(Twelfth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on June 23, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Job 38:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:35-41.)
[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twelfth Sunday 2024]
Here’s an important fact about today’s gospel story: Jesus was
there. In the midst of the storm on the Sea
of Galilee, Jesus was there. Now why is
that one fact so significant? Simple:
because the mere presence of Jesus in
the boat was not enough to keep the
apostles from losing control. Even
though they knew that the Lord was with them, they still were consumed by fear.
For us, this means that merely believing in God is not enough to deal with the difficulties of life; just believing that God is there is not sufficient.
So what was the missing element for Peter, James, John and the other disciples? Well, Jesus identifies that element himself, immediately after he calms the wind and the waves: the missing element was faith—a deep, living faith! And notice the tone of our Lord’s words here: I would say it’s rather harsh. Jesus says, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” It’s as if he were saying, “You men should know better. There’s no reason for you to be acting this way.”
Was Jesus being a bit too demanding? Was he expecting too much from these twelve ordinary, weak human beings?
For the answers to those questions we need to take note of where this story occurs in the Gospel of Mark: it comes at the very end of the fourth chapter. That means that these disciples had known Jesus for a while. They had been in his company for quite some time. And here are some of the things they had seen Jesus do with their own eyes during the days that they had been with him (all these events I’m about to mention are found in the first three chapters of Mark): they had seen Jesus cast a demon out of a man in a synagogue; they had seen Jesus heal Simon Peter’s mother-in-law; they had seen him heal a man with a withered hand; they had seen him heal a leper, a paralyzed man and countless other people; they had seen him perform many exorcisms; and they had seen him convert the hearts of many sinners—like Levi the tax collector (better known to us as Matthew).
So when Jesus took them to task on the Sea of Galilee after he calmed the storm, I think his message was, “My friends, after all the great things you’ve seen with your own eyes, you still don’t trust me? You still don’t think I’ll be there for you to give you what you need? You should know better!”
The apostles lacked a deep faith in the present moment because they were out of touch with what God had done in the past.
The very same thing, believe it or not, can happen to us. This is why we need to reflect quite often on how the Lord has helped us deal with difficulties in our past. That type of reflection can lead to a deeper faith in the present moment. And so I ask you this morning: do you ever sit down and meditate on God’s activity in your life thus far? God has brought many of us through some very difficult times. He’s helped some of us to deal with sickness, abuse, tragedy, and the death of loved ones. By his grace (and by his grace alone) we’ve survived. And so our attitude should be, “Well, Lord, since you’ve helped me so often in the past, I believe you’ll do the very same thing for me now, in the midst of my present problems.” That should have been the attitude of the disciples in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee. If it had been their perspective, they would have been peaceful and not fearful; they would have remembered how Jesus had helped the leper and the paralyzed man and all the rest, and they would have thought to themselves, “Jesus gave those people what they needed, so he will certainly give us what we need right now. He will help us.”
“I remember the deeds of the Lord, I remember your wonders of old. I meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds.” That’s what the writer of Psalm 77 did when he found himself in the midst of a difficult situation. May God give us the wisdom and resolve to do the very same thing, so that we will have a strong and deep faith in the midst of the storms that we face in our lives.