Today’s readings talk about faith: daring to believe that God loves us and will never abandon us. Elijah’s on the run - he feels alone and abandoned by God; Saint Paul laments that his fellow Jews may be cut off from God for their lack of faith; and the disciples are caught in a storm at sea, afraid because Jesus isn't with them. But God abandons no one. It would be contrary to his very nature. So Elijah soon realizes that “God was near, providing food for Elijah’s journey as well as an intimate experience of the divine presence . . . as a ‘tiny whispering sound.’”[iii] The disciples see Jesus walking toward them on the water, calling Peter to him, lifting him up when he begins to sink, joining them in the storm-tossed boat, and calming the sea. And Saint Paul, well, you’re going to have to take my word on this one because his concerns are addressed in the passages that follow today’s excerpt from Romans. In the subsequent passages, Paul explains that God will keep his covenant with the Jews; God will never abandon them. They will be saved. God abandons no one and that gives us every reason to have faith.
Webster’s Dictionary defines faith as “belief in the existence of God.” But faith has a much deeper meaning for us: Faith is a gift from God that invites a response from us - our trust in all that God has revealed to us. What’s the difference? Well, simply believing that God exists requires no understanding of who God is or how God operates in our lives. There’s no connection with God, necessarily - no relationship. But in the Judeo-Christian tradition, faith is all about our relationship with God. Faith is all about the highest form of relationship - love. So for us, faith is an inner certainty, a conviction that God is love, that God loves us infinitely and unconditionally, and that God’s love for us is eternal. Faith is “daring to believe, in the face of all the evidence, that God is with us in the boat . . . as it makes its way through the storm, battered by the waves.”[iv] That’s what God has revealed to us. That’s what we’re invited to believe, if we dare to.
The life of faith is a beautiful way to live, and I’d argue that faith is the only way to truly live in this storm-tossed world. Faith brings with it “a quiet confidence and joy that enable [us] to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in [our lives], a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and stable no matter what may happen.”[v] In other words, faith brings with it the sure knowledge that God loves us and that our purpose in this world is to share God’s love with others. Faith won’t necessarily stop bad things from happening to us, and it won’t give us superhuman abilities to overcome them, like walking on water, but faith will give us the calm assurance that “All shall be well”[vi] and the courage to step out of the safety of the boat to do everything in our power to make all things well for us and for our neighbors.
The challenge we face, then, is “trying to stay so focused on God’s enabling presence that the resistant winds do not defeat us.”[vii] It’s easy to lose faith. Sickness, death, unemployment, famine, religious persecution, even genocide - these are real challenges that real people are facing today. And in a highly secularized society, faith is often greeted with ridicule and scorn. It seems like the challenges of life are playing a game of pile on and we’re at the bottom of the pile. If we let these challenges distract us from the one who is life, we will sink into despair, hopelessness and meaninglessness. Just look at Saint Peter in today’s Gospel. Peter doesn't become frightened after he begins to sink. Peter becomes frightened first and then he begins to sink. Peter lost focus on the only one who can carry him across the raging sea. And what happens next? Jesus doesn't abandon Peter for lack of faith. “Jesus . . . is there to answer his call despite inadequate faith. What counts is not strength of will or courage but Jesus’ saving presence.”[viii] God is there for Peter in the person of Jesus Christ. Dare to believe that God is there to carry us across the raging seas, too, no matter what we may face.
“Stranded on a barren mountaintop, thousands of minority Iraqis are faced with a bleak choice: descend and risk slaughter at the hands of the encircled Sunni extremists or sit tight and risk dying of thirst.”[ix] I wonder if those Iraqis feel like God has abandoned them. But when I read this story, I couldn't help but think that when Jesus left his disciples to go up the mountain to pray, he climbed Mount Sinjar to be with the persecuted Iraqis. God abandons no one, and that gives us every reason to have faith. For the sake of the persecuted Iraqis and Syrians and all who suffer, dare to believe. Dare to believe in the face of death, and despair, of evil incarnate, that God is with them. But more importantly, dare to believe in the face of ridicule, complacency, indifference and helplessness, that God is calling us from the boat to make his presence known to them by doing all we can do to help them. Dare to believe!
[i] Mark Movsesian, “A Line Crossed in the Middle East,” First
Things,
online edition (July 22, 2014), http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/07/a-line-crossed-in-the-middle-east.
[ii] Elizabeth Scalia, “Expelled Iraqi Christians Give Witness to ISIS Fascism,” The Anchoress (July 24, 2014), http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2014/07/24/expelled-iraqi-christians-give-witness-to-isis-fascism/.
[iii] Patricia Datchuck
Sánchez, “Three O’clock and All is Well,” National Catholic Reporter, vol. 50,
no.20 (July 18-31, 2014) at 25.
[iv] M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” The
New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1994) at 329-330.
[v] Charles Hefling, Why Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Chestnut Hill, The Lonergan Institute, 2000)
at 20, quoting Wilfred Cantwell Smith.
[vi] Julian of Norwich,
The Showings.
[vii] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for
Christian Preachers and Teachers: On Earth as it is in Heaven, Matthew, Year A
(Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2004) at 250-251.
[viii] The Oxford Bible Commentary, John Barton
and John Muddiman, eds. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001) at 863.
[ix] Loveday Morris, “Iraqi Yazidis Stranded on Isolated Mountaintop Begin to Die of
Thirst,” Washington Post, online
edition (August 5, 2014), http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/iraqi-yazidis-stranded-on-isolated-mountaintop-begin-to-die-of-thirst/2014/08/05/57cca985-3396-41bd-8163-7a52e5e72064_story.html.
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