19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle A
St. Mark Parish, Fallston
August 7, 2011
AMAZING GRACE? YES, IT IS!
AMAZING GRACE
One of our classic Christian hymns is Amazing Grace.
We all know those opening lines: “Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!” We sing of God’s grace saving us.
In our Christian or Catholic vocabulary, we used to use the word grace much more frequently than we do today. Today we still believe in this reality, but we often use other words for it.
Today, more often we speak of the presence, the love, the strength, or the healing action of God. These words help to express the reality of what God does for us or who God is for us.
And, of course, in all of this, God is giving himself to us. God’s action is gratuitous, gratis, and from this we get the word grace.
GOD REACHES OUT
I see today’s Gospel as a story about the grace of God.
Jesus extends himself, his hand and arm, to Peter. Peter is afraid because of the wind and waves on the lake.
The whole point here is that Jesus is here for us when we have to deal with the winds and waves of life. God gratuitously reaches out to us.
God gives us his presence when we are afraid or anxious. God gives us his love when we feel abandoned or alone.
God gives us his strength when we find life difficult or burdensome. And God gives us his healing when we are spiritually injured or even physically ill.
WE REACH BACK
Yes, God reaches out himself to us and the experience of that contact, we call grace.
But, like Peter, we need to allow Jesus to take hold of us. We need to allow him to be present, to love, to strengthen and to heal us.
And to do this we need to keep our eyes fixed on God, on Jesus. Remember, Peter becomes afraid and gets into trouble when he takes his eyes off of Jesus.
He starts to sink when he just focuses on the wind and the waves. The same thing can happen to us.
There will be wind and waves in our lives too – a personal sickness, the death of a loved one, financial troubles, a son or daughter trapped in an addiction, and on it can go. Yes, we all experience winds and waves in our lives.
And in these times, if we keep our eyes focused just on the troubles, we will get overwhelmed and start sinking like Peter. The key is keep your eyes fixed on the Lord.
LOOKING AT JESUS
How do we do this?
My experience tells me that if we are going to keep our eyes on Jesus in the storms of life, we need a pattern for doing this every day, even when there is no storm.
I recommend three habits or actions for doing this.
FIRST, I suggest that every morning you offer a prayer to center yourself on the Lord. You can thank God just for the gift of a new day of life.
You can ask the Lord for strength and guidance in what you have to do in this new day. This kind of brief Morning Prayer, whether our personal weather is calm or stormy, helps us to develop a pattern of keeping our eyes fixed on the Lord.
SECOND, I recommend that we choose a one-sentence prayer and pray it often during the course of the day. For example, “I am with you always,” or “God is love” or “Lord, you are my refuge and my strength.”
A one-sentence prayer like one of these helps us to stay centered on the Lord throughout the day. It helps us to keep our eyes on the Lord whether our personal weather is calm or stormy.
AND THIRD, let’s learn a lesson from Elijah who was looking for God in extraordinary places like strong and heavy wind that was rending the mountains and crushing rocks. But, recall, the Lord was not in the wind. Or in the earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Or the fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
Where did he find the Lord? In the tiny whispering sound! So Elijah hides his face in his cloak. It’s the same Lord we find in the sacraments using ordinary elements like water, oil, bread and wine. And right here in the ordinary and everyday we bow our heads over God’s reaching out to us.
CONCLUSION
When we respond to God in these ways, we are clearing the way for him to take hold of us and be the steady help he wants to be.
And that is Amazing Grace!
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