This Great Kindness

“You have already thought enough of your servant
to do me the great kindness of intervening to save my life.”-Genesis 19:19

Experience with life, mostly through the military, has led me to believe that fear is inescapable by all people.  Often times, I find myself experiencing panic and fear relatively often.  What triggers this response for me personally is being startled unexpectedly, thunder and lightning, other drivers, and so on.  I should be comforted by our saints in scripture who shared in this emotional response.  But that is not what Jesus wants for us. 

            The first reading for today is the flight of Lot and his family.  Our reflection centers not on the stories or the miracles they contain, even though they are important, but on the action of God.  Lot explicitly tells God, and us, that God has done enough by intervening to save his life and the lives of his family.  I must confess that this singular verse has always been overlooked by me up until now.  This verse is very important because it expresses the truth of the Paschal mystery in my life and yours. 

            The verse from Genesis 19:19 is full of things to reflect upon.  The first I would like to consider is the divine revelation that God thinks of us.  I once heard that we receive divine revelation because God thinks of us.  This is the essential truth of the immanent and intimate God that we have come to know through the teaching of the Church. 

This dogmatic truth about God is clearly revealed in Sacred Scripture from the very beginning.  However, I consider it to be through my own selfishness that this truth becomes obscured by sin, which I think is relevant to all of us in our Christian journey.  And this is true of sin:  Sin has an etymological meaning which has been defined as ‘missing the mark.’  As we miss the mark in our lives, we become turned away from God and begin an inward movement which is also away from God.  I know in my own life when I become turned away from God and become self-oriented, I find that I can make it easy to justify sinful behaviors.  It is only through the grace of God, that I can receive the slap on the face, a splash of water, and find myself.  Then through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I can be open to repentance and seek confession. 

This particular scripture is interesting in how is opens the understanding of the saving action of Christ on the cross.  But first, let’s reflect on Lot’s statement and how it helps make sense of Jesus and the disciples in the boat.  Lot’s statement is a bold statement because it occurs as he is negotiating with the angels of the Lord.  He has already found favor with the Lord, and the Lord has the angels instruct Lot to flee Sodom and Gomorrah.  What Lot is ensuring is that he and his family are not killed when they flee.  The angels promise Lot that if they can get to the town safely, then they shall be saved, so long as they don’t look back.  As the story goes, Lot and his family flee, but his wife turns back and is turned into a pillar of salt while the rest of the family is saved. 

The scriptures reveal that, first and foremost, Lot recognizes that the Lord has saved his life.  The passage also reveals that Lot also fears for his life but continues to place his trust and faith in the Lord.  These two themes help us to understand the brief Gospel passage today from the Gospel of Matthew. 

The context for the Gospel reading is that Jesus has performed miracles throughout Capernaum.  The crowd that is following him has grown to a considerable size when he reaches the Sea of Galilee.  He sees the crowd and directs them “to cross to the other side” (Mt 8:18).  Jesus and his disciples hop into the boat and set sail to meet them.  The Sea of Galilee is not a pond or a small lake.  The trip to the other side takes some time to sail across.  Jesus takes a nap.  This very act of falling asleep, and remaining asleep in a storm that is flooding the boat, reveals to us the humanity of Christ.  He slept and apparently was not quite a soft sleeper.  The disciples become afraid.  I know from my personal experiences that I would be as well.  In their panic and fear, they wake up Jesus.  Jesus replies to their cries for help with “Why are you terrified?”  I think we can understand why they were.  He then chastises them, “O you of little faith”, a phrase oft quoted.  Reflecting on the understanding of Christ’s words teach us that we should not be afraid. 

Jesus had some real panache.  When he teaches, he makes a real statement because he catches the attention of the disciples by bringing to their attention that they have demonstrated little faith.  He then rebuked the storm and then it became calm.  The disciples are amazed and they continue on with the trip.  He continues to perform miracles. 

Christ calls us to have faith and courage.  We hear this call to not be afraid.  The Gospel speaks to the disciples and it speaks to us.  We need to know that God has saved us and continues to call us to deepen our faith in him.  Our faith is not one based in terror but is over abundant with love.  So when we encounter struggles, we should not be afraid nor should we be of little faith but find Jesus in the midst of our struggles.  Above all, remember that Jesus has “already thought enough of [his] servant to do me [and all of us] the great kindness of intervening to save my life.”