Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 27 2025

From Fear to Floundering to Faith

When I was a little girl, a picture in my children’s Bible depicted Jesus standing in the front of a boat with his arms sweeping high into the air. The sea has calmed. The disciples look relaxed and happy. All is good.

But I used to wonder, even as a little child—in the middle of the storm, how did Jesus get to the front of the boat? In the beginning, he slept in the stern. In the end, he stood majestically in the prow. How did he wrestle his way from the back to the front as the waves tossed the boat?

The picture suggests fear in the back, faith in the front . . . ? But wait! Right in the middle of this story, between fear and faith, is this moment of floundering.

Sometimes we want to skip that floundering part. Why? Maybe because once we are adults, we are not supposed to flounder? But we do flounder. We have moments of helplessness. In times of trouble, we may accuse God of “not caring.”

Jesus asks, “Do you not yet have faith?” Maybe that is an accurate observation. The disciples do not yet have faith. Yet Jesus helps them just as they are. He doesn’t ask them to believe based on nothing; he is willing to show them. He has changed water into wine. He has made a blind man see. He now calms the waves.

It is in their floundering that they find faith. They discover an inner certainty, a deep assurance, a faith in the One who keeps showing them someone to believe in.

Perhaps the picture in my storybook was wrong. Maybe Jesus lifted his head slightly, stilled the sea, and went back to sleep. Who knows? Either way, the disciples swelled with amazement and awe: “Who is this whom even wind and sea obey?”

Consider/Discuss

Much of life is lived between total fear and total faith, often in floundering with high winds and rough waves. The possibility of drowning is terrifying. The waves could pull us under. Why can’t we smoothly slip past the floundering of this story? How has the Lord calmed the seas for you, kept you from sinking into the deep?
We are not alone in floundering. Peter put his foot in his mouth more than once. Moses told God to go find somebody else. The prophet Jeremiah said, “Nah, I’m too young.” Even one of Thomas Merton’s most famous prayers begins by telling God that he (Merton) has no idea where he’s going. How have you experienced God taking you as you are and lifting you to something greater? How can we do that for others?

Living and Praying with the Word

Thank you for giving us fortitude when we have no courage left. Thank you for your helping hand that seems to come out of nowhere to lift us up. Thank you for your unexpected calm when the world swirls in chaos around us. Thank you for that invisible help that we name “grace.” Thank you for the assurance that we can make it through the storms because we are not alone in the boat.

Jan 27 2025

Scripture Study for

God’s creative power is often expressed in the Bible through the metaphor of God controlling chaotic waters. In Genesis 1, God controls by speaking, while in other places, God must defeat the waters, personified as hostile “sea monsters,” in battle (Psalms 74:12–17; 89:10–12). Here God refers to this creative power in response to the demand that he give an account of himself for Job’s suffering. This response includes the assertion that Job is not capable of comprehending the complexity of the world and how it works, because Job did not have a hand in it. It was God, not humans, who “shut within the doors the sea” and “set limits for it,” stilling its “proud waves.” Only God, in other words, is capable of controlling the chaotic waters.

Paul has just been speaking of the need for perseverance. It is precisely what we do with this life that will determine the nature of our encounter with Christ the Judge. But what really impels Paul is the love of Christ. This is true in both senses: the love shown by Christ in dying for all so that we can become a new creation, and our love for Christ in return, which should lead us to embrace the gift of this new creation. Christians no longer live for themselves, but for the one who transformed them. The gift, in other words, can only be received by loving the giver back and living into the larger purpose for which the gift was given in the first place.

The account of the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee draws clearly on Ordinary Time images of dangerous, threatening waters that represent personal or social chaos (note, for example, that a psalmist regularly cries out to be saved from drowning or from sinking into the deep, an expression of personal distress and danger). In the Old Testament, it is God alone who saves by controlling chaotic waters, and yet the same is true of Jesus here. The fact that Jesus was asleep during the storm reflects his own faith that the chaos will not prevail, and his questions to his disciples are intended to provoke the same faith in Jesus’ saving power.

Jan 12 2025

Ordinary Time, Extraordinary Courage

The prophet Jeremiah captures my imagination. He is called to speak the word of the Lord at a tender age: “I am too young,” he objects. Repeatedly he resists his call to preach: “I try to hold it in, but it burns like fire in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.” He is brutally honest before God. He is also starkly straightforward with kings. His forthrightness gets him into trouble: he’s thrown into the muck of a cistern, imprisoned in the stocks, mocked and made fun of, and ultimately hauled off to Egypt to end his life where he doesn’t want to be.

Do you ever wonder if Jeremiah wished that he could simply be an ordinary guy? God’s call was sometimes just too challenging. “You duped me, Lord,” he says, “and I let myself be duped.” He may have prayed today’s psalm: “Rescue me from the mire, and do not let me sink . . . for it is on your account that I bear insult.” Though he is smacked down over and over, Jeremiah keeps popping back up again.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns the disciples of that same kind of opposition. He knows that the muck is real. But he says time after time, “Do not be afraid . . . Even the hairs of your head are counted.” What are we to be afraid of? Not physical death, but spiritual cowardice.

Fortitude is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. There may be times when life calls for swashbuckling bravado. But more often, the Divine Nudge encourages us to roll out of bed with an “it doesn’t matter how you feel today, just get up and keep going” kind of everyday courage. Sainthood is in the small things. Heroic virtue grows through giving God one obedient yes at a time.

Consider/Discuss

Fear is part of life. We get burned and we grow cautious. Yet Jesus says repeatedly, “Do not be afraid.” In what part of our lives do we need Holy Spirit fortitude so that we can keep rising back up to do what we are called to do, in spite of our fear or weakness?
The saints and prophets were brutally honest in their relationship with God. Are you willing to yell at God, to pour out your heart in prayer and be forthright with the Creator of the universe? Why or why not? What does that look like?

Living and Praying with the Word

Lord, sometimes I’d rather stay in bed and take life easy. Yet Jeremiah and the saints and you yourself show me another way—to keep giving and loving and preaching even when it is personally challenging. Guide my discernment in the balance between self-care and self-gift. I seek you. I offer myself to you. Help me to trust you to use me according to your best lights, for you watch over even the hairs of my head. Cast out my fear and keep me close to you.

Jan 10 2025

Scripture Study for

Just prior to this week’s reading, Jeremiah has complained to God that God has “seduced” him—drawn him into a difficult mission of proclaiming God’s word of judgment to a faithless and violent people. In the face of rejection, the prophet has tried to walk away from his calling, but like a fire burning in his heart, the word of God demands to be heard (20:7–9). Yet despite danger and even the treachery of friends, Jeremiah ultimately trusts that God will defend him “like a mighty champion” because he is doing God’s work. In Jeremiah we see both the depths of suffering in relationship with God and the heights of trust and hope despite it all.

Paul explains to the Romans how the death of Christ has saved humanity from death and sin. Paul understands sin here not as a human act of the breaking of covenant commands (“law”), but as a malevolent, intractable power that entered the world through human disobedience. This power, which spread through all Adam’s descendants, brought with it death. Thus all people, even those who were not under the covenant obligations to God, sinned, even if they were not breaking “the law” (Torah). Thus death “reigned” over all. The obedience of Christ ends this reign by flooding humanity with grace, a gift from God to deliver the descendants of Adam from the bondage of sin and its “wages” of death (6:23).

As Jesus sends the Twelve out to proclaim the kingdom, he warns them of opposition. This warning shades into predictions of what the early church will face after Easter. Out of fear for their lives and livelihoods, they will be tempted to withdraw from the task of proclaiming the gospel, or even to deny Christ. Yet this is what they are being formed to do: to proclaim publicly what they are learning from and about Jesus. In the face of fear, they must remember not only that God cares for them, but also that even physical death is to be preferred to the spiritual death that would follow from apostasy or abandoning the call to proclaim the gospel.

Dec 16 2024

The Unexpected Messiah

The apostles were probably not all that different from the other members of their families or their friends. They were not very different from the other Jews of their day. Indeed, given the expectations and hopes we have for our own leaders today, we would not have answered Jesus much differently. They were waiting for the Messiah to come, and once he came, life would be good again.

They expected the Messiah (which means “Anointed One”) to come in power and might; a liberator like Moses, who led God’s people out of slavery; a great king like David, who brought the people of the divided northern and southern kingdoms into one nation. How wonderful would this new era be, ushered in by such a Messiah!

Imagine their surprise when Jesus rebukes Peter for saying that he is “The Christ [Messiah] of God” (9:20). Greater their surprise when Jesus goes on to say that he must suffer greatly, be rejected by their religious leaders, and be killed— but also be raised from death on the third day (9:22). It is fair to wonder if, in their shock, they even heard the part about being raised. The ultimate stunning news, however, would have been that to follow their Messiah, they must be willing to deny themselves, taking up their crosses every day.

A person like this Messiah would not get a lot of votes, even today. But it is through faith in Christ Jesus, Anointed One of God, that we have become children of God. And so we are called, as Paul tells us, to clothe ourselves with Christ (Galatians 3:27), another way of saying “Take up your cross, every day.”

Consider/Discuss

If Jesus asked you “Who do you say that I am?” what would your answer be?
In what ways does daily life call upon you to take up your cross? What form does this command take in the life of the whole Church?

Responding to the Word

Jesus Christ, our Messiah, let us be clothed with your risen glory, as each day we walk with you, carrying the cross that life calls on us to bear. Increase our faith in you; help us to know your gracious loving presence with us always.