Homily
for the
12th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
June
20, 2021
Job
38: 1, 8-11
Mark
4:35-41
Blessed
Sacrament, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Holy
Name of Jesus, New Rochelle
“The Lord addressed
Job … and said: ‘Who shut within doors the sea…? … and said: Thus far shall you come but no farther, and
here shall your proud waves be stilled!” (Job 38: 1, 8, 11).
As usual in
our Sunday readings, the 1st reading has been chosen as a prelude or partner to
the gospel reading. In this case, 4
verses from near the end of the Book of Job concerning God’s lordship over the
seas are matched with the story of Jesus’ calming a storm on the Sea of
Galilee—a wonder that “fills his disciples with great awe” and makes them ask,
“Who is this” man with such power? (Mark 4:41).
St. Mark, of course, knows that his readers recognize Jesus as Lord; the
apostles at the time were quite slow to figure that out.
The Book of Job is a long reflection on the ways of God, particularly when human suffering is involved, more particularly when that suffering is totally undeserved. The story, which is a very long parable, presents Job as a supremely upright man whom Satan afflicts terribly—with the death of his children, with physical pain, and with supposed friends who come to console him but, instead, blame him for what’s happened: You must have offended God in some awful way for him to strike you in this way.
But Job, like
the kids in the Family Circus cartoons, keeps telling them, “Not
me!” Unlike the kids, he insists that he
has been faithful to the Lord God; he has not sinned. He demands of God—speaking directly to
him—that God show how he has done wrong, how he deserves what’s happened to
him.
Eventually,
God responds at some length; our passage today is a snippet of that. God doesn’t convict Job of any sin; he
doesn’t tell him why he’s being punished for no reason, or even that Satan has
been the troublemaker all along.
Instead, God gives an answer that causes Job to bow down before him as
creature before the Creator—an answer that we readers don’t find very
satisfactory or consoling.
The whole
story has been asking why innocent people suffer. The only answer the biblical author can offer
is that God’s wisdom in creating and ordering the universe is far vaster than
our human wisdom and understanding of how the universe ought to function. One Scripture scholar writes: “The world is full of the mystery of [the
Lord’s] wisdom; in spite of its paradoxes, it does not fall apart, it does not
return to chaos. Of this world men … are
but a small part. Job must accept the
world as it is and from this accept God as He is.”[1]
In the face of
all that seems to be wrong with the universe—floods and droughts, famine and
storms, earthquakes and all kinds of “acts of God,” as our insurance policies
mention—we have no explanation for why it’s so.
It’s beyond our human wisdom, unless we suppose that the created world
is in rebellion against humanity in the same way that sinful humanity is in
rebellion against God. God, according to
the Book of Genesis, made men and women lords of the created world in the
Garden of Eden and required that they recognize him as their Lord. They rebelled, and then created order became
disorder.
This is not to
mention the undeserved suffering that people choose to inflict upon others, the
grossly sinful choices that we make.
God’s not responsible for our free choices to make war, to destroy the
environment, to traffic in drugs or human beings, to despise and mistreat our
brothers and sisters for any reason or no reason.
In the Book of
Job, after Job humbles himself before God’s wisdom and might, he’s restored to
his possessions and his health and is given new sons and daughters.
In the gospel,
the terrified disciples in the boat with Jesus are saved when they cry out to
him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re perishing?” (Mark 4:38). Regardless of the physical condition of the
universe—all its beauty and all its chaos like hurricanes and wildfires—and
regardless of the evil that some people inflict on others or the blessings of
health and liberty and family that some people enjoy: regardless of all that, we’re all
perishing. Or, as some cynic has said,
“No one gets out alive.”
On May 14, the
New York Times carried a story on its front page about a sister, a Daughter of St. Paul whose name,
ironically, is Sister Aletheia—the Greek word for “truth.” Her message to everyone is, “You are going to
die.” Then what? Suffering and death are part of life. Remember death and consider where you want to
end up. If you die as an unrepentant
sinner, you will indeed perish—eternally, in painful, hateful company with
Satan. If you die having called upon
Jesus and placed your hope in him, then he who has crushed Satan and risen from
the grave will save you—eternally in happiness beyond your wildest earthly
experience. The Lord who set the bounds
of the oceans and stilled their waves will unbind our bodies from pain and from
the grave and still everything that’s ever upset our hearts. He will love us as only a father or mother
can and let us love him and all of redeemed humanity more than we can ever love
our BFF or spouse or anyone.
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