Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XII per Annum B
20 June 2021

Today’s brief Gospel passage from St. Mark shows us a miracle that demonstrates that Jesus is God.  The miracle of the Stilling or the Calming of the Storm shows us the identity of Jesus as God.  The passage concludes with the question of the disciples who are in awe at his power.  They ask: “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?”  That the passage ends with this question, I suggest, highlights it is a question for each of us, a question we must each face and answer.  Who is Jesus really?  Do I have faith that He is God?

First, we need to appreciate the context to grasp the significance of the miracle.  The setting is the Sea of Galilee.  The Sea of Galilee is a good-sized lake, about 7-8 miles wide at its widest.  More importantly, it is known to have sudden storms whip up.  Most of us know that it can be very soothing to be out on water when the water is peaceful.  But to be in a small boat when a storm whips up is very dangerous and terrifying.  We need to notice the words of the Gospel passage itself, which describes the storm as a “violent squall” with waves breaking over the boat such that the boat was filling up and in danger of sinking.  Added to this context is that we know the occupation of most of Jesus’ apostles who were with him.  They were fishermen and they knew the Sea of Galilee well.  That these experienced fishermen were terrified and convinced they were perishing gives us still more context to see just how serious and powerful a storm this was.  In a striking contrast to the details about the seriousness and the danger of the storm we have the description of Jesus asleep on a cushion through it all, taking his rest and undisturbed by a storm that the men in the boat with him knew could very well take their lives.  They cry out: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”  Jesus wakes up, and in an exorcistic response confronting evil, he rebukes the wind and he commands the sea, “Quiet! Be still!”

Today the first reading and the psalm selection together with this Gospel are all remarkably similar and place before us a clear theme and revelation of God’s identity and power.  Today’s psalm shows us sailors conducting their business on the sea in ships.  The psalm highlights the powerful works of God who made the sea and who controls it.  In the psalm a storm rises up with wind and waves that toss the ships about, such that the hearts of the sailors “melted away in their plight.”  In the psalm, the sailors cried to the Lord in their distress.  In the Gospel, the apostolic sailors cried out to Jesus.  In the psalm, the Lord rescued them by hushing the storm and stilling the waves.  In the Gospel, Jesus rebukes and commands the storm wind and waves.  By placing this exact psalm together with today’s Gospel selection, the Church is expressing her faith that this miracle demonstrates the divinity of Jesus.  Furthermore, combatting any pagan notion that Jesus is simply somehow one God among many, putting this Gospel together with this psalm identifies Jesus with the God of the Old Testament.  Jesus is the God who in the Old Testament calmed the storm and was sung about in Psalm 107.  Jesus shows this power in the miracle on the Sea of Galilee.

So, with this context helping us grasp the full threat of the storm and, thereby, the full manifestation of Jesus’ power as God in confronting it, I want to draw our attention to the question Jesus asks after waking up and snuffing out the storm.  He asks, “Why are you terrified?  Do you not yet have faith?”  The word used by Jesus and translated as “faith” can have a couple of important meanings and usages.  Both meanings are important to us as believers.  “Faith” can refer to the intellectual assent we must make to the truths of the faith.  So, for instance, we have recently celebrated liturgically in the past few weekends doctrines such as our belief that God is one God in Three Divine Persons, a Holy Trinity.  We have celebrated our faith that Jesus continues to be made present in the Holy Eucharist by which he remains with us and, when we are worthily prepared in a state of grace, we may participate in the Holy Eucharist by receiving that gift as divine food in Holy Communion.  But notice that the need for faith in the midst of the storm in today’s Gospel is not that meaning of the word that refers to intellectual assent.  In other words, the disciples are terrified and they call out; Jesus calms the storm, but he is not asking them an intellectual matter, as in “Why don’t you believe enough in the doctrine of the Trinity?”  He is not saying to them, “If only you would have recited the Creed.”  No, faith has another principal meaning here and it too needs our attention.  The question of Jesus after the storm is more about faith as trust, trust in God, trust in His power, trust in His working even when our limited human powers are threatened.

Over the years, I have had many interactions with people who might well identify with the image of serious storms in life.  It’s the story of Job from the first reading, a story that fits so well with the psalm and the Gospel message about storms.  Life will toss us about in its storms.  Like Job we may suffer terrible loss.  It would be foolish to think we will sail through this life without some serious turmoil and struggle, storms caused perhaps by others around us; storms caused perhaps by our own weakness, sinfulness, and poor choices; storms caused perhaps by defects in our character, emotional and psychological suffering, stuff internal to us that just is, even though we might not be guilty for choosing it… the list goes on.  Who is Jesus for you in such experiences of life?  Do you have faith – trust – in him?  Sometimes praying in our adoration chapel makes me consider how perfect an image it is for our passage through the sea of this life, an image of today’s Gospel.  Jesus is there displayed in our chapel.  He is still and quiet, almost as if sleeping on a cushion of the boat.  You and I come in there, into that “boat,” with all the stuff going on in our lives.  But he is with us!  Sometimes the sounds outside surrounding the chapel, especially in the daylight hours, remind me of that contrast of storm versus Jesus calmly asleep with full power.  I may be in that quiet chapel but internally I may bring much noise and storminess.  I may be in the quiet chapel but outside perhaps it is the voices of children playing on the playground, or the sounds of cars, or lawn mowers, or roofers… and don’t even get me started when someone flushes one of our toilets and it sounds like a rocket is taking off…  All this noise surrounds us, the storms surround us… distracting us… demanding our attention… but Jesus is with us quiet and still.  In preparing for this weekend’s homily I found myself wanting to encourage and to make a clear call to each of you to find time to dedicate to prayer in our chapel with Jesus who is really there.  Yes, we can and should pray anywhere, and especially in our homes.  But sometimes the journey to get up, to make a little pilgrimage, to leave our home, and to leave our busy activities, and get into the boat of our little chapel to be with Jesus in our storms is what is also needed.  I want to encourage you to make frequent visits to adore Jesus in the chapel.  I want to encourage you to contact the office and our adoration program to commit to a time of prayer in the chapel.  You won’t regret it!

When we come to the chapel with the external and internal storms of life, it seems to me we can powerfully live today’s Gospel passage.  We come there in the quiet and we might want to call out to wake Jesus up, “Don’t you care that I am perishing?”  The faith that is trust needs attention and needs to be exercised so that we come to experience Jesus who is God and who is the same God as in the Old Testament who calms the storm.  In the boat of the chapel we can’t pretend the storms of our lives aren’t circling around us.  Part of growing in that faith that is trust is learning to call out to God in our need and in the sometimes humiliating storms we can’t so easily control.  So often in life we both start and stop with only what our own power can accomplish.  Inspired by the revelation in today’s passages that Jesus is God, may we come to call out to the Lord.  Our calling out to him, our waking him up so to speak, just as in the Gospel, is the precursor to his powerful command: “Quiet!  Be still!”