12th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B June 23, 2024
Fr. Alexander Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Storms are bound to come. In your personal life, your spiritual life, in the life of this parish community, there are bound to be storms of many different kinds. Things are going to change in this parish – that is inevitable with a new pastor. Good, bad, or otherwise, I cannot say what all those changes will ultimately be. All I can say is you, for your part, must cling to Jesus throughout them all.
That’s pretty obviously the point of this particular gospel story. It literally happened that Jesus miraculously calmed a storm while on a boat, but it is also a spiritual lesson for us. Hence, Jesus asks, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” If Jesus is in the boat with us – if he is in our daily prayer life and is the primary goal of our daily lives – then we need not be afraid no matter how bad the storm gets.
So the most important question to ask ourselves is this: is Jesus in the boat with us? It’s easy enough to pretend, to just show up to Mass each week, to spout off a couple of memorized prayers every morning, and to pay lip service to the idea of loving your neighbor. It’s easy to look like we have Jesus. But our response to the storms of life tests that. Is our first instinct to hold on to whatever is most comfortable and convenient? When things change or get difficult, do we act offended that God would dare to allow such things? Our first reading is from the book of Job. Job has had everything taken from him even though he did nothing wrong, so he complains to God. Eventually God responds to him and basically says “I’m God and I know what I’m doing, who are you to tell me that I am being unfair?” Job humbly accepts it and is rewarded.
Don’t get me wrong, that honest kind of prayer is good and necessary. Job’s complaints do get an answer, even if it’s just being fussed at. The Apostles do get Jesus to quiet the storm, even though it means being rebuked as well. We must be honest with God about our struggles so that he can step into them. Only, we should not be surprised that God heaps a healthy dose of humility on top of whatever help he provides. So, by all means, when things get tough, complain to God in prayer, be honest with him, ask for his help – that can actually be a sign that you do take seriously God’s presence in your life.
Only, if you’re going to pray like Job and the Apostles, you also need to live like Job and the Apostles. For all their thick-headedness, they still have Jesus in the boat. They follow him, talk with him, and make sure he has a place to rest. Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the boat. Do you have a place in your heart and mind where Jesus may rest comfortably? How much space? If you want to have Jesus with you in the storm, never stop reading and praying with scripture, going to confession regularly, deliberately sacrificing your comfort for the good of others, and receiving communion worthily. Then, when you do have to complain to Jesus, you’ll find he is already there.
Still, as we seek to move into a place of deeper faith, of calm in the face of the storms, we have to take to heart Paul’s message from the second reading. The goal is not to live a comfortable life – if that’s all we want, we will not be able to weather the storms. No, Paul teaches that Jesus “indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” You catch that? We are to “no longer live” for ourselves, but for Jesus.
If that is our attitude – Jesus above all – then the storms lose their power because they cannot take Jesus from us. As we on the gulf coast know only too well, storms can and sometimes do take everything: homes, jobs, friends, family. God allows many tragedies and he rarely tells us why. But if Jesus is in our hearts, if we cling to him, the storm has no power over him. Indeed, losing other things can even help us realize just how important Christ is and how unimportant everything else is. For, unlike everything else, Jesus Christ can give us eternal life and return to us 100 fold whatever else we lose along the way.
So, whatever the storms and trials, do not live for yourself. Live for Jesus and you need not be afraid. One practical application for this is my second piece of parting advice: “regard no one according to the flesh” as St. Paul says. The first piece of advice is to love and trust Jesus no matter what. The second is to treat this parish, each other, and your new pastor not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
To treat this parish and your pastor according to the flesh is to act like a consumer, a customer whose loyalty always depends on getting what you want out of the exchange. It took over 2 years for most of the people of this parish to really welcome me. To be fair, one of those years was Covid, but still. Despite numerous requests to visit people’s homes and several attempts to solicit feedback, I felt like an outsider, excluded and alone for almost half of my time here. Some left the parish over mere inconveniences or disagreements in style. Some hold a grudge against me, yet have never once spoken to me about it. I’m not worried. Still, that is a very fleshly way of treating a parish and a pastor. That attitude that definitely won’t help you weather the storms of life with faith intact.
Now, of course, I feel very loved by the parish, deeply supported and truly at home, though it took longer than I think it should. Do me a favor, go out of your way to support your next pastor. He isn’t me and it isn’t fair to expect him to be. He will do things you do and don’t like just as I’ve done things you do and don’t like. Some changes might be the right thing or they might be the wrong thing to do. Love him either way. Welcome him anyway. Sure, trust must be earned, but love should not be earned. Do not make him earn your love as those who live for themselves might do. Live for Christ by always striving to see Christ in him and in his priesthood, even when he makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever challenge his decisions in the appropriate way or never complain to God and the bishop, but it does mean that, if you do so, you do it not for your own comfort and preference, but for the sake of Christ and the salvation of souls.
Have faith. Jesus Christ, whom even the wind and the sea obey, is with you. Do not forget that. Thank God for that not only when everything goes well, but even and especially in the midst of the storm.