"WHY ARE YOU TERRIFIED?"

Homily for July 1^st, 2014: Matthew 8:23-27.

          Jesus has spent a whole day healing. He is drained: physically, but also spiritually. Immediately before the start of today’s gospel reading Matthew writes: “Seeing the people crowd around him, Jesus gave orders to cross to the other shore.” Before he can get into the boat with his friends, however, there are two other petitioners he must deal with. The first is a Jewish scribe who tells Jesus he wants to join him: “Teacher, wherever you go, I will come after you.” Jesus tells him there is a price. “The foxes have lairs, the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Matthew does not tell us whether the scribe was put off by this or not. Another man, already a disciple of Jesus, says: “Lord, let me go and bury my father first.” To which Jesus replies, no less sternly: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

          Only now is Jesus able to break away from the crowd and embark in the boat with his friends. He must be totally exhausted, for he is fast asleep when a violent storm comes up, without warning, throwing up steep waves which threaten to swamp the boat. “Lord, save us!” the disciples cry out as they wake him. “We are perishing!” Awake now, Jesus says calmly, “Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?” Then he rebukes the winds and the sea. “And there was great calm,” Matthew tells us.

          Immediately the disciples’ panic is replaced with amazement, as one of them asks the question that is in everyone’s mind: “What sort of man is this, whom even the winds and the sea obey?” The Jewish Scriptures, especially the Psalms, speak often of God ruling the sea and the waves. Now Jesus’ disciples have seen him act as only God acts.

          The story is Matthew’s gift to the Church, and to each of us who have become members of the Church in baptism. Time and again the Church, and we its members, are storm tossed. That we are frightened at such times is only natural. The story is the Lord’s assurance that he is always with us. No matter how often we have strayed from him, he remains close. He saves us for one reason alone: because he loves us.