1 Kings 19:9, 11-13
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:22-33
Bishop Untener's Homily
This Gospel passage is a fascinating story. But the Gospel writers didn't include these stories just because they're fascinating. They are always "for us and for our salvation." They're to help us. This passage in particular can be very, very helpful. Let's look at it.
The Scene
The first thing to do is to set the scene. It takes place in the northern part of the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is seven miles wide and 13 miles long. In the northern part it is over 150 feet deep. So, it's a large body of water.
Jesus came walking on that water, the Gospel says, "during the fourth watch of the night." That would be between three and six a.m. - the darkest part of the night.
Then there's the storm. A bad one. We've all seen them. Been in them. Maybe even when we were in a boat. We know the fear. But in the darkest part of the night, in 150 feet of water? That is frightening.
Then there's "the boat." No doubt it was one of the fishing boats owned by Peter and his brother Andrew, or James and his brother John - as you recall, they were fishermen. What were boats like back then? Well, in 1986 an old fishing boat was discovered buried in the mud a few hundred feet offshore in the northwest part of the Sea of Galilee - which is where this Gospel scene takes place. By carbon dating they were able to establish that this boat goes back to the time of Christ. There's no way they could identify it as belonging to one of the disciples, but it appears to be a typical fishing boat used at that time. It is seven and a half feet wide, and 26 and a half feet long. That's not a very large boat to be sailing on a body of water that large, but it's all they had back then.
So, that's the scene - the northern part of the Sea of Galilee, during the darkest part of the night, a storm coming on, and the disciples in a small boat. And Jesus... he's not in the boat with them. At the beginning of this passage he was up on a mountain, alone. Then he appears at some distance, walking on the sea.
What Does This Scene Teach Us?
You know the rest of the story. What do we learn from this scene?
The Sea of Galilee represents "our world." You and I were born into this time and place. This is the piece of history on which we sail... where we spend our lives. It wasn't our choice, but here we are, and we can't escape into the past or into the future. This is the sea we sail.
The darkest part of the night - the fourth watch. That represents whatever darkness there is in my life. We all have dark parts in our life. Sometimes we don't know exactly why. It's just part of my life that's dark, not bright. We've all got those dark places.
The storm - that represents the problems in my life, problems great and small, which I can't seem to control, any more than the disciples could control that storm. Some are on a world scale. We worry these days about terrorism, and figure that sooner or later terrorists will get hold of nuclear weapons, or biological weapons. That's on our minds. Or, the economy - the stock market isn't doing well and that affects everything, and you and I can't do much about it.
There are also problems in our Church - there always have been. We've just faced a great scandal in our Church. We've also watched Catholic schools close because of the costs - something that you and I don't want to see happen. There's also a shortage of priests and religious. There's also something that bothers all of us very much. We haven't been able to inspire many of our children to follow us in the path of faith that we were given by our parents. They don't go to Church regularly, if at all. We haven't been able to pass it on very well.
Then there are the "storms" in our personal lives. I can't list those for you, but we all have them. They're storms in our stomach, and they're with us every day and, like that storm on the Sea of Galilee, we can't control them. Each of us has our own.
What about the small boat? That represents each of us. We face all these things and we feel small. We're tossed about by them, like that small boat on the Sea of Galilee. We're just trying to make it through a day, through a week.
And Jesus, where is he? We believe in Jesus, and we come here to celebrate the Eucharist, but these dark places and stormy places in our lives - he just doesn't seem to be part of them. He seems one step removed, looking at them from the outside. He's not in the boat with us. He can seem as far away as on that mountain, praying alone. Or, nearby as he was on the sea when the disciples spotted him from the boat. Or, close to the boat but not in it, as when Peter thought he had to get out of the boat and walk on the water to get to Jesus.
What Do We Do?
So what do we do about all that? Well, as I said, we can learn something very, very helpful from this passage. What do we do? We do what the disciples did. We cry out to him, and we bring him into the darkness, into the storm. We bring him into our boat! That's the key.
The dark places in my life? The storms in my life? I sit there and talk to Jesus who seems to be some distance away. I go to Jesus, rather than bringing Jesus into the "boat". That's the mistake Peter made. He wanted to walk across the water toward Jesus, rather then bring him into the boat. Jesus is willing to come there. He wants to come there. We have to let him in. But usually, we don't think he belongs there. So we talk to him as though he were one step removed from us as we face the darkness, the waves, and the storm.
Another thing. When we call the Lord into our boat, we shouldn't pray in general terms, or too politely, or indirectly, using carefully chosen words. We need straight and direct talk. Peter, when he was sinking didn't say, "Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, and I praise you and thank you for your goodness, and I was wondering if you would please turn toward me and be with me..." No. Peter said, "Lord, save me!"
We need to talk straight to the Lord about the problem parts of our world, our Church, our personal lives. We need to speak clearly, emotionally.
What happens when we do that? Well, all the problems don't evaporate. But the storm inside me calms down. And the darkness in me brightens. And when the Lord gets into my boat - my life - I get a sense of peace. In this Gospel passage, when Jesus got into the boat, "the wind died down."
I invite us now to take some quiet time, about a minute of silence, and think about the dark spots and the storms in our world, our Church and our own personal lives, and bring the Lord into our boat. And when we do that we experience the peace and the light that the Lord always, always brings.
Originally given on August 23, 2003