I'm not afraid

Today is Father's Day, Happy Father’s to our Dads! Of course I am thinking about my dad. When my dad was around, I was never terrified or afraid. I had a lot of faith in my dad. I remember very well many times traveling in the car with my father behind the wheel. My seven brothers and my mom happily riding along. Sometimes in the middle of a storm, maybe it was snowing hard or raining. I was not afraid because my dad was there, I had faith in him. This does not mean that there were no hazards, that a tire could not go flat, or we could go off the road. But I knew that my dad loved me and he was there so he was not afraid. My hope is that everyone had a dad like my dad, but I know not. I invite you to think of someone else in whom you put faith. The disciples in today's gospel were in the same situation. They were in the boat with Jesus and when the storm started and the boat began to take on water and they were afraid. They woke Jesus up, and Jesus calmed the sea and them “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith? " Why were they afraid? Well this is an easy question. They were afraid because the boat was taking on water, the wind was strong, the waves were crashing over the boat, many people had lost their lives on Lake Tiberias. It was possible for them too. There was good reason for them to be afraid. We also have fears. This great pandemic is a good example. 600,000 people lost their lives, many became ill. Surely each of us knows someone who got sick. Many have lost a loved one. We are afraid when the Doctor says we have cancer, people of color are afraid of the police. It's hot and the possibility of wild fires is real. Why are we so afraid? Because the world is difficult, the dangers are real. We might sink, we might drown, we might get sick and die. Faith is not simply believing that God exists. It isn’t faith to say, "I am not going to get vaccinated, or I am not going to wear a mask. Because God will protect me." That isn't faith. When I was a child in my dad's car, having faith didn't mean I wasn't going to put the seat belt on, or that my dad hadn't checked to see if the tires were okay. No this is not faith. That is why Jesus asks the second question, "Do you not yet have faith?" Faith does not mean that there is nothing in the world to be afraid of. Or if we have faith nothing bad will happen to us. Today's first reading is from Job. Job was a man of great faith. He had lost all of his children and all of his possessions in one day. He has a terrible skin infection. His faith had not saved Job from these disasters, surely people died of Covid with much more faith than me. So I want to go back to the example of my dad. I was not afraid because I had faith in my dad. Something could have happened but he was with me. He was with my family. My dad loved me and I had a relationship with him.. The same with our father God if we have faith in God this means that we know that God is always with us. It means that we know that God loves us. Faith, then, is not simply believing that God exists. No, faith is the desire to have a relationship with God, to trust, to enter into a friendship with our Father God. If we have a relationship with God, if we know that God is always with us, we don't have to be afraid because God loves us. It does not matter if we live or die, if we are healthy or sick, if we are rich or poor, we are in the presence of a God who loves us. In the gospel it says that Jesus was asleep. Sometimes we feel that God is asleep, that we are in the middle of a storm and where is God? Well, we fear that God is asleep what do we need to do? We have to wake him up. We awaken God through prayer. When we feel that God is far away we simply have to remember that he is here, and through prayer we call on him and we have the opportunity to further deepen our relationship with him.