Word to the Wise
Tuesday, July 1, 2025 - Tuesday in the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 19:15-29 and Matt 8:23-27]"Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" Then he got up, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men were amazed and said, "What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?" [Matthew]
JULY 1 ST. JUNIPERO SERRA, OFM
A friend once gave me a small wall plaque with the words: "Sometimes the Lord calms the storm; and sometimes the Lord lets the storm rage and calms his child." This seems to happen in reverse order in today's gospel incident from early in the Gospel According to Matthew. The disciples "followed" Jesus into the boat. A sudden squall threatened to swamp the boat (maybe too many people in it?) and Jesus was asleep!!! The faith of the disciples seems based at this point on Jesus as a kind of wonderworker. He had demonstrated this in his healings and exorcisms but that's all they knew. But control of the weather? That's a different kind of thing. Their question at the end of the story vindicates Jesus' response to their fears: "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?"
The Gospel According to Matthew presents big challenges to faith. The Sermon on the Mount gives us a long list! But today's story tells us that the demands of faith are more than ethical, they call for an understanding of God's power that covers all of creation - even the weather!! The life preservers that are part of a boat ride nowadays didn't exist in Jesus' time, but one wonders what kind we bring along in our journey of faith? If we get into the boat with Jesus, are we just being prudent in bringing along a "life preserver?" or are we "hedging" our faith? Are we still asking, after more than 2,000 years, "What sort of man is this?" AMEN