Psalms 107:33-43, 108:1-6(7-13) * 33; 2 Kings 19:21-36; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Matthew 8:18-27I walked into the office on Thursday morning quite cranky. My beautiful and loving dog was being a bit of a brat, traffic patterns around DC were particularly awful and I was exhausted. The combination of all of these made for a cranky start, about which I was quite embarrassed about an hour later. I did apologize to our executive secretary to whom I was a bit snappy when I arrived on Thursday. His response was: it happens to everyone, don't worry about it, which was awfully nice of him.
There is a certain relief when I read today's Gospel selection as Jesus appears to be a bit peevish with everyone he comes across. He has just come down from the mountain where he had just delivered a boatload of teaching. He comes off the mountain, and (in yesterday's reading) he: heals the leper, heals the centurion's servant from a distance, heals Peter's mother-in-law of a fever and cures many other sick and casts out demon spirits. Jesus finishes all those things and looks up and still sees enormous crowds (the beginning of today's reading) and decides he needs to leave (to go to the other side). He gets cranky with a scribe, directs a disciple to leave his unburied father, and scolds his disciples for being afraid of a windstorm. We can tell Jesus is tired, exhausted perhaps. Yet through that exhaustion, he continues to respond, perhaps a bit snappy in tone, but still doing what he is called upon to do.
We are all human and get tired and can be a bit reactive at times. Recognizing our humanness and still doing what we are called upon to do, is modeled for us by Jesus today. A good reminder.
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Copyright 2009, The Rev. John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
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