“Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.”
For most of my life, I have been busy about many things.
When I was younger, I was busy about school;
when I grew up a little more, I was busy about dating and playing rugby.
Then going to college: I was busy about finishing and being successful.
Then when I went on to do my master’s degree
and came here to work here in the United States
and was busy about building my career; success!
Even when I went on to study for priesthood,
I was busy about studying.
When I became a priest, I was busy about doing the work of the Lord.
I was busy about many things.
In all those times, I was trying, to myself at the very least,
to prove myself to the Lord.
To prove myself worthy.
To do all the right things.
All the stuff, which we call the first half of live.
We are all familiar with it:
we build our career;
we build our relationships and our families;
and somewhere along the line,
the Lord invites us to a transformation;
something that we have to let go of
and it requires courage.
It requires of us to let go of the first half of life’s thoughts and thinking
and to embrace the second half of life’s thoughts and thinking;
the first half being focused on self
and the second half focused on others primarily.
In the busyness, we get caught up.
At least, I got caught up and often I still can get caught up.
We expect God to be in all of this stuff and not that he isn’t
but I think he is present in all things.
But I think more so, he is present when we become a little less busy.
Or better put, it is because we become more present to him.
In our first reading today, Elijah is really struggling.
He has done exactly what the Lord has asked him to do.
He has been busy prophesying;
busy telling the King and the Queen
that they are not exactly following the Lord’s way.
And now, he is on the run because Queen Jezebel is after him.
She wants him dead and so he is on the run.
The Lord has him go into a cave.
The Lord says, “I will be there for you and I will pass by.”
And so Elijah goes to the cave
and he hears these different sounds,
which have been traditionally associated with the presence of God.
A strong and heavy wind.
An earthquake and a huge fire.
But God does not come to him in any of these things.
You can tell, Elijah is disappointed.
Then he hears a tiny whispering sound and he says,
“And God was in the whispering sound.”
When we quiet ourselves down,
we find that God has been there all along.
But because we have not been able to be attentive to his presence,
we might miss that whispering sound and gentle presence.
It takes courage to slow down
and to do what the Lord wants us to do.
This is where Peter is in today’s gospel,
which is quintessential Peter, right?
“Tell me Lord,” he says, “if it is you, call me on the water.”
And he jumps out onto the water
and then sees what he is up against, the wind, and the howling wind.
The Lord says, “Just keeping looking at me.”
But he does not, and he starts to sink.
Also, it is important to note that it says here
that each time he called out to the Lord,
it says, “immediately Jesus took his hand.”
Immediately, he said.
In other words, if we call out to the Lord, the Lord is there.
And we will then immediately see his presence.
That is all great theology.
But we say, “So what Fr. Brendan, that’s great.
But what does it mean for us today?”
Many of us have a lot of fears these days.
In this pandemic of the Coronavirus and the Covid-19
and the resurgence that is happening and as a result,
we have this extended period of being locked in
and isolated from one another; we fear many things.
And so, what is it that we are being called to do?
A lot of us have had to slow down
and not do all the busyness of our past.
The temptation is to be busy about of all sorts of new things
that again continues to distract us
from what the Lord has called us to do.
The challenge in particular for us right now is to slow down;
it is to in fact not busy ourselves
but to take up a spiritual book and pray;
to take up some time to sit in silence and
listen to where God is calling us in our lives today.
There are many things that we can do and busy ourselves
but the better choice I think is to spend some time
listening to what God would have us do in prayer.
And then find out from that place that whispering voice
will then direct where our attention ought to go.
It could be to sit and listen to our children or our family;
or to spend some more time calling friends
who are isolated even more than we are;
or it may be time to write a letter.
I know it seems so quaint but maybe not an email
but maybe a note or a letter.
Or maybe it is to reach out vis á vie
facetime, skype or a video call to somebody
who is deeply isolated and needs to see our face and hear our voice.
It is a constant refrain for all of us
to take this opportunity to slow down
and to not busy ourselves with too many things
but rather to sit with the Lord;
to listen to his quiet whispering voice;
and see and hear what he has for us to do.
“Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.”
