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	1st Reading
	Psalm
	2nd Reading
	Gospel
	Written Transcript of Homily
	Footnotes

I wanna look at the first reading again.

I think sometimes we’re just sort of settling in... and, yeah that was the first reading.

But lets look at the first reading.

Because... unless you understand it in the context of a wider story in the bible, it doesn’t mean a whole lot.

At the mountain of God, Horab... now that’s where God gave the laws, some call it Mount Seri or Horab...

It’s way in the south..

And Elijah had been way in the north.

He was in Mount Carmel which is almost as far north as you can get.

In the modern state of Israel

But he’s down in Herod, he’s traveled for forty days... God fed him.

And with the strength of the food that God gave him... he traveled for forty days.

And once again those of you who... who have been coming to the bible class.. And everybody else, remember that when the bible talks about the number forty, it means testing.

It’s about testing.

So.. He’s traveled forty days down the south of the country.

Elijah came to a cave where he took shelter.

The Lord said to him “Go outside... stand on the Mountain before the Lord, the Lord will be passing by.”

There was a strong and heavy wind... rending the mountain, crushing the rocks.

The Lord was not in the wind.

There was an earthquake, the lord was not in the earthquake.

There was fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

There was a tiny whispering sound...

..When he heard this.. Elijah hid his face in his cloak... and he went and stood in the entrance of the cave.

-Now!
When you cover your face with your cloak, that could be reverence, but when you usually cover your eyes... when you are upset.

You know..

You don’t want people to see you cry.

And I suspect this is why Elijah hid his eyes.

Not just because he knew it was the Lord, but because he was in distress.

You see.. He had just come from the greatest moment of his life... you probably remember this story:

In the bible.. Jezebel wanted to kill Elijah

Now Ahab was the king of the Northern kingdom of Israel

And Ahab.. Had married a woman from... well from Lebanon, who... were Idol-worshipers.

She worshiped fortitlity Gods.

She worshiped the “bows” they were called, they were fortility God’s.

And they have introduced this worship into the Israelite kingdom...and allowed Jezebel to corrupt the relationship that God had with His people in Northern Kingdom of Israel

And she had killed the prophets of God, the prophets of the Lord.

And there are only few of them left alive.

And Elijah came to confront King Ahab.

And he said, “I will challenge the prophets of the fortilty Gods, of the bows”

I will call them to a public challenge on mount Carmel.

So they went up the mountain, and they set up two alters.

And first it was the turn of the Prophets of Bow.

And they put the offering on the alter

And the challenge was, “Call Down fire from Heaven. The god who answers in fire is God.”

And so, all morning, the prophets of Bow prophesied and they shouted and the yelled and they prayed and they whipped themselves until blood flowed.

And Elijah was having a wonderful time mocking them...

He would say things like “Well, he’s a God, he must be very far away. Yell louder, he may be with the other God’s” at one point he even said, “Maybe he’s even in the washroom!”

And then... when they were done and the morning was over... Elijah said, “Soak the alter of the Lord in water. Soak it again, and again and again.”

Until the wood was wet, the offering was wet, and the water pooled at the foot of the alter.

And he simply prayed, “Lord, answer.”

And fire came down from Heaven and consumed the offering on the alter the wood on the alter and the very stones on the alter.

And people rose up, shouting, “The Lord is God alone. He is the God.”

And they killed the prophets of Bow.

You think that’s be the happy ending to the story.

Elijah won.

But Jezebel who was down in capitol in Samaria with her husband Ahab.

..Now Jezebel, when you say that, you think of the meaning of a suducteriss, and she wasn’t a seducteriss.

Her problem was that she wanted real estate.

She killed someone to get a feel for her husband.

That sort of thing.

She was a quizzitive and grasping..

Fond of power, fond of money.

Then when Jezebel heard that the prophets of Bow had been defeated and killed by the people, she was furious.

And she put out a warrant to have Elijah killed and Elijah fled to Horab

That’s how we got to this passage.

And you would suspect that at that point he had won.

But he hadn’t won.

He was worse off.

And his life was at greater danger after he had obeyed God and God has manifested such great power.

Now you may think that well this is just ancient mythology.

Just in a side, this is essentially what happened at Fatima you know.

This is what happened at Fatima.

Because there were two gods struggling in Fatima...

There was the God of secularism of column marks.

And Fatima, or Portugal had am essotional revolution.

And these little children began to have visions of the blessed mother.

And people, though they didn’t see the Blessed Mother, would see a light descend from Heaven and rest in this little tree.       

This happened in 1917.

And the children, you know this story was arrested, and the government said “we’re going to kill you unless you say this is just a plot”

and these little children stuck to the truth and said, “no.. kill us, we saw what we saw.”       

And they said, “Well the Lady has promised that there will be something for everybody to see on October 13th.”

And... the government officials were delighted, because when the large crowd gather, and nothing happened, they would tear the children limb from limb.

The Children discredited themselves.

So there was a challenge between the God that Calum Mark preached and it is a God.

He says that matter itself is God.

And the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jake..the God of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, the God of our Blessed Mother... so those two God’s.... were challenged in Fatima In 1917.

And sixty thousand people gathered and the sun fell from Heaven, and the crowd, the angry crowd that were wet, muddy and tired, was suddenly clean and dry.

And changed...

So if you think this is just ancient mythology, well.. There are people who are still alive that saw it happen in Portugal..

But that’s simply aside.

After this great event...

Elijah... was worse off...

Then he had been before.

And he came to the mouth of the cave when he heard the whispering sound, and he knew God was there, in quiet and stillness.

And he covered his eyes...

And I”m sure the cry of his heart was simply this, “Lord, what are you doing? Where have you brought me? What are you doing with me?”

All of us have had that happen.. In our life that we’re taken to a place by God that we did not want to go.

That we thought it would work out another way..

And instead of improving our situation, God seems to have made it worse..

“What are you doing with me, Lord?”

Well.. In the gospel... we see Peter...

Getting out of the boat, you gotta love Peter, eh is what we would call a piece of work.
 

All of the other disciples were smart enough to stay put.

But Peter.. Challenged God.

He challenged the Lord, and he said “If it is you” just as Elijah had said, “If God is God”... and I don’t recommend this to you, unless God has put it to you very clearly..

But Peter had challenged the Lord and he said, “If it is you, bid me, come to you”

And Peter stepped out of the boat..

He didn’t just simply step out of the boat into the storm and the wind and waves....

But remember, the scripture says it was the forth watch of the night.

He stepped out into the storm and the darkness.

And he promptly began to sink.

And I imagine...Peter must had said what Elijah said, “Lord, I thought you said come to me!”
   
“What are you doing to me?!”

and the Lord grabbed his hand and they were at the shore.

So often... when we pray.... we want to tell God how things should end up.

And they do not end the way we want them to.

We cannot manipulate heaven by our prayers.

That is not the purpose of prayer.

Peter....

Asked, I think, a question of the Lord.

“If it is you”

Now, this passage, in this version of mark, it is very important to me.

It changed the way I learned about scripture.

All because a friend of mine, this would have been, oh gosh, thirty years ago.

We had a wonderful bible study in youth group.

A friend of mine, a young man, Puertrican- who’s.. not so young anymore...

He came up to me and said, “When Jesus was walking across the water... where was He going?”

And I thought what an interesting question.

Well, this passge seems to make it... seems to indicate He was talking to the boat.

But in the Gospel of Mark he makes it seem like He were to pass by them.

Where was He going?

Now... Peter... didn’t really ask that question, I think, He didn’t ask where you’re going. He asked, “Is it you?”

He just got out of the boat because it was Jesus.

You know... this story reminds me in a strange way, of... of the civil war, the American Civil war.

If you have never studied the American Civil war, it is an amazing, amazing horrible glorious war.

It was a war fought under the old concept of nobility and ( ? ? ? ) and six hundred thousand people were killed.

It was probably one of the most foolish wars ever fought, and one of the most grand.

And I use to tell my students, the civil war, the American civil war made the Trojan war look like a fraternity prank..   

It was an unbelievable, unbelievable war.
 

And one of the high points of it was that William ( ? ? ) Shermans march to the sea.   

He burned the city of Alanta and Georgia, and then cut himself free from his base of supply and marched all the way to Savanna Georgia on the East coat, burning and destroying as he went.

And as he passed through... that part of the Country... slaves, African American slaves, knew that they were finally free.

And they would leave their plantations, and their masters and their chains, and follow this grand army.

Thinking it led to Freedom..

Now, William ( ? ?? ) Sherman, like most people in his age, like many in ours, he was no great liberator of slaves, he was a racist.

He wanted to defeat the South.

He had no interest in freeing the slaves.

Well a vast army of slaves began to follow Sherman.

And they were getting in the way.

This was suppose to be a fast, light, lightening-swift march through Georgia.

And increasingly there was this mob of men, women and children!

And... they came to a river, a flooded river, and the union army put down a pontoon bridge, and all the soldiers crossed over this bridge.

And the general in charge of the rear guard, who was also no great friend of this slave, looked at this mob and thought they would follow and he cut the bridge lose, and that mob of slaves saw the union army across the river and they knew behind them were coming the forces of their former masters....

And desperate, they plunged into the river, and hundreds and hundreds were killed, drowning in the current.

Almost none made it to the other side..

But they leaped into the river!

Because across the way they saw the promise of freedom!

Just as Peter foolishly got out of the boat because he saw Christ...

The safety of the boat meant nothing... in the light of the beauty and the truth and the freedom that he knew Jesus of Nazareth could give..

And he leaped out of the boat and ran across the waves in the darkness, and became afraid, and began to sink.

Now, there’s another story...

Jesus... is said to appear to Peter at the end of his life, and Peter then asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”

There’s a little chapel just south of Rome, called, “Lord, where are you going?”

(? ? ? ? ?? )

Because Peter.... fled from Rome to the persecution of Narrow and he left Rome with his wife and his followers.. And a few miles south... from the gate, the Southern gate of Rome..

It said he had a vision of Jesus, carrying His cross, and he looked a tthe Lord and said, “Lord, where are you going?”

And Jesus said, “Peter, if you will not stay in Rome and die for my flock, I will go and die all over again.”

And Peter turned around and went back and was killed.

Was crucified.

Saying, “I am not worthy of dying as my master.”

He asked though, “Lord, where are you going?”

Now you and I, we ask that all the time. “Lord, where are you going? And Where are you taking me?”

The fact is to be a disciple is to follow.

Without asking where you’re going.

You know.. In our prayer, in my prayer, I say, “Lord where are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

And the Lord says, “it’s none of your business, your business is to follow. Come.”

“But Lord, wh– how will this end up? How will it work out? Will I have enough?”

The Lord says, “It’s none of your business. Follow.”

So get out of the boat.. Means to say, “I don’t know where this will end up... but give me Jesus.”

There’s a wonderful old spiritus that says, “When I am afraid, give me Jesus.”

You may have Him.

All this world... give me Jesus.

And when I come to die... you may have all this world... but give me Jesus.

When we pray.... we say, “Lord, this is what I want, and this is what I want.”

And He says, “Come.”

Why do you doubt?

I will not let you drown.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.