Sunday 23rd of June 2024 - Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Job 38:1,8-11/ Psalm 106(107)/ 2 Corinthians 5:14-17/ Mark 4:35-41

The sea can be calm and serene one moment and terrifying the next. Life can be the same with things going well with all calm and serene and then, without warning, we can find ourselves in the middle of the storms that life can produce. We wonder where God is, is he sleeping, his head on a pillow, while we try to navigate through it all? What we need to do is have faith and trust in the Lord and rely on him and not on ourselves. Then we will see the storms subside and calm restored. Easy to say, not so easy to do.

Jesus, asleep in the boat, calm and unconcerned as it is threatened by the storm, is the example to us of how to trust completely in God. He was sleeping the sleep of the just perfectly content with his life and his total trust in his father. In contrast the disciples were in fear, true to their human condition. God has invited us to join him and put out into the deep waters, having done his bidding we can expect that he will look after us as we navigate the waters of life in the boat which is the church on earth. Sometimes we will be in pleasant calm waters, sometimes becalmed and seemingly going nowhere, and then there will be the storms of disorder and confusion. Through all of this we just need to have faith and know that God is with us and in his care no harm can come to us.

We might claim that Christ comes first in our lives but when a crisis arises, we, like startled sheep, may scatter in all directions seeking help from many areas instead of from him who is the only one who can help us. We can learn from many of the martyrs and saints down the ages who seem to have achieved great things. In fact, it is only through their faith and trust that their lives came to anything, it was not them that achieved great works but God working through them that did so.

In our times we can see the Church being rocked in the storms raging in the seas around us. Sometimes these storms are generated from outside the ship but also there can be problems arising from within the ship itself. Poor navigation can lead to all sorts of threats from within quite apart from the threats from outside. We need to remain calm and focussed, knowing that whatever, Jesus is with us just waiting for us to trust totally in him and ask for his help. We do nothing of ourselves but with faith and trust God can achieve anything through us. We are sailing in an embattled vessel, a vessel sometimes sailed by a poor or inexperienced crew, a vessel that is barely seaworthy, a vessel navigating stormy seas, but a vessel that we were invited aboard by Jesus who is with us on our voyage and will see us safely to our destination come what may.

Paul’s letter today tells us not to judge by human standards but by the standards of the spirit. The world today is quick to judge. People can be heroes one minute and evil demons the next. The truth is that we are fallen human beings with very real weaknesses often tempted to do the wrong thing even if we strive to do right. The earthly church has many shortcomings because, although it is holy and forms the body of Christ, it is populated and run by human beings with all the weaknesses that go with the human condition. It cannot be that all the good done through the church in God’s name can be cancelled out by the limited but awful mistakes that are sometimes made. We are made up of flesh and spirit, sometimes we need to concentrate on the spirit rather than on the flesh, to see beyond our fallen earthly nature towards our redeemed and heavenly one.

The Church on earth is divine but is also entrusted to human governance with all the possibilities that human weakness can present. We must judge events through the prism of the spirit rather than that of the flesh, the flesh that can sometimes be very weak. When we feel the boat being overwhelmed by the storms we encounter we must call on Jesus who is always with us and ready to awaken to our cry for help. We must have faith and trust that Jesus is with us and will calm the storms we find ourselves in.

God Bless Brendan