Daily Reading

First Reading

Genesis 19:15-29

When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or else you will be consumed in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and left him outside the city. When they had brought them outside, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the Plain; flee to the hills, or else you will be consumed.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords; your servant has found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life; but I cannot flee to the hills, for fear the disaster will overtake me and I die. Look, that city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Very well, I grant you this favor too, and will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” Therefore the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the Plain and saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of a furnace.

So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the Plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had settled.

Psalm

Psalm 26:2-3, 9-10, 11-12

Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
    test my heart and mind.
For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
    and I walk in faithfulness to you.
Do not sweep me away with sinners,
    nor my life with the bloodthirsty,
those in whose hands are evil devices,
    and whose right hands are full of bribes.
But as for me, I walk in my integrity;
    redeem me, and be gracious to me.
My foot stands on level ground;
    in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

Gospel Reading

Matthew 8:23-27

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, you of little faith?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”

Reflection

Friends, in this wonderful story of the calming of the storm at sea, we witness some of the spiritual dynamics of fear and trust. The disciples stand symbolically for all of us journeying through life within the narrow confines of the fearful ego.

When they confront the storm and the mighty waves, they are immediately filled with terror. Similarly, when the trials and anxieties of life confront the ego, the first reaction is fear, since there is no power beyond itself upon which it can rely. In the midst of this terrible storm, this inner and outer tension, Jesus symbolizes that divine energy that remains unaffected by the fear-storms generated by the grasping ego. Continuing to read the story at a spiritual level, we see that it is none other than this divine power that successfully calms the waves: He “rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.” This beautiful narrative seems to suggest that if we but awaken to the presence of God within us, if we learn to live and to see at a deeper level, if we live in basic trust rather than fear, then we can withstand even the most frightening storms.