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The stilling of the storm in Matthew by Gunther Bornkamm

It has increasingly become an accepted result of New Testament enquiry and a principle of all
synoptic exegesis that the gosples must be understood and interpreted in terms of kerygma and not
as biographies of Jesus of Nazareth that they do not fall into any category of the history of ancient
literature but that in content and form as a whole ad in matters of detail thay sre determined and
shaped on the basis of faith in Jesus Christ. We owe the methodical establishing of this knowledge
above all to form-critical research into the gosples. This work put an end to fiction which had for
so ling ruled critical investigation that it would eventually be possible to distil from the gospels a
so-called life of Jesus free from and untouched by any kind of over painting through the faith of
the Church. Faith in Jesus Christ the Crucufied and Resurrected is by no means a later stratum of
the tradition but its very foundation and the place from which it sprang and grew and from which
alone it is intelligible. From this faith in Jesus the crucified and Exalted both characteristics and
faithfully but at the same time the oerculiar freedom with which this tradition is presented in detail.
The evangelists do not hark back to some kind of church archives when they pass on the words
and deeds of Jesus but they draw them from the kerygma of the church and serve this kerygma.
Because Jesus is not a figure of the past and thus is no museum piesce there can be no archives for
the primitive Christian tradition about him in which is kept. This insight into the nature of the
tradition about Jesus is confirmed in detail again and again. The pericope which is here to serve as
an example for making clear the evangelist’s method of working is the story of the stilling of the
storm.
The story is found in the first three gospels: Mark 4:35-41; Matt 8: 23-27; Luke 8: 22-25. It is
reported by Mk and Luke in the same contest and to all intents and purposes in the same form.
Mark begins with it a series of miracle storied which are geographically grouped around the sea of
Galilee. Mark had already prepared the scene around the boat in 4:1; the discourse on parables in
chapter 4 which is only partly paralleled in Luke has alreadly taken place. Luke significantly
concludes the discourse immediately after the interpretation of the parable of the sower and the
sayings of Jesus about his true relations which in Mark and Matthew occurs in another context.
Matthew links the miracle stories which are found in Mark 1 and 2. 4.\, and 5 with the sermon on
the mount and arranges his material according to a principle which is indicated by the fact that
same sentences are used as introduction of the storm is taken out of a biographical context and
placed in a healing miracles which set forth the “Messiah of deed” after the presentation of the
“Messiah of the word” has already occurred in chapters 5-7.
This characterization of the story of the stilling of the storm as “nature miracle” does not however
exhaust its meaning for Matthew. By inserting it into a definite context and by his own presentation
of it he gives it a new meaning which it does not yet have with the other evangelists. In Mark it
bears more strongly than in Matthew the character of a straightforward miracle story. The storm
and the peril at sea and the sleep of Jesus on a cushion in the stern of the boat are described with
clarity and at length. The disciples’ question with which they wake him had no kind of pious sound;
it runs quite profanely: “Master, carest thou not that we parish?” there then follow the word of
Jesus with which he commands the wind to be silent and its miraculous effect; the question of
Jesus which puts the disciples to shame: :why are you afraid? Have you no faith?”; the awe of the
disciples and their amazement: who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?” M. Dibelius
has classified the narrative on account of these matters of style in a group which he calls “tales,”
that is a literary group of narratives characterized by a special vividness and realism in
presentation. Pious motives are pushed into the background here. Jesus is to be seen as the great
miracle worker. Jesus’ word of command to the raging elements is not only externally but in the
inner structure of the narrative the centre of the whole. Everything here turns on the reality of the
occurrence. The word ….which are in striking contrast to the description of the weather (4:37),
and the words of confirmation from the astonished disciples similarly demonstrate it.
It must be admitted that in Matthew this characteristic of the story is not completely abandoned,
in his case, too though some of the novelistic details are omitted, the striking contrast between
beginning and end occurs and yet the story is made to serve a new motive and is modified in its
course in a characteristic way. The evangelist brings out this new motive by the context in which
he places the pericope. He puts before it the two sayings of Jesus about discipleship (Matt 8:19-
22), the first introduced by the offer of a scribe who wants to follow him, the second by the request
of a disciple who first asks for leave to go to burry his father. Both cases are concerned however
with… in the one case in the warning against an unconsidered decision and in the other in the
summons to a radical decisiveness. Matthew alone inserts the sayings in this context. And he alone
introduces the story of stilling of the storm with words …. Here in distinction from the account in
Mark, Jesus goes ahead and the disciples follow him. The word “to follow” is the catchword which
links the pericope with what has preceded. But this conclusion is obviously inadequate; the
preceding sayings about discipleship rather serve to illustrate the meaning of what takes place in
the stilling of the storm. Of course there is no question of disputing that …. In 8:23 bears in the
first place the simple meaning of follow after, but at the same time it is given by the preceding
sayings a deeper and figurative meaning. It would certainly be wrong to assume that the pregnant
meaning which the word “follow” already had now suddenly in 8:23 lost its significance.
If this observation is correct it means: Matthew is not only a hander-on-of the narrative, but also
its oldest exegete, and in fact the first to interpret the journey of the disciples with Jesus in the
storm and the stilling of the storm with reference to discipleship and that means with refernce to
the little ship of the Church. Certain details of the pericope which are only appropriate in Mattew
agree with this interpreatation. Only in his case is the disciples’ cry for help an ejaculatory prayer:
Lord seave us….. The term of address thus designates him not only as in Mark and Luke with a
human title of respect but with a divine predicate of majesty. This obviously the meaning of
“Lord” . it occurs in each separate pericope from 8: 1ff partly on the lips of those crying for help
who know of the Power and .. of Jesus, and partly from the lips of the discipls. This title of majesty
occurs already in 7:21f, later on the lips of a disciple in 14:28, 30, 16:22; 17:4; 18:21; 26:22 and
then O Lord in 24:42 etc; and the term of address of the address in 25:37, 44 denotes the judge of
the world. The cry of the disciples in 8:25 is thus a prayer; Lord contains a confession of
discipleship.
A further peculiarity of Matthew’s construction of the pericope with which we are concerned
consists of the transposition of the accusing remark directed the disciples and the miracle itself. In
Mark and Luke the miracle occurs first, in Matthew it follows after. Before the elements are
brought to silence, thus in the midst a mortal threat the word of Jesus goes forth to the disciples
and puts them to shame for their little faith. The expression “little faith” is a favourite word of
Matthew’s; apart from Luke 12:28 he is the only evangelist to use it and it aleays denotes a faith
that is too weak, that is paralysed in the storm and in anxiety and thus is exposed as an appearenece
of faith which is not mature to withstand the pressure of demonic powers. Further by the choice of
this expression the special situation of the disciples, which in Mark is denoted by the question …..;
becomes a typical situation of discipleship as a whole.
Hence it is not likely to be by chance that already in the introduction of the pericope Matthew
reports the description of the stormy weather with the expression ….which is extremely unusual
for a storm at sea, but often occurs as a designation of apocalyptic horrors. As the need of the
disciples on the sea becomes a symbol of the distress involved in discipleship of Jesus as a whole,
so also in the same connexion the great peace which his word evokes takes on the meaning od the
Johannine saying.. (16:33)
Finally it should be noted in our context that in Matthew it is not the disciples but the men who,
by their astonished question in 8:27, confirm what has happened. Such “choral endings” are a
feature of ths style especially of paradigmatic narratives in the gospels. The … in our passage
however are obviously intended to represent the men who are encountered by the story through
preaching. Their question corresponds for example to the acclamation with which the … and ….
Reply to the preaching in the service of worship, according to I cor 14: 25.. the setting of the
pericope is thus extended its horizon in widened and from being a description of discipleship in
which the disciples of Jesus experience trail and rescue, storm and security, it becomes a call to
imitation and discipleship.
In more recent synoptic investigation we have learned to look upon the single pericope the single
saying and the single deed of Jesus as the primary data of tradition and to regard context and
framework of the single pericopes on the other hand as secondary. We do not propose to attack
these conclusions. It will be necessary to be more careful however than has generally been the case
up to the present, to enquire also about the motives in the composition the individual gospels, as
should be clear from the example of the stilling of the storm. Such efforts will only be fruitful in
individual cases and care will have to be taken to guard against reading out of the text or into it
more than is warranted. Unquestionably the evangelists worked to a large extent simply as
collectors to relatively superficial points of view. This makes all the more significant the proof of
definite theological intentions such as the evangelist Matthew shows in the pssage under
consideration by the surprising combination of sayings about discipleship, the localization of
which in the context of the miracle stories has no other possible motive.
With all due reserve we are justified in drawing out these connecting links which are only hinted
at by Matthew and seeing in the story of the stilling of the storm a description of the dangers
against which Jesus warns anyone who over-thoughtlessly presses to become a disciple: here is in
fact the Son of Man who has not where to lay his head. At the same time however the story shows
him as the one who subdues the demonic powers and brings the kingdom of God and who therefore
can also demand and is ale to reward the sacrifice of abandoning earthly ties such as stand in the
way of the second follower. In this sense this tory becomes a kerygmatic paradigm of the danger
and glory of discipleship.

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