Fourth Sunday After Pentecost Study

4TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST   06-20-2021

FIRST READING:   Job 38:1-11

Oh, how the man named Job suffered! You can read all about it in the Biblical book that bears his name. His friends suggested to him, even accused, that he was being punished by God for his sins. But that was of no consolation to Job. Job felt unfairly punished by God, Job proclaimed that he did not deserve all this suffering, and he demanded a judicial hearing with God when he could put God on the witness stand and receive God’s explanation. When have you questioned God about undeserved suffering or confusing circumstances in your life? Do you believe that a loving God is able and willing to receive your questions and complaints?    Near the end of this book, God finally speaks. These verses are the beginning of God’s spoken response.

Instead of allowing Job to put God on the witness stand to testify, God places Job on the witness stand: “I will question you, and you shall declare to me.” (verse 3)

Oops! Job does not get answers to his questions about his particular life issues. God does not always give us answers to our questions or solutions to our problems. What Job receives is an overwhelming sense of wonder and humility at the power and wisdom of God… at the mysteries and beauty of creation… at the greatness of God and his own smallness.

God is much, much bigger than you or me. And God owes us nothing. We ought to see and acknowledge   that God is good and that God is great – our God is an awesome God! And the Biblical message that God knows us and loves us – yes, YOU! – ought to stun us. When you can’t figure out God’s mind, trust God’s heart.

PSALM:   Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32

This is a psalm of thanksgiving that speaks, in these verses, about the experience of a group of people at sea during a storm. There is praise to God for rescue, for God’s mercy. Note that God is mentioned as the source of the storm, the cause of the danger, but the emphasis is on the deliverance: “Then in their trouble they cried to the Lord, and you delivered them from their distress.” (verse 28)

Do you sometimes think that God is testing you? There are some people who worry and struggle over this almost all the time. And there are some situations in life – storms – that raise questions in the mind or fear in the heart of any solid believer.

There is peace, power, and promise for you. God is a deliverer and defender. How have you experienced God’s rescue and protection in those turbulent times of storm or trouble? 

SECOND READING:   2 Corinthians 6:1-13

(In much of 2 Corinthians, Paul is trying to defend his ministry against critics who are questioning his integrity, his motives, and his fitness for ministry. And it must have hurt Paul that the Corinthian Christians, a congregation that Paul helped to start several years before, didn’t really rally to his support. But the opposition and disappointment he encountered did not prevent him from trying to share the dynamic truth and saving power of Jesus Christ!)

It is surely not easy to be a Christian, at least not if you are trying to be faithful and responsible. In today’s reading Paul lists the hardships, the challenges, the obstacles, and the rejection that he and his co-workers have experienced. But, through it all, they have not panicked, they have not surrendered the faith, they continue to trust in Jesus, they continue to proclaim him and to offer his salvation to others. And the time is urgent: “See, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation!” (verse 2)  With God’s help we can remain kind, loving, pure, and truthful. 

Note that Paul speaks here to the Corinthian Christians as a parent to a child, offering both love and caution. Aren’t both of these not only needed if we are parenting a child under our care, but also when we are reaching out as a Christian to help rescue another person?

GOSPEL READING:  Mark 4:35-341

Beginning with these verses, the Gospel of Mark offers passages showing the power of Jesus over enemy forces, forces that oppose, enslave, or destroy us. This section is Mark 4:35 – 5:43.

Today it is a storm at sea. In the time of Jesus, the sea was regarded with great respect and also a sense of fear; probably from the beginning of humanity it had represented chaos and evil and mystery and death. Some of those disciples in today’s Gospel were experienced fishermen by vocation, some of them would have been accustomed to the suddenly rising and just as suddenly settling storms that would sometimes blow in and blow out of Lake Gennesaret. It didn’t matter. All of those disciples had witnessed the driving out of demons, seen so many sick people healed, heard teachings that astounded them, and been almost magnetically attracted to the person and the power of Jesus Chist. But it didn’t matter. Out there in the boat in the sea in the storm, there was panic. “Teacher, don’t you care that we are drowning, don’t you care if we die?” 

Jesus did care. And Jesus does care.

[Some preachers, pastors, and people have suggested that the boat on the sea is a symbol of the Church – the image has been used in Christian art and architecture and literature – and that we are being encouraged to trust God in the midst of life’s turbulent storms.]

A Reflection

All of today’s readings are about storms. There is no dispute that every life has its storms, in different shapes and sizes, surrounding us or even inside of us, cruel and cold, out of control and unpredictable, turbulent and traumatic, threatening us on life’s wild seas and causing our hearts to tremble. The storms are inevitable, part of human living. And when, all around you, everything is failing and falling and plunging into destruction and chaos, it’s common to experience fear, panic, and despair. But here is assurance. If you’ve accepted Jesus into your life, he’s right there in the boat with you – bringing calm, offering peace, and even sadly wondering about the quickness of your panic and the smallness of your faith. Peace is God’s gift to you in both still and storm, a peace that not only can be received with gratitude but also extended to others by those who have weathered many a storm with the Lord’s help.

O LORD, CALM PEACE COMES FROM YOU.

     PEACE COMES TO MY SOUL. ALLELUIA!

(And, by the way, no matter what, even if you don’t make it on this side, everything’s gonna be alright on the other side!)