21 June 2015
12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
For the people in ancient Israel, the sea held terror. They experienced it as a monstrous power that could threaten their very lives. At the very least, it set severe limits on their ability to control their lives. In mideastern mythology, the sea in storm symbolized chaos and disorder.At the same time, the sea, with its teeming life, had the potential to feed them, give them life. And so in the first words of the Bible (in Genesis), it is God's spirit hovering over the waters of chaos that breeds all the living. God's creative power embraces chaos and makes of it a world of order, caring and goodness. For Israel, God's creativity establishes order in the midst of uncertainty and chaos.
In the story of Job, Job is a bold hero, searching for answers amid the chaotic suffering of his life. He doesn't get the answers he's looking for, but in the end (in our reading) he finds that God's creation somehow requires chaos, as a kind of dance partner, so that God can be in the midst of life in abundance.
The brief passage from today’s Gospel casts a similar question in the context of a storm at sea: “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” These experienced seamen know well the potential danger of the violent squall. Jesus, asleep, seems to be unmoved by the storm’s intensity and the apostles’ fears. Does Jesus CARE that they are in peril? Jesus turns their question back on them, just as the LORD God turned Job's questions back on him. “Do you not yet have faith?”
What will it take for believers to trust in God, to know that God can use even the chaos to create life and order? Coming to faith will be a life-long process, for Job, for the apostles and for us. In the midst of a storm is where we may all, in fact, find true faith and life to the full.
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| Br. Mickey McGrath, OFSF, At the Name of Jesus, (c) 2008 |
