The Gospel appointed for today starts in the middle of Saint Mark’s account of one of the missionary journeys of Jesus.  It begins by saying that

when evening had come, [Jesus] said to [the disciples], “Let us go across to the other side.”  . . .

For several hours prior to the arrival of evening . . . Jesus has been telling parables to a very large crowd of people gathered on the shore of the Sea of Galilee; . . . Jesus has been telling parables while seated in a boat a little way out from the shore.  . . . And the parables that Jesus has been telling the crowd have been planting parables.  You heard a few of them last Sunday.  . . . Jesus has been telling the crowd that the Kingdom of Heaven is something which God Himself causes to grow up within us by means of the precious little seeds of His Incarnate Word.  . . . You don’t have to do a thing to get to Heaven, Jesus says; . . . Heaven is as if a sower went out to sow . . . or as if a man should scatter seeds on the ground; . . . Heaven is like a grain of mustard, . . . it is growing up in you and flourishing this very minute.  . . . Now, a careless soul, listening to these seed parables, . . . might get it into her head that the Kingdom of Heaven is magical; . . . might get it into his head that Heaven doesn’t require anyone’s cooperation in order for everyone to benefit from its Presence.  . . . So, as a remedy for that kind of thinking . . . Saint Mark tells us what happened on the very evening Jesus had preached these things.

    Jesus proposes to His disciples that they cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  And so, they all set out in the boat Jesus has occupied all day; . . . but on the way a great wind storm arises which roils the sea, creating huge waves; . . . the wind storm creates huge waves which threaten to swamp the boat by filling it with water.  So, here are all the disciples shouting at one another:  some are yelling for everyone to keep the oar stroke so as to maintain headway, and other disciples are yelling at one another to begin bailing out the water that’s pouring in over the sides . . . when someone looks up and sees Jesus . . . asleep (exhausted, no doubt, from a full day of teaching in the hot sun); . . . someone looks up to see Jesus asleep in the stern of the boat as if it were becalmed.  And so, these disciples, who have just been listening to the gracious words of Jesus; . . . these disciples gracelessly and roughly wake Him and shout at Him as if He were some lazy rogue who’s left them with all the work of trying to survive the storm, saying “do you not care if we perish!”  Indeed, someone roughly sticks a bucket into Christ’s hands as if to say, “We’re in this together, better start bailing.”  . . . But being roused from sleep, Jesus does the last thing anyone expects.  He rebukes the wind; . . . Jesus doesn’t say to His disciples, “How dare you speak to me like that!”; . . . He rebukes the wind, instead . . . and stills the sea with a command.  . . . And then, while still rubbing the sleep from His eyes, Jesus asks His disciples, who had just been so gruff and short-tempered with Him, . . . Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid?”  Jesus calls the panic and anger and resentment of His friends exactly what it is:  fear; . . . He asks, “Why are you afraid?” . . . and then He asks, “Have you no faith to keep your fear at bay?”

    The disciples have just spent the entire afternoon listening to the beautiful and hopeful and tender Truth about God’s reign and God’s presence.  They have just heard from the mouth of God’s Son all about the great and invisible and almighty glory and mercy and love with which their precious heavenly Father surrounds them and is bringing to grow to its fullness in them, . . . and the first crisis that comes up . . . everyone panics and literally, as the expression goes, “loses it”; . . . the disciples lose what the Son of God has come to give them.  . . . Fear comes naturally to us, . . . but if we allow fear to take control of our lives,  . . . then what God desires to give us is trampled down by the self-interest of Original Sin.

    We hear of our ancestral fear which blinds us to God’s Presence in the ancient Book of Job.  Job, the innocent sufferer, cries out to God begging to know why he, who has faithfully kept the Commandments of God; why he, who has done no wrong; committed no sin . . . why he should suffer so much loss and end up living on an ash heap while dogs come up to him and lick the sores on his body.  … So, God tells Job what Jesus tells His disciples:  . . . that Job’s sight is too clouded and his vision too narrow, . . . because it assumes that all the intricacy of creation is not a mystery, but is centered on one thing(!); that one thing being what Job thinks is important . . . at the moment; what I want . . . what I think is good for me and will give me joy . . . at this moment.  But the Lord God Almighty declares to Job and to all of us that this magnificent sphere, which is our home; . . . this magnificent Earth was not created lightly.  It is a precious and happy thing which caused the morning stars to sing at its creation and evoked joy among all the heavenly host.  Therefore, the Lord God does not lightly regard suffering within the joyous sphere of His conceiving, . . . but when He permits it to afflict the innocent, it is neither arbitrary nor frivolous; . . . when God permits suffering within the sphere of His Creation, . . . it serves an eternal and ineffable purpose . . . which only fear and contempt for God can keep us from honoring.

    This is what astonishes Jesus in the boat.  That having heard the very Word of God just moments ago, . . . at the first challenge life offers after that . . . the disciples so quickly revert to fear and contempt.  . . . Saint Mark mentions this, in his Gospel, because it can happen to us as well.  After singing God’s praise and pouring our hearts out to Him in prayer and receiving the Sacrament of His perpetual Presence into our hands and upon our lips, . . . it can happen that as soon as we go from here . . . the first time one of us doesn’t get our way . . . we become fearful and think and speak and act faithlessly.  . . . But those are the moments, Saint Mark tells us; . . . those moments when things don’t go your way so that you launch yourself into self-pity and anger or contempt or cruel speaking; . . . those are the moments you must remember Christ’s question to His disciples, . . . “Why are you afraid?”  Jesus doesn’t ask why we are angry or offended or unkind; . . . He asks us what fear has driven us to self-pity and bad behavior . . . and what have we done with the faith that overcomes our fear.  . . . Because, you see, it really should be different for us, Saint Paul says; . . . Saint Paul says that

the love of Christ [should control] us . . . [not our fear, but] the love of Christ [should control] us . . . [so] that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

    I have told you this before, and I want you to remember it.  The scientists will say that you belong to the species homo sapiens.  But they are wrong.  You are Homo Christus!  For

if any one is in Christ [Saint Paul writes]; . . . if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

You are not a human being; you are a Christian Being, for you have renounced the authority of the world, . . . you have renounced the authority of your own flesh, . . . and you have renounced the authority of the devil to have any say in your life; . . . you have, instead, given yourself over to follow Christ Jesus as your Lord and Saviour in Whom you put your entire trust and love.  Fear and contempt for God have no place in your life.  They are as alien to you as antennae or horns.  Have nothing to do with them.  . . . You are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven; it is growing up in you at this very moment; at this very moment you are host to a multitude of angels.  Indeed, in just a little while . . . you will come to the Altar and become the throne upon which the Lord Jesus Himself will sit . . . giving you every cause to obey the counsel of the One hundred twenty-third Psalm which I called to your attention last Sunday; . . . the part where it says,

As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the Lord our God.

You have every cause to live that way -- with your eyes continually and fearlessly looking to the Lord your God; . . . you have every cause to live that way because the Lord your God abides in your little boat forever, and even the wind and the sea obey Him.