June 21, 2009 Cycle B
Job 38:1, 8-11 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 Mark 4:35-41
Father’s Day
Summer time is supposed to be the slow season. Schools out; the temperature’s up; sandals are on; and relaxing is in. But some of us can be forgiven if our hearts are still racing this June. It’s been a wild year, and even vacation season may not be enough to take the tempo down this time. Trouble makes every season chaotic and confused. For those whose finances are reeling, whose employment is uncertain, whose homes are in jeopardy, or already lost, finding the calm eye in the middle of the storm may not be that simple.
In the larger world of things, chaos was once in control. However, God shut the doors on it and kept the confusion at bay. “Thus far shall you come, but no farther.” In the act of creation, God put order into existence by establishing boundaries between one thing and another.
In the comic strip entitled For Better or For Worse, there is an episode about an ugly fight that is about to break out between six-year-old Michael and his buddies, and some kids in the neighborhood.
Armed with sticks, Michael yells, “We’re going to get you guys.” But before the first wack, Michael’s pal, Lawrence gives a heads up --- “Oh oh! You’re mom’s coming Michael!”
Mom demands to know “What are you boys doing with those sticks?” Michael screams, “Those guys are calling us names and we’re going to have a war!! We’re going to kill them.”
Mom sits everyone down “You boys are really going to hurt yourselves.” She calmly and reasonably explains “Fighting won’t solve anything, if you can’t get along, stay away from each other. Now, I will take the weapons.”
Mom gathers up the sticks from the would-be warriors. The other kids take off. Michael and Lawrence and their “side of friends” withdraw to a nearby tree. Michael says, “Boy, I’m glad the world isn’t ruled by moms.” Another kid speaks up, “Yeah. If it was, there would be a zillion soldiers with nothing to do.”
Mom is the voice of reason. She is the voice of patience and thoughtfulness. She is the voice of peace. Mom’s voice and Dad’s too, after all it is Father’s Day, echo the voice of Jesus speaking a word of stillness in our Gospel today, a word of peace, patience, consolation, discernment. We see the disciples in the midst of the storms battering the small craft of their lives, and of ours. Silencing the wars too many of us fight on many fronts. In these turbulent whirlwind lives we need to pay attention to the voice of Jesus, speaking to us in the voice of reason and wisdom in our midst.
Many of us do identify with those disciples in the boat, as the tempest rages and waves break over our heads. Don’t we feel threatened? And in many ways we are. And in some ways Jesus seems, in the boat, to be unresponsive to the peril that we are facing. We want a miraculous fix for all of this: for climate change, for economic crisis, for international instability, for healthcare and education, for all the systems that are unraveling around us and seem to be headed right back where they came from – chaos.
We need to be consciously calling on the “awakened Jesus” to speak His words of wisdom and grace amid the roar of anger and mistrust. Don’t we need to put down our weapons and withdrawal to a place and time of quiet and stillness? For there we can rediscover and reconnect with the presence of God in our midst.
Jesus is asking us, “Why are you terrified? Because of the wind and sea?” Jesus says to us, “Don’t you know the powers of chaos are in My control at all times? Don’t you know that faith in Me puts you in the eye of the storm where all is well?” Even when the chaos is real, faith is the best reply that we can give.
Amen. Amen. Msgr. Tom, Pastor Christ the King