The projector is running - Mark 4:35-41 - Living by the Word - Column

Christian Century, June 1, 1994 by Walter Wink

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him," runs a Buddhist expression. Spiritual guides and therapists understand this. we fall in love with our mentors or set them on pedestals, refusing to see their flaws and regarding them as bigger than life. We project what we long for into them.

It may be necessary for our guide to carry those projections for some time before we are ready to withdraw them and claim our powers as our own. When I began working with my spiritual mentor, Elizabeth Boyden Howes, I was scarcely aware that I had a "soul," or undiscovered self I was fairly content with the intellectual way I had adjusted myself to the world, though others could see clearly that it was dysfunctional. She had to love my soul and believe in its possibilities in the absence of genuine commitment.

I had always been deeply committed to God and to my vocation, but I assumed that my commitment was enough to carry me through life. I believed in God implicitly; surely God would take care of the rest. Well, God was taking care of it-through Elizabeth Howes. One day she said to me, "You know, Walter, you're sincere, but you're not serious." For about six years she carried my soul on my behalf, until I began to know and to love it enough to take on the task for myself.

The disciples had projected the entire messianic baggage on Jesus, as well as a load of personal needs and longings. Jesus was gracious enough to carry these projections, but at every juncture he attempted to get the disciples to withdraw them. Mark presents a string of stories about-this. The first takes place after Jesus has riddled his audience with parables (4:1-34). Leaving the crowd behind, he and the disciples begin to cross the sea in a boat. A storm threatens to engulf them. Jesus is asleep in the stern. They might have reproached him with, Don't just lie there - bail! Instead they attack him personally: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" They personalize the storm, almost as if he has sent it against them spitefully. They address him not as another available hand in a crisis but as their teacher. They project on him concern for their well-being and survival, and are thus emptied of the inner resources to deal with the storm themselves-these weathered seamen!

Jesus condescends; he bears their projections and rebukes the wind: "Be silent! Be muzzled!" as if it were a demon. And it was, but not meteorologically It was demonic only in themselves. They had no doubt exercised heroism countless times before in such storms-the Sea of Galilee was notorious for them. Where had their courage fled this time? Jesus had stolen it. More accurately, they had given up their courage by entering into dependency on Jesus. And so they experienced the storm not as challenge, but as evil threat.

The wind ceases, and there is dead calm. Everywhere, that is, except the boat. Jesus demands, "Why were you such cowards [deiloi, cowardly, timid]? Have you still no faith?" Faith in what? In him? No, they didn't. They awoke him with reproaches, not the cry of believers for help. They also lacked faith in themselves. You deal with the storm. You are the seamen here. You had the resources, and you failed to call upon them. Exercise your own faith!

But they were not ready; in fact, the episode made them even more awestruck: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" Now their awe borders on the metaphysical. Soon they will simply be agog all the time, and useless.

Jesus' next opportunity to unhook their projections comes in the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (6:30-44). A crowd in a desert place is hungry. The disciples tell Jesus to dismiss the crowd so they can go into the surrounding area and buy something to eat. Jesus answers, peremptorily, "You give them something to eat." They counter: "Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?"-in short, you can't be serious. It is unlikely that Jesus' entire band could cough up a fraction of that figure, or if they had it, that they could find that much bread for sale in the entire region. Again Jesus condescends and feeds the people.

One more try: Jesus immediately puts the disciples in a boat and sends them ahead to the other side, while he prays on the land. When evening comes - the disciples must have embarked by late afteroon - he sees that they are getting nowhere, rowing into a stiff wind. Finally, during the fourth watch (3-6 A.M.), he comes toward them, walking on the sea. He intends to pass by them! He may do that; they've been rowing nearly 12 hours and have gotten nowhere, and he has already taught them how to calm seas. He'll leave them to their own devices, and beat them walking! But now they sight him, and thinking him a ghost, become unglued altogether. Once again he condescends, getting into the boat, calming the storm and remonstrating, "Take heart, it is 1; do not be afraid."

Mark adds the hilarious tag: "And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened" (Mark 6:45-52). Again, they miss it, but each shot is higher, and each failure more sublime.