Jesus' long day, teaching in the school of love, is over.  The crowds have heard Him, but have they understood Him?  It is one thing to hear everything explained, but it is another to 'get it', and integrate it into our life.  Jesus gives personal tuition to those closest to Him.  He invites His disciples to "cross over", and, as the story unfolds they will understand what He means.  
 
The disciples do not hesitate to begin the crossing.  They take Him in their boat, thinking they will be steering the ship.  Also, they take Jesus "just as He was",  a teacher, who sets out to catch people.  "Just as He was", means He is still teaching and the lesson is how to let go of fear and fall into trust!  The other boats, tell us that this is a teaching all disciples will have to hear, and make their own.
 
But, they cannot do it.  They cannot make the crossing from fear to trust.  The storm terrifies them and fills them with doubt.  So, they awaken the Teacher. He seems not to notice the storm and asks them to look instead at themselves.  They seem not to hear his question.  They just keep puzzling over Him.  We know this place so well. We are daily ambushed by physical and social dangers.  It is so hard not to identify with what threatens us.  This is our personal version of the 'wind and the waves'.   When we are frightened we cannot make the Wisdom of Jesus our own.
 
But  look  at  Jesus,  asleep  with  His  Head  on  a  cushion!   A  picture  of  peace  in  the  heart  of  the  storm.   The windswept disciples ask Him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" The danger makes them wonder if all this talk about the Fathers love is just talk.  Danger makes them uncertain of His Love.  The storm has split them in two.  And so the awakened Teacher shows them how to cross over.  He rebukes the power of fear.  He commands  silence  and  Peace  into  the  air  His  disciples  breath.   Does  God  care?  His  answer  is a  resounding
YES!   But this truth cannot unfold in the doubting mind.  The Teacher directs them to this task.  "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith? (v.40)
 
But now a new fear grips them. They are filled with 'awe'.  The literal Greek text says, 'they feared a great fear'. But even awe can work against faith.  It pushes disciples to talk about Jesus and his abilities.  What Jesus wanted was for them to talk about how their fear evicted their faith.  When Jesus the Teacher cannot be received, Jesus the Saviour is born!  And that is the  nub of the dilemma.  It is much easier to worship Jesus than to follow Him.  We have to make His Wisdom our own.  As Evelyn Underhill admitted, "It is far easier, though not very
easy, to develop  and preserve a spiritual outlook on life, than it is to make our everyday actions harmonise with
that spiritual outlook." (The Spiritual Life, p,60)
 
Fear and Faith  are big code words in Saint Mark's Gospel.  They are the constant and daily challenge to everyone who wants to walk with Jesus and cross over to the other side.  In the four Gospels, the disciples do not seem to be able to move into a deeper trust.  It is written that they even fled 'in fear and amazement' from the empty tomb! But here's the thing.  I believe it is impossible to walk with Jesus and not be afraid.  And this argues for a daily commitment to find what He had found.  The love that is stronger than death.  The love that does not fail.  The love that has no end.  The love that loves to breaking point.
 
"My friend isn't back from the battlefield, sir.  Request permission to go out and get him".
 
"Permission refused," said the officer. "I don't want you to risk your life for a man who is probably dead."
 
The soldier went, all the same, and, an hour later, came back mortally wounded, carrying the corpse of his friend.
 
The officer was furious. "I told you he was dead.  Now I've lost both of you.  Tell me, was it worth going out there to bring in a corpse?"
 
The dying man replied, "Oh, it was sir.  When I got to him, he was still alive.  And he said to me, 'Jack, I was sure you'd come.'"

Jesus uses Parables to teach about the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is being born, is coming to be, in and through His disciples.  Their struggle for a new humanity and a new community will drive all darkness away.  It is not something we experience only on the other side of the grave.  It is here!  It isnow!  It is in the very heart of us!  And boy do we know it when it speaks and makes itself known!
 
Parables are not like other stories.  They are laden with depths of meaning which cannot be accessed by the casual listener.  Serious apprentices listen over and over again to the Parable so that it might reveal its meaning and offer up its treasure to us.  Ordinary events illuminate spiritual realities.  The Kingdom of God is like this, but it isn't not like this either.  The images are  deliberately open ended.  They open a territory but do not map it.  They discipline the heart to look in certain direction, but they do not tell the heart  what  it  will  see.   What  the  teacher  is  trying  to  do  is  to  raise  awareness,  to  heighten  the consciousness of the disciple.
 
This Sunday, we are given the gift of two Parables.  The first is about seed  and soil and urges us to trust the natural growing process.  Once contact has been made between the seed (the word) and the earth (the receptive heart) a process of development begins.  This process is more mysterious than we know and we should not interfere in it.  We can live our lives and we can sleep easy.  Sower Control is not permitted!  Hence the story of the farmer who wanting to see it all, poked around his crop every day and ended up with nothing.  For those who lack trust, nothing grows!  But for those who trust, the miracle unfolds.  Step by wonderful step we gaze on the ripeness that will be harvested to become bread for the hungry.
 
The second Parable is very reassuring.  God likes to hide in small things.  The greater is contained in the lesser.  What we now know may be as small as a mustard seed.  But once the seed has been sown into mystery it will grow.  What will be harvested will be the enhanced ability of disciples to defend, shelter, protect and comfort others.
 
The Gospels make it clear that Jesus does not want casual listeners among His disciples. He wants to give  His  words  to  serious  apprentices.  His  words  are  wings.   He  sees  more  in  us  than  we  see  in ourselves.  It takes real humility to know ourselves as mustard seeds and to sit in the presence of the One who sees us as the sheltering tree of life.
 
Paul Murray's poem, 'Know Yourself' captures some of this energy.
 
There is a world within you no one has ever seen,
A voice no one has ever heard, not even you.
As yet unknown, you are your own seer, Your own interpreter.
And so, with eyes and ears Grown sharp for voice or sign
Listen well-
Not to these words
But to that inward voice, That impulse beating in your heart like a far wave.
Turn to that source, and you will find what no one has ever found.
A ground within you  none has ever seen.
A world beyond the limits of your dreams horizon.
(The Absent Fountain [Dublin:Daedalus Press,1991]12).​ ​

When asked about the upcoming feast, Jesus sends His disciples, with a very detailed set of directions, including who they will meet, what they should say and what they will be shown.  Perhaps He is trying to let them see that what is about to unfold has been well prepared for.  At the meal, Jesus both takes and gives thanks for the bread and the cup of wine.  He acts and then speaks the words of one who is actively engaged in His own destiny.  He connects bread and cup with His broken body and His poured out blood.  He unites dining with dying, Eucharist with crucifixion.  Notice too, that even though there are only a few at the table, He spreads the cloth to include 'many'.  This is a meal that strengthens the bonds of love between disciples, the One who will not be held by death, and their Father in Heaven. 
 
A few weeks ago I turned 60!  From this place I notice how younger people, the twenty and thirty somethings, struggle with the questions of who  to  be  with  and  what  to  do  with  their lives.  They  live  in  a  more challenging and complex world than I did at their age.  In that world, they journey from mountains to valleys with amazing speed! They are thrown from clarity to confusion in a heartbeat. I marvel at their faith and how resilient they are. I worry too about how vulnerable they are.  They return  again  and  again  to  the  challenges  of  companionship  and meaningful  work.   Just  like  us  'oldies',  they  long  to  find  people  and places to whom they can give themselves.  They want to break their 
bodies and pour out their life blood.  And when this is not happening, they know something is missing. 
 
We might say they are trying, in their own way, to answer the call to sacrifice.  Sacrifice is the work of making  life  better,  or  holy,  by  giving  something  back.   Da  Free  John,  in  his  "Scientific  Proof  of  the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the White House", has written (p.33-34) 'Those who cling to one or other religious or spiritual way must realise that the foundation of all such ways is the disposition of sacrifice - not of self-preservation or of immunity to life.... This must be expressed in a new, free, sober and truly compassionate disposition ... which freely anoints the world with help and intelligent consideration.  Therefore ... let us give ourselves up so that each temple ... may become a temporary altar of self-giving into the mystery that pervades us.' 
 
Catholics, of course, have been promoting this for centuries.  Jesus command to 'Do this in memory of Me', is wrapped in a new Wisdom.  Every word and every gesture in the last supper are a clarion call to gather up our lives and act with compassion.  Our lives are a gift but they are not our own.  They are given to us by God moment by moment.  Holding fast to this truth increases our gratitude. Gratitude fills us up from the inside.  Once filled, we overflow.  The life freely given becomes the life we seek to freely give away. 
 
On this great Feast, I encourage a new and deeper consideration of and meditation on the Eucharist.  I believe  this  can  make  us  smarter  and  more  effective  at  sacrificing,  to  which  we  are  naturally disposed.   The  words  and  the  gestures  of  Jesus  invite  us  to  hold together transcendence, gratitude and sacrifice.   We  need  all  three  for  full  living.   If  we  cling  only  to transcendence we run the risk of becoming aloof and uninvolved in the suffering of others.  Never truly 'in' the life we are living.  If gratitude does not move us to sacrifice, we might count our blessings in a way  that  separates  us  from  others.   If  we  try  to  sacrifice  without  gratitude  we  might  become 
resentful.  We pour ourselves out  till  we  are  running in  empty.   So,  we short circuit and stop giving ourselves away.  We might tell ourselves that we have finally wised up.  But the only Wisdom worth remembering,  is the one  which invites us to re-enter the  company of the One who knows all about breaking and pouring.  In gratitude we can return to this place again and again to draw strength for the journey.