1 Kings 19:9a,11-13a. Romans 9:1-5. Matthew 14:22-33.
For the Nineteenth
Ordinary Sunday of the Church Year
Some time ago— also on a boat in a
storm-tossed lake— the terrified disciples saw Christ scold the wind and the
water into silence and stillness.
That time, too, he accused all of
them— not only Peter— of lacking faith.
Why
are you afraid, O men of little faith?
They asked themselves: Who is this that commands even wind and water, and they
obey him?
Today, as then they are on a boat
endangered on the heaving waves.
Now they see him walking on the
water.
He boards the boat.
The winds and the waters fall
silent.
This time the disciples do not
bother to ask each other who he might be.
Instead, they simply lower their
eyes and heads before him as in godly worship, saying: Truly, you are the Son of God.
Today’s first reading
told us that the prophet Elijah of old also heard and saw the cosmic might of
fire, heaving earth and crushing wind fall into gentle whispering at the
approach of God.
Elijah then, as the
apostles later, hid his eyes from looking upon the nearness of the Divine
Majesty.
Today, hearing the Word
of God, you and I join the apostles and a prophet of old who lower their eyes
in the worship of God.
We see the prophet meet
and worship God on a mountain.
We see the apostles
worship the Son of God in a boat out on a lake.
At the opening of the
Gospel today, we see Christ, like Elijah long before, alone on a mountain.
Christ
the Son of God is alone in prayer on the mountain, where he faces his Father in
holy communion of Spirit.
Prayer
is the Son of God with his Father in one Spirit.
While
the galaxies, stars, planets, moons, hurricanes, oceans and the earth’s crust
all move with an undefeatable might, the creator of all holds within himself
the communion of prayer.
From
all forever and into all forever, the Son of God is with his Father in one
Spirit.
We
now approach to worship.
We
now approach to ask and pray.
Yet
the heart of prayer was always alive in God before all creation.
Only
of late do we join in the prayer of the Son of God.
Two
thousand years ago the eternal Son of God finally came down to us as a man of
flesh and blood, making present in our flesh and blood his own eternal,
prayerful and spirited communion with the Father.
If
even the ever-living Son of God takes to a mountain of solitude to approach his
Father in prayer, how much more should we?
If
not for God, we would not be at all.
Nothing
would be.
Throughout
the Gospel, Christ repeatedly goes off to be alone in prayer.
He
is the eternal Son of God; and communion with his Father in one Spirit has
forever been his life.
Now,
since two thousand years ago as a member of the human race, prayer is food and
drink for his human soul.
Do
you— do I— really pray, or do I force my soul to starve and dry up?
The
first sin in human history was to take false food for the soul in defiance and
rejection of God.
Up
until then, Adam and Eve had the privilege of communion with God who himself
tended, fed and watered the Paradise of their souls.
When
man and woman grabbed their first taste of faithless defiance against God, so
began our whole earthshaking, boat-rocking, firestorm history of sin against
our human neighbors and God our First Neighbor.
Each
time I sin against my fellow human beings, it is because— and always because— I
had already sinned by turning away from God.
I
can sin against God simply by refusing to turn to him in worship and prayer.
Sin
and the history of sin have left a deep mark of conflict and distortion on the
human soul.
Because
of that, when I turn to God in prayer, I will need at times to row against the
wind and waves that storm inside my soul, like the apostles today in their
boat.
Even
Christ, true man and true God, even he prayed, allowing his own human soul to
eat and drink.
Even
for him, his human experience of prayer was at least once a storm of agony in a
garden.
When
will all the storms of history end?
Not
until Christ ushers in the new earth and the new heavens.
Until
then, we will at times find the wind and waves against us.
At
times, like the disciples today, we will think that God is only a ghost.
We
will doubt and fear.
At
times we must listen to the Lord say to us what he says today in his Gospel.
Take
courage, it is I; do not be afraid.
Perhaps
we may need to step out and risk walking on water simply because the Lord has
commanded us as he commanded Peter.
Again,
we may fear and doubt, and then begin to sink.
We
must cry out with Peter: Lord, save me!
At
times we will deserve to hear the Lord tell us: O you of little faith, why did you doubt?
Sometimes—
thanks be to God— we will see that God has stepped aboard our boat, taming the
wind and seas.
Here
in his Eucharist, the Son of God is aboard with us.
Here
he prays for us to the Father.
Here
in his Eucharist he gives us true food and true drink.
Facing
him in his Eucharistic Body and Blood, we ask his Father to grant that we, who are nourished by the Body
and Blood of your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one
spirit in Christ. [See Eucharistic Prayer III.]
Let
us strive to be men and women of faith, prayer and worship, doing good to our
neighbors, but, above all, doing homage to God our First Neighbor, our Creator
and Savior, as he eternally deserves.
May
the good lives we choose to live spell out faithfully the words of worship that
the apostles have spoken today: Truly, you are the Son of God.
Turn.
Love. Repeat.
