefer not to notice miracles unless they concern them directly. A miracle is when it happens for me; in all other cases it is an accident or a coincidence. Looking further: the people were amazed. This too is good. More often people are frightened or shrug indifferently. Third: the people ask themselves the most important question, the question of the identity of the One who did this. Usually we are interested in how it was done.

So the people took three very important steps; only one more remained: to answer this question for themselves, to acknowledge that the winds and the sea are governed by the One who created them, and that this means Jesus is connected with God in a special way, not as each of us is. But this step is the hardest to take: it was so two thousand years ago, and it is so now.

Today's reading brings us back once more to the main theme of all four Gospels: the theme of the Kingdom. Before us are two stories: the stilling of the storm (vv. 23-27) and the healing of the possessed, the demon-possessed (vv. 28-34). The events appear very different, since in one case Jesus is dealing with a force of nature, and in the other with people and dark powers. But in essence, in both cases the point is how the Kingdom of God, which Jesus bears in Himself, transforms the world around Him.

To those around Him it appears that He possesses some superhuman abilities or some special powers given Him by God, and that for this reason He can work miracles that no one else can work (v. 27). But in fact the issue is not powers or abilities. The world around Him is being transformed; that is why the storm grows calm and the demons cannot endure it and run away (v. 32). No power, not even the power of God, affects the world in this way: it can, of course, change many things in it, but in this case the point is no longer simply change, but complete transformation, so that the very laws of creation change. According to the laws of the untransformed world, a storm cannot grow calm without a cause. Strictly speaking, in that world it does not grow calm, but in the Kingdom there is no storm; and then everything depends on which reality the person in the midst of the storm becomes a participant in: the reality of the fallen world or the reality of the Kingdom. And here everything is determined only by faith, by trust in the One who brought this Kingdom into the world (v. 26).

But if there is no faith, even manifestations of the Kingdom by themselves will not replace it. This was the case with the Gergesene demoniacs: the manifestation of the Kingdom was plain, and the demons, naturally unable to endure it, felt this very quickly (v. 29). But with the people everything turned out to be less simple. It was hard not to believe the eyewitnesses' story (v. 33), but this story clearly made a paradoxical impression on the local residents: they asked Jesus to leave them in peace (v. 34). And the point was hardly that they felt sorry about the lost herd.

Of course, the inhabitants of those places were pagans and hardly thought much about the Messiah or the Kingdom. But they did understand one thing: Someone had entered their life and had brought in Something with which living as before would become impossible. If He remained among them, their whole life would change radically. And this, evidently, they did not want.

Here Jesus encountered the chief obstacle on His path: people's unwillingness to receive the Kingdom that He offers them. And then He leaves. For if a person refuses the Kingdom, the Savior has nothing more to give him.

Our God, the God of harmony and order, dearly loves what we call the "golden mean" or the "royal path." He, who holds the universe in balance, knows how difficult it is to find balance. And for us, people who do not possess His wisdom and vision, it is practically impossible not to slide into one of the extremes that open before us. This kind of tightrope walking is beyond our strength, especially since we are trying to walk this rope not as saints, leaving everything behind in trust in God, but with all the bundles of our own ideas about what is right and what is not, with all our cultural and other baggage. Perhaps these things are useful in some respects, but on the way to God they only cloud our sight. And then we become very much like the person in today's Gospel reading who approached Jesus second (see Matt. 8:21-22): it is very hard for us to part with what separates us from God.

This call, which appears cruel to many, to leave one's unburied father and follow Jesus, conveys very precisely what the Lord truly wants from us. He proposes that we not cling to this world, but, having weighed everything, renounce temptations and set out on the path toward happiness. Yet this must be done in a measured way, because against one extreme, not daring to follow Christ, there is always another: to run headlong without knowing where, making a mess in the process and deeply wounding those around us. Christ gently checks such an unbridled follower (see Matt. 8:19-20) and calls him to a measured decision.

It turns out that following God requires at the same time both radicalism, the resolve to follow Christ leaving everything behind, and a serious act of will, the utmost collectedness. What remains is to learn to find balance...