There is an old Chinese proverb that says “In nature there are unexpected storms; in life there are unpredictable vicissitudes.” Tempests in life, natural and emotional, are inevitable. They will happen. They are capricious, they come suddenly and unexpectedly. And, they are impartial. Storms happen to all of us as we are reminded in Matthew 5:45, God our Father “makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”
The issue
presented to us in today’s readings from Job 38:1, 8-11, Psalm 107 and Mark
4:35-41 is: how do we respond to the storms
or vicissitudes in our lives? Do
we respond out of fear or out of faith?
Clearly the disciples in today’s gospel respond to the storm they
encounter with fear – and they have Jesus in the boat with them! When bad things happen, when storms break
over us, it is easy to forget that God is in control. Jesus asks the disciples and he asks us “Why
are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”
All of
these readings remind us that God is in charge of the forces in our world. God
sets limits; God will not let us drown; God calms the storms in our lives. We
have to trust that God will intercede to calm the storms and we have to believe
that our Heavenly Father is a God of love.
St. John tells us in 1 John 4:18 “there is no fear in love, but perfect
love drives out fear.”
God of the storm,
at creation's dawn
you set the bounds of the sea
and stilled the raging of its waves.
God of the calm,
in Jesus the Teacher
you rebuked the wind
and set the sea at rest.
Calm our fears now.
Stir up our faith,
that we may gladly lend our hands
to your work of making the whole creation new!
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
AMEN
