Despite all that, humans seem paralyzed by the multifaceted water crisis at hand. We end up arguing about the reality of the tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. We're like Jesus and his disciples caught at sea in the eye of a terrible squall while they waste time and energy paralyzed by argument about who's to blame.
At least, that's the interpretation of today's final reading as given by Cuban theologians Maria Lopez Vigil and her brother Jose Ignacio in Just Jesus. (The book is based on a radio program series they broadcast some years ago throughout Latin America. Scandalously to many and delightfully to even more, the airwave transmission attempted to put a human face on Jesus that accords with the interpretations of the modern scholarship mentioned above.)
Accordingly, the Lopez Vigils try to uncover the real-life basis of the story (assuming, of course, that some suggestive event may have actually occurred and that the account wasn't a whole cloth invention of Mark's community). In doing so, the brother-sister team implicitly take note of revealing phrases in today's reading indicating that:
- As a construction worker, not a seafarer, Jesus was out of his element in a boat. (He was truly "at sea.")
- It was he who suggested a late evening crossing of the sea.
- In Mark's mysterious words, his fisherman friends took him "just as he was."
- Jesus fell asleep and improbably remained unconscious even though the boat was tossed about and in danger of being swamped.
- The disciples awaken the Master and blame him for not caring about their fate.
- Jesus responds with a shout calling for "quiet" and "calm," and with remonstrations about unwarranted fear and lack of faith.
With all of that in mind, the Lopez Vigils, elaborate Mark's spare account. Their analysis involves an inexperienced landlubber Jesus persuading his disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee despite indications of an approaching storm. Against their better judgment those veteran seamen obey.
Then Jesus gets seasick and passes out. In the middle of the trip, the storm hits, but the comatose Jesus remains dead to the world. The frantic disciples shake him awake. They blame not only him, but their terrified companions for not paying attention to what their experienced eyes told them would inevitably happen.
But instead of entering argument, Jesus shouts to everyone to shut up and start rowing. Miraculously, it seemed, the disciples' resulting efforts save the day and bring them successfully to shore.
My Translations
Put all of that in the larger context that includes all of today's liturgy of the word, and (for me) it comes out something like my following "translations." Please check out the originals here to see if I got them right:
Job 38: 1, 8-11
Our Holy MotherEarth
Manifests herself
Through the ocean
To which her laws
Set firm boundaries
As if behind a mighty
Firmly sealed door.
As if its waters burst
From her very womb,
Attired at night
In shrouds of darkness
And by day in raiment
Of fluffy white clouds.
Psalm 107: 24-31
Thus, we know
Her love and power
As every astonished sailor
Can attest
As huge breakers
Toss about
Their magnificent vessels
Raising them like toys
To the heavens
Then thrusting them
Towards a bottomless abyss.
Their desperate prayers
Seek answer in Goddess calm
Gentle breezes
And safe return home.
(For such answered invocations
We are grateful.)
2 Corinthians 5: 14-17
Our Master Jesus
Knew such fearful threat
But his sailor's prayers
For deliverance
Finally went unanswered.
Instead, he showed us
How to die
Under his saving conviction
That life can never end
And that apparent death
Leads inevitably to
New Creation.
Mark 4: 35-41
To illustrate his faith,
His friends recalled
How one day
Amid a fearful squall
The landlubber Jesus
Caught seasickness
And passed out.
They remembered
How he came to
And shouted indignantly
At his paralyzed friends
To overcome their fears
And row mightily
Against the mountain waves
Until as if by miracle
They reached calm haven.
Some however remembered
That like creation's Goddess
He had quieted
The storm directly
With his angry remonstrations alone.
(Both versions may be true.)
Conclusion
So here we are, like Jesus, knowing full well our basic relationship to water, but nonetheless landlubbers with little understanding of the sea, oceans, and the laws governing such bodies.
And so, we blithely endanger our lives by adopting courses of action that fly in the face of Mother Nature's warnings that are abundantly apparent not only to climate scientists, but to "water protectors," fishermen, and others mystically in tune with nature's cycles and rhythms.
Today's readings make us aware that (again, like a sleeping Jesus) we can still be shaken awake by the more insightful among us.
Then once awakened, we need to listen to the courageous Master's voice shouting at us to overcome our paralysis and fear. We cannot depend on divine intervention, the improbably miraculous, or on some scientific deus ex machina that will suddenly save us.
Instead, accepting the principle of analogy, we need ourselves to seize the oars of what's become our Lifeboat Earth and row mightily against the mountainous waves that will otherwise engulf and swallow all of us including our children and grandchildren.
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