Homily for Tuesday, 7 August 2018– Ferial

Tuesday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time


Optional Memorial of Sts. Sixtus II and Companions and St. Cajetan

Readings of the day: Jeremiah 30:1-2, 12-15, 18-22; Psalm 102:16-18, 19-21, 22-23, 29; Matthew 14:22-36

This homily was given at the Kateri House Women's Residence Chapel at St. Joseph's College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Could our readings today be the Biblical version of “Mission: Impossible”?

In the book of Jeremiah, God promises the people of Israel the impossible, in light of the social and political situation of Israel at the time. And in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus enables Peter, the other Apostles, and then all the people in the region of Lake Gennesaret to do what would have been impossible without Jesus’ stilling of the storm and healings: To have faith in him as the Son of God.

The book of Jeremiah raises a theological question, more than other Biblical prophetic books do, as to whether God is capable of abandoning his people completely if the sin of the people of Israel becomes great enough. Jeremiah, more than any other prophet, leans toward a “yes” answer to this question. Also, Jeremiah says to the people of Israel, they are already at the point at which their sin, their injustice and, worst of all, their worship of other gods has put them beyond redemption; beyond the ability even of God to save them from the consequences of their wrongdoing.

We might imagine how this message did not make Jeremiah a popular figure in Israel. To Israel’s people, Jeremiah’s message was as if to say that God’s unbreakable relationship, called a covenant, with his people, was in fact breakable; that God could be unfaithful to his own covenant. This contradicted what other prophets of Jeremiah’s time and before and after were saying.

Yet, amid Jeremiah’s harsh message, like any true prophet he offers his people hope. Indeed, the evil Israel was committing would entail consequences, finally exile to Babylon. Even God was not going to prevent due consequences for Israel’s sin. But out of the destruction and exile of Israel, God would do the almost impossible: God would bring Israel back to its homeland and rebuild Israel around social justice and right worship of the one true God. “I am going to restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob, and have compassion on his dwellings,” God says through Jeremiah. In light of Israel’s sin and unfaithfulness to their covenant with God, this restoration of Israel would be like “Mission: Impossible,” except for God.

In Matthew’s Gospel, the storm on the lake is not because of anybody’s sin, but still it must have seemed to Jesus’ disciples in the boat that everybody and everything, including, as Matthew says, even “the wind was against them.” Amid this chaos, of which the Gospel writer may have thought as a parallel to God’s ordering the chaos in the first Genesis creation account, Jesus invites Peter to walk toward him on the water.

Peter almost makes “Mission: Impossible” possible, until his focus shifts from God’s presence, which alone makes possible the impossible, to his own fear. At this point, he recognizes how “little faith” he truly has; how much greater his fear is than his faith. But his “little faith” is enough, together with God’s great grace in Jesus Christ. God’s grace in Jesus Christ allows Peter’s “little faith” to multiply and spread. “Those in the boat,” and then the people in the region, worship Jesus. If only we “might touch even the fringe of his cloak,” the impossible might become possible for us, too: Healing; quelling chaos and fear; salvation.

Our “little faith,” too, upheld by God’s grace, is just enough to make possible the otherwise impossible. It is just enough to save us.