NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
13 AUGUST 2017
The
14th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel gives us some valuable lessons about
faith. The chapter begins with Jesus
hearing the news of the murder of John the Baptist. Trusting in his Father and knowing that he
will meet the same fate, Jesus triesto go off by himself to mourn the loss of
his cousin and pray for strength. But,
he encounters a vast crowd, and he takes pity on them. He leads them to a deserted place, proclaims
the Good News to them, and feeds the five thousand with five loaves and two
fish. Resuming his original intention to
pray by himself, he retreats to a mountain and sends his disciples to cross the
Sea of Galilee in a boat. That is where
we meet them today. The disciples are
caught in a raging storm. Jesus waits
until the fourth watch of the night to walk toward them on the water. Peter wants to walk on the same watery
surface, only to sink into the sea.
Jesus pulls him up, and calms the waters.
In his
unwavering trust in his Father’s presence, Jesus provides a model for our
faith. But we need to look at the faith
of others in this chapter. The crowd
must have had some degree of faith, because they followed him into the deserted
place, trusting that he would not leave them to starve. The disciples had already committed
themselves to following him. But their
faith wavers in the raging storm, causing them to think that Jesus is a
ghost. Peter demands further proof, only
to sink into the water when fear causes him to take his eyes off Jesus. After chiding them for their lack of faith,
he accepts their profession of faith that he is truly the Son of God, the
message that had been announced at the Baptism of Jesus and on the Mount of
Transfiguration.
We want to
model our faith on that of Jesus Christ.
However, our lived faith is closer to of the rest of the people in
chapter 14. Like them, we follow him
into deserted places, because we have a basic trust that he will not leave us
to starve. But like the Israelites who
had followed Moses into the desert for forty years, we often complain and look
for signs of his presence. Like the
disciples, we have committed ourselves to Jesus Christ. But like them, we can easily despair when
stormy waters toss us about – either the stormy waters of our personal lives or
the stormy waters that toss the barque of Peter (the Church) about. Like Peter, we think that we can walk on any
surface that the Lord Jesus walked on.
But, we become terrified very easily, take our eyes off the Lord, and
sink into the waters of doubt and despair.
More than
likely, the disciples thought that Jesus had abandoned them. Why did he make them enter the boat,
especially when there was always a chance of a violent storm on the Sea of
Galilee? Why did he wait so long before
walking on the water to save them? Why
did he allow Peter to take those wary steps outside the boat, even when he knew
the weakness of his faith?
Centuries
before, Elijah the Prophet asked those same questions. After most of his people had abandoned their
faith, Elijah proved God’s power when he defeated the prophets of Baal at Mount
Carmel. His expression of faith in God
caused Queen Jezebel to send her soldiers to kill him. After walking forty days to Mount Horeb (Mount
Sinai), he expected to find God in the spectacular signs that Moses and his
people had experienced. But God was not
in any of those spectacular signs.
Instead, Elijah encountered God in a tiny, whispering sound (in
silence).
We too have
our own expectations of how we can encounter God, especially when life tosses
us about like that boat on the Sea of Galilee.
Our Scripture readings invite us to be open to the many ways in which we
encounter the Risen Christ. They also
invite us to spend time in silence.
Jesus Christ will not abandon us, any more than he abandoned those
people the 14th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Instead, he will calm the storms of life and
raise us from the depths of our despair and doubt. We have to be patient and keep our faith.
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