By Rachael Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
I lived in Texas until I was 10 years old. If you’ve never been there, it’s big (obviously), flat (you can see for miles), hot (I remember it being 115 degrees once) and filled with monsters. Some would even say it’s “inhospitable to human life” due to the fact that it wouldn’t be unheard of to have a scorpion infestation in your house. I remember finding a tarantula den in our backyard, and once my parents found a rattlesnake skin in our attic.
Of all the potentially dangerous or poisonous things you might find in that beautifully wild state – the thing I was most scared of were the tornados. I was terrified every time it stormed, expecting to see a cloud start to funnel down from the sky and that our house would be ripped apart by unstoppable wind. On one occasion, I remember looking through my Barbie curtains in my bedroom to the sky outside, and witnessing nature churning with power. The sky was an eerie shade of green-gray; lightning slit the sky and we could feel the thunder rumble through our one-story ranch styled house. We didn’t have a basement, so when the tornado sirens whined through the tiny farm town, my mom took the cushions off the couch, put them in the bathtub and called all three of us kids to get in. My older brother was not taking things seriously and wanted to go outside, so he and my father were watching the storm billow above us from our pantry door. I’ve always been jumpy. It doesn’t take much to freak me out. But for some reason, I crept out of the bathtub sanctuary and tucked in next to my Dad and brother in the open screen door to catch a glimpse of the brewing giant in the sky. I remember feeling a gust of hot, humid air that made my clothes stick to my skin, then in the next breath, a gust of chilled air that sent a shiver down my spine. A dense black cloud silently floated over our house. It turns out that storm really did produce a tornado a few miles down the road after it passed us by.
In the Gospel this Sunday, the Apostles are in a similar boat. Okay, instead of a bathtub with cushions, it was an actual boat on the sea. St. Mark describes that a “violent squall came up and the waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up.” The Apostles were terrified and were convinced they were going to drown. They rushed to find Jesus of course – who they discovered was asleep on a cushion in the stern. I would imagine the Apostles said to themselves, “Unbelievable. He’s taking a nap – how can you even sleep in these conditions?!?” They woke him up and cried “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Note – they didn’t say, “this looks like it will get bad” – they said in the present tense we are going under right now.) Jesus stood up and immediately commanded the storm, saying “Quiet! Be still!” At once, there was a great calm. The waves stopped pounding the boat. The clouds dissipated. And the Apostles realize that there really is something Divine about Jesus – either that or he’s one of the X-Men, but probably Divine.
Like the Apostles, we can be struck with the fact that it’s not just demons who flee at His voice, it’s not just illness that cures at His touch – He has authority over even the wind and the sea. There is nothing that He can’t do.
So now we need to ask – what are the storms in our own lives? What are the situations that seem ominous, out of control, chaotic? What is it that causes you to be afraid, whether in big ways or small ways in your everyday live? Have you called Jesus into that? You, like the apostles might ask “Where is He? Is He sleeping? Does He even care that I’m going through this?” Maybe you need to search for Him a bit – but I think you’ll find that Jesus wasn’t far from you the whole time. Your storm is nothing He can’t handle – in fact, it’s kind of His thing. And when you realize you are not weathering this alone, that He-Who-Even-the-Wind-and-Storm-Obey has got your back, whatever you’re facing is not as scary.
