WHEN GOD IS IN YOUR BOAT NO ROOM FOR FEAR.

June 20, 2021
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time - B.

Readings: Jb 38:1, 8-11; Ps 107:23-24, 25-26, 28-29, 30-31; 2 Cor 5:14-17; Mk 4:35-41.

A Japanese proverb says, “A boat that is not tied up will drift along with the stream.” And a Turkish proverb adds, “Fear does not empty tomorrow of its sadness; it empties today of its power.”

The Christian life is a life of self-abandonment to the providence of the heavenly Father. As children, we are to entrust our fate unto his care and live believing him to lead our life at a sound and good port. God our Lord is a Father who cares for his children in all their needs. What he asks of them in return is to not be anxious but abandon themselves into his hands. For, when God is in the boat of our lives, there are no winds, no tempests that could frighten us. Faith in him and his providence, that is all that it takes to let him lead our lives.

Today's readings, 12th Sunday in the ordinary time of the year B, are an exhortation to trust the Lord and let him take the command of our boat. To the wise man Job facing the raging storms of life, the Lord recommends humility and firm trust in him. He reminds Job that nothing is beyond and above his power. Through a series of questions, concerning creation and creatures, he leads him to acknowledge human nothingness and therefore the need to rely on him. The story of Job presents mankind going through the tumultuous opposite winds and suffering the rage of tempests. Job, we can read in the previous chapters lost all that he built his lifelong and even his children. And as if that was not enough, his friends and relatives were also pushing him to some extends beyond his capacities, that is to lose his trust in God. Amid all these gales, come those questions the Lord puts him in today’s extract.

Job is the prototype of our humanity in front of suffering. Like him, when pushed at some extremes of life, we question and accuse God. But then, we come to realize our nothingness and the nonsense of all that surrounds us in front of our trials. Moreover, we reach the point that by ourselves, we can do nothing. Only God can "shut within doors the sea, when it burst forth from the womb" and calm the waves that rise against us. All depend on his sole will. Therefore, like sings the psalmist, in everything, we should, "Give thanks to the Lord, his love is everlasting."

St. Paul, in the second reading, exhorts the Corinthians to that thanksgiving and praise to God. He tells them, and we with them, that "the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all..." Filled with that assurance, not only must we stand firmly erected in our faith in Christ, but we must also reach the conviction that in the Lord, "new things have come." This newness has as consequence to take us away from all kinds of oldness. For, the old has passed away.

The Apostles, in the Gospel, are given to experience that newness that drives away all kinds of ancient domination. Jesus calms the violent squall and the waves of the raging sea with a simple word, "Quiet! Be still!" And to the Apostles, he asks, "Why are you terrified? Do you not have faith?"

There are times, where one ever feels that his life is like that little boat in the storm. We sometimes feel that we are being tossed around by the waves, ready to be overturned at any moment. In those moments, we cannot prevent asking, where is Jesus? Why would He leave us to suffer like this?

With the current situation in which the world is engulfed, the COVID-19 Pandemic, how many questions of the alike have we not heard. Many are they who have ended losing all hope and faith. Some ask, “Is Jesus asleep in the boat in the midst of the COVID-19 storm?” “Why has God allowed such an evil to fall unto our humanity?” We are now going the second year where, hopelessly, we seek new dawn. Where is God? But then, let us remember the question of the disciples in the storm: “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Does God not care that the world is perishing, that millions of millions of people are getting affected and dying of the COVID-19?

Then resounds the answer of Jesus as a counter-question: “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?” The Lord does care about us. He is certainly not asleep on the boat of this world, and He is definitely with us (Emmanuel, God with us and within us)! Moreover, when the Lord is on board in the boat of your life, you do not have to worry about the destination or be terrified for the happenings and opposed winds and tempests. There are no tempests he cannot calm, neither winds he cannot silence. What he asks from us is faith, a firm faith to let him take the lead. Even though he might seem sleepy in the back, he still is with us.

Regrettably, many people try to live as if they were masters of their own lives and destiny. Thus, come the opposing winds to remind them of their nothingness. We should learn of the childlike abandonment unto God's Providence and have faith. For if God is in our boat, nothing can make us sink. For sure, there will be crises in our lives. There will come times where we will find ourselves crying. But all these will end and divine calm will reign a new. Have faith and do not lose hope. God is on board. He is not a sleeping passenger.

Finally, the boat remains one of the most beautiful analogies when it comes to describing the Church. It happens that it takes water from all sides, that it crosses storms and high tides, but the Church remains firm because it is in the hands of its captain, Christ himself, and under the helm of his Vicar, Peter and his successors, the Pope and the Bishops. So, let us have faith in Christ and his Church. No one leaves a boat and goes into the open sea without a rescue just because the boat is taking on water.