Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost • Year A

Historical Collect

Almighty and merciful God, only by your gift of grace can the faithful offer service that is worthy of you and deserving of praise. Keep us from stumbling as we run to receive your promises; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Leonine Sacramentary, 6th Century)

Thematic Collect

Almighty God, in the midst of the storms of life, Christ’s presence brings eternal peace and calms our fears. Grant us peace through scripture, and through the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Then send us forth to be signs of Christ’s peace in the world; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

The Common Thread

God speaks to us all when he answers Job out of the whirlwind. The God of all creation is in control. Even when our souls are poured out within us (Job 30:16), the Lord is our strength. When death assails us, even then he is in control of our lives. He has drawn us out of many waters already — even through baptism, the water of death (Rom 6:3; Gal 3:27). So let us make the good confession of faith in Christ. He has saved us already, as he promised, so that we may confess without fear or doubt that Jesus is Lord. He is the horn of our salvation.

First Reading • Job 38:4-18

The words of the Lord are stinging, even sarcastic. Yet, his remarks are meant as irony; Job is to understand his point. If God knows the “measurements” of the “foundation of the earth,” surely he knows the depths of Job’s despair. God has “walked in the recesses of the deep” and has sets their limits. He also knows our limitations, and is faithful to “provide the way of escape (1 Cor 10:13).

Psalm • Psalm 18:1-6, 7-16

We often feel that we can go no further; surely this was Job’s state. We seem ensnared, strangled, suffocated by life and that there is nothing we might do to escape. These are the moments when we must call upon the strength of the Lord, instead of relying upon our own power. When we call upon the Lord, we are saved, for as Luther says, the Lord has “got[ten] ahead of [us] in this matter” (Luther’s Works, vol 10). Our cries do reach God’s ears and, just as he did for our Savior, God will loose us from the pangs of death (Acts 2:24).

Second Reading • Romans 10:5-17

We may see Job’s sorry state in ourselves. He insisted that he had done no wrong, and did not deserve what had befallen him. “The patience of Job” had run out. Though he was a devout and benevolent man, he longed for his day in court with God. He had no idea who it was he really would see there (Job 42:5-6).

When confronted with who God truly is, one should be reminded to love God with the whole of self—despite the conditions of life. We finally understand our unrighteousness before God, though we may be blameless in our morality and practices, when we concur with Luther that we do not “trust, fear, and love him with our whole heart” (Tappert, Concord, 379).

To live by the law, in the end, is to conclude with Charles Wesley, “I am all unrighteousness” (“Just As I Am”). Yet, there is a righteousness beyond self, that is as near as the heart and mouth. We must finally confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and our only righteousness. 

Gospel • Matthew 14:22-33

There are things more frightening than the storm. When the disciples see Jesus walking toward them across the sea, they forget the fearsome storm. They think they have seen a ghost, and are more frightened by this supposed apparition than they have been of the raging sea. At the word of Jesus, all fears are relieved. Now Peter desires to be in the very place he had feared so much, because his Lord is there.

There is often a storm just before the peace. Jesus is always in the storm, and so, we may come to him there in these peaceful storms, as easily as we may in times of calm.