Fr Jack SJ MD

Walkin’ on the Water: 19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a

Ps 85

Rom 9:1-5

Mt 14:22-33

"Lord let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation."

Psalm 85 brings the two readings and the Gospel together. Each reading is about faith fraying along the edges or faith that seemed to be lost. Each of the speakers: Elijah, Paul, and Peter could have easily uttered the psalm response

from his position of desperation, discouragement, or fear. We can identify with those feelings and add a few of our own.

Things can't be worse for Elijah. He fled to escape the wrath of the evil Jezebel

who wanted him dead. While in hiding an angel instructed him to eat and prepare for a journey. All Elijah wanted was to die. He was despondent and had lost hope. His faith was shaky. He ate only because the angel demanded that he do so. Then, he began a journey of forty days.

The Jewish Study Bible notes that when unencumbered and alone a man could walk between 15 and 25 miles per day Multiplied by 40 days, Elijah walked between 600 and 1000 miles. To put the distances into perspective, it is about 500 miles south from Boston to Washington, DC and 1000 miles west to Chicago.

What went through his mind during that arduous trek? What goes through our minds during the 40-day journeys we are forced to take during life, the journeys of chemotherapy, chronic pain, or the seemingly endless journey of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's?

Elijah's encounter with God in a whisper rather than an earth-shaking event is one of the remarkable images in the Old Testament. Elijah had to be open and willing to hear that whisper. He had to be attuned to and ready for it. Similarly, we have to be prepared and willing to hear the voice of God in a whisper, in the brief moment of quiet that interrupts the background noise that complicates our lives.

Paul’s discouragement that his people rejected Jesus is palpable. His distress was such that he would have been willing to have himself cut off from Christ

if they would accept the great gift of salvation. We all know Paul’s frustration.

We know the pain when no one will listen to us. We know the frustration of being met with opposition by everyone in our lives: family, friends, co-workers and so on. We know that feeling of radical loneliness when we plead: "Lord let me see you kindness and grant me your salvation."

Today’s Gospel take place immediately after Jesus fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes. The crowd had dispersed. He dismissed his disciples and went up the mountain alone to pray. Something important happens here, something we fail to notice much of the time. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that we know from the Gospels that Jesus frequently spent nights alone in prayer and conversation with His Father. He suggests that Jesus’ speech, preaching and ministry grew out of that silence and matured within the accompanying solitude.

While Jesus was praying the apostles were crossing the 4 1/2 mile wide Sea of Galilee. They were a few miles off-shore and in no position to swim if the boat capsized. It was very late. The fourth watch of the night was between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. Thus they had been struggling to cross--and Jesus had been in prayer--for hours.

We can identify with their terror when they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. And then, as we heard, Peter acted. when he ”got out of the boat

and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.” But his faith wavered when he saw how strong the wind was.” Fear replaced faith. This brings up the difficult question, “What is faith.”

Australian Trappist Fr. Michael Casey makes an important point: “Faith has to grapple constantly with the doubts we may experience when we hear the words of the poet Robert Browning God is in his heaven—all’s right with the world.' So often it doesn’t seem that way.” Many times in our lives it doesn’t seem, or didn’t seem, that God is in his heaven or that anything is right with the world.

Casey goes on to define faith: “Faith means letting go of our ambition to control, understand, or even cope with what happens. Faith means releasing our anxieties into God’s hands and seeing all that happens as coming from the hand of God. The fact that I cannot comprehend the logic of events means simply that my intellect is limited. Our relationship with God is often undermined by fears about impending disaster”

It is terrifying to be wheeled into an operating room. It is panic-inducing to hear a diagnosis of cancer. No one can describe the emotions upon the death of one’s child. Our faith wavers and, like Peter, we begin to sink. Our faith may waver

when we realize the seriousness of our situation. We may suddenly doubt

as the river rises above flood stage in our lives.

Faith does not mean that life will go smoothly. Faith is not a shield against trauma. Faith does not protect us from pain nor is it a Berlin wall against

the anguish of grief. Faith is an umbrella over us during these crises.

Peter’s faith was strong when he jumped out of the boat because he wasn't thinking about it too much.

When he began to intellectualize and pay attention to the storm he tried to take control. For the moment his faith vanished. And then he prayed; “Lord. Save me!” We also try walk on the waters of a stormy lake at night. In those moments

we can only plead as did the psalmist:

"Lord let us see you kindness and grant us your salvation."

_______________________________________________________

Photos are from Gerroa, NSW, Australia, specifically along Seven Mile Beach. We spent the first ten days of tertianship there getting to know eah other. Glorious time.