Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Once again, as autumn settles in, I’m grateful to say goodbye to the sweaty, chaotic times of summer. Summer is always full of busyness and change, and every year, New Jersey summers make me miss home. The humid season makes me think back to my California summers I had when I was still in college. They were always full of adventure and life, and today’s readings make me think back to a particularly eventful summer break I had six years ago.
After my sophomore year of college, I spent three weeks in Los Angeles serving the homeless population in the city. As you can imagine, it was a life-changing experience, but one of the most vivid memories I have from that trip is actually from our day off. We spent the day at Huntington Beach, and despite having grown up in California, I was not prepared for the waves that day. One of the guys on the trip thought it would be fun to teach everyone how to surf and he took us out on the water. I thought it would be simple enough- I have decent balance- but as soon as I tried standing up, I realized that I was in for a painful ten minutes. I have never been scared of the ocean or water, but it’s safe to say that I thought I was going to die that day and I came out of this experience completely changed.
I’m reminded of this moment when I hear Sunday’s readings, all of which speak of persistence. St. Paul says it most explicitly when he exhorts us to persist “whether it is convenient or inconvenient.” Why is this such an important message to hear today? Because persistence is our hope in action. Every single time I tried standing on my surfboard, I was knocked down so aggressively that I thought the surfboard would rip my arm off, I thought I would get lost in the waves, I thought I would knock myself unconscious. And yet something inside me told me not to give up. For ten minutes, I found myself in this cycle of trying again and being pushed back down. Eventually I realized that the water was stronger than me, and I would not be able to stand, but it was not stronger than the hope that persisted within me. Every time I saw the sky again and breathed fresh air, I found hope in the fact that these waters that were stronger than me did not have the power to kill me. To be strong enough just to be alive, what a simple thing to find hope in. Yet it’s a hope that continues to persist in me today.
There are often days that I do not feel like I’m doing enough. Days that feel like another failure. And yet I lived those days. And if I could persist through those days, then I can persist through more. And just like Moses, we grow tired and weary, but we know that God provides exactly what we need to persist on. This is the challenge Jesus sets before us: to continue to bother Him for what we need. We cannot give up on Him and put our hopes in our own strength, which is not even enough to help us stand back up, but in His strength which defeats armies.