12th Sunday Year B - Homily 6

Homily 6 - 2024

Today’s graphic Gospel story concluded with the apostles’ question: “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him?”

The Lectionary gave us the no-less-dramatic answer in today’s First Reading. The Reading from the Book of Job provides the author’s beautiful poetic take on the creation of the universe and the separation of land and sea:“Who pent up the sea behind closed doors when it leapt tumultuous out of the womb, when I wrapped it in a robe of mist and made black clouds its swaddling clothes … when I made it fast with a bolted gate?”

And then the Responsorial Psalm’s offering was not entirely irrelevant to the apostles’ question: "[The Lord] summoned the gale, tossing the waves of the sea up to heaven and back into the deep … Then they cried to the Lord in their need and he rescued them from their distress. He stilled the storm to a whisper; All the waves of the sea were hushed. … Let them thank the Lord for his love, the wonders he does for [us].”

In today’s New Testament Reading, Paul was not interested in the stilling of storms but mightily interested in Jesus’ role in our lives. Let’s ponder on what he had to say: “The love of Christ overwhelms me when I reflect that if one man has died for all, then we all should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that the living should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them… And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.”

“A new creation” — that is change, a radically significant change. Paul saw that change as a radical change of attitude [a reversal, if you like, of original sin] that took shape in “our living no longer for ourselves” but fired by the vision of Jesus. That vision of Jesus was of a world where everyone forgot about their own self-interest, and genuinely and determinedly cared about each other, took care of each other.

We worry about what is happening to our Church. We want it to change back to how we knew it before. Is that our problem? That is hardly a “new creation”. I do not altogether blame the rising generations for their not being interested in what they observe of the Church. Have we been noticeable for our living of Jesus’ vision of living no longer for ourselves, but for others? Our world is suffocating in self-interest. Have we been different enough? How might I discover a new enthusiasm?

“Who is this man?” What was it that fired him? Why was he so interested in attracting a body of disciples who would really come to know him, share his vision of a world renewed, and love him? 
What brought about the change in them?