A homily for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 20, 2021
Jb 38:1, 8-11, 2 Cor 5:14-17, Mk 4:35-41
This is a great time of the year to be awed by God.
And it’s so easy.
After the sun goes down, lean back wherever you are and look at the starry sky. If you’re privileged to live near a body of water or, better yet, the ocean, spread out your blanket on the shoreline and gaze at the splendor of the constellations while listening to the water gently lapping or crashing in waves.
God created it. All of it. The stars. The breeze. The relentless seas. The life-giving water.
God gave it to us.
Thank you, God!
For us Americans, who are known to not take all of our vacation time each year, pandemic lockdowns did lead to our backing off our intensity. A little. Maybe we found some of the quiet times in which God speaks with us. Those whispers that inspired the prophet Elijah, perhaps. What a blessing.
But living inside, communicating virtually — if at all — with other people and not communing with nature at all, we felt that the world had gotten small, that the universe was downright tiny. And if the universe is small, God must be, too.
No.
But, in a way, also yes.
Here’s one way to look at it.
God is big and powerful, so big and so powerful that all it took was the utterance of “Let there be light” and Creation started. God said it, the Big Bang happened, and here we are. Earth, the solar system, the Milky Way, this universe with trillions of stars (a number we can’t begin to understand!), and probably many other universes existing alongside ours or interlaced with this one or … wow.
That’s big.
That’s powerful.
That’s wise and good and loving.
That’s God.
So, no, God didn’t get smaller when our worlds did during stay-at-home during the pandemic’s peak.
But God has always made themself an approachable size. God walks beside each one of us, arm draped over our shoulders like the parent they are. God looks us in the eye with love and admiration and tender mercy and invites us to look back.
Even closer to home, Jesus, the only begotten Son who is of the same substance as the Father, got blisters and calluses while walking and working with human brothers and sisters as a fully human person. He ate and drank and pooped and peed and laughed and cried and felt every emotion, including awe of God by experiencing the marvels of Creation himself.
God has the power to be big and bite-sized at the same time.
That’s awesome.
So while Emmanuel — God with us — has the power to still raging seas, he also has the ability and the willingness to sit around a campfire and share the Law of Love with all in earshot. Possibly interspersed with a little gentle gossip about family goings-on or the score of that day’s sporting event.
Yes, that’s truly awesome.
We live in a time when technology can take us anywhere on Earth. Whether by planes, trains or automobiles, or virtually, we can travel and experience the many, many wonders of Creation given to us by God.
And we live at a time of year when it’s possible, when it’s advisable, when it’s a really good thing to experience the wonders of Creation.
Because being awed by God, being thunderstruck by the Trinity, will guide us to a deeper and more mature relationship with our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sanctifier, just as the Apostles experienced as the waters obeyed when Jesus the Christ told them to be still.
To all fathers, grandfathers, godfathers and anyone who serves in a paternal role:
Thank you.
You may not have always been right, but you were never wrong, and I love you for that.
May God bless you every day of your lives and reward you abundantly forever.
