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Sermon by Bishop David L. Moyer
Pentecost XIII – August 10, 2008
+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
“And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God’” (St Matthew 14:32-33).
You will remember in last Sunday’s passage from the Gospel that the disciples of Jesus wanted time to be with Jesus without the interference of others as evening came, and they felt that the crowds should leave and go back to their villages and their homes to feed themselves. We know what happened from that point on. Jesus told the disciples to feed the people, and they were fed with much satisfaction and abundance when He multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand men, besides women and children.
After this miraculous feeding, Jesus tells His disciples to cross over the Sea of Galilee to the other side while He dismisses the crowds. We’re told, “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.”
Jesus needed to do this, as He often did, to find solitude and to be renewed and refreshed in spirit. He was fully Man so He needed times of rest. He was the Incarnate Son of God who had come only to do His Father’s will, so He needed time for self-examination so His will would remain subject to His Father’s will.
We’re told that “When evening came, he was there alone.” In the Greco/Roman world evening or nighttime was understood and measured as a twelve hour period from 6:00 pm to 6:00 am divided into four watches of three hours each.
We are also told that when evening came and Jesus was there alone, “…the boat by this time was many furlongs distant from the land, beaten by the waves; for the wind was against them.”
A furlong is about 220 yards, so let us assume that “many furlongs” might have been 2000 yards. Jesus, if it was a clear night, would have seen His disciples struggling in their rowing against the wind and the beating of the waves; or in His divine knowledge of all things, He knew what their state was. What we do know for certain is that He let them remain in their struggle for nine hours because St Matthew tells, “And in the fourth watch of the night (which would have been 3:00 am), he came to them, walking on the sea.”
Our Lord saw or knew their struggle and He let them remain in it. I am reminded of St. Paul’s teaching that we find in his letter to the Romans: “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (5:3-5).
Many times, our Lord calls us to take hold of difficult and trying tasks, and it seems at times that there is no end or resolution in sight. He is forever with us, but even in and with His presence there are times by His choosing that He calls us to suffer and endure without relief so that we might identify with Him in His Passion. How often we forget what He endured for us in obedience to God as the Suffering Servant - the betrayal by Judas, the scattering of the Apostles, the denial of Peter, the trials, beating, mocking, and scourging, the crown of thorns, the journey to the place of crucifixion, and the pain, agony, loneliness, and abandonment He endured on the Cross.
We have been conscripted by Jesus to be faithful soldiers, and Christian soldiers are to stay the course, whatever the cost ― knowing that faithfulness has its reward as it did for our Lord.
Jesus did come to the Apostles after they had struggled for hours. He came walking on the water demonstrating that He was the Master of all creation, by whose power as the Word in the beginning with the Father, all things were created. Peter was inspired when He saw His Lord walking on the water to do the same, and he did until fear gripped him when he saw the wind. He could have kept walking if he had not let the wind dissuade him. He doubted that he could endure because of the wind. Do we not do the same?
Jesus immediately reached out His hand and caught him, and they both got into the boat, and when they did the wind ceased. When we take the hand of Jesus, when we stand in the security of the boat, His Church, within the Church of which He is the Captain, we are safe – not safe from more trouble, challenges, and winds, but within a boat that is equipped with what is necessary for the voyage through life’s tempests and storms.
And because we live in the post-Ascension era of the living Christ, unlike the Apostles who faced the wind and waves until He calmed them, Jesus Christ is always with us. I cannot sing that portion of the great hymn St. Patrick’s Breastplate without tears streaming down my cheeks: “Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.”
We in this parish have been called to take the oars of rowing for the mission of the Church – a mission of being faithful to what we know to be true and for what we know we must safeguard in and for both the fundamental and for-all-times mission of the Church, and for the particular and at-this-time mission that we have faced in the last few years with a bishop whose deposition has been called for by a majority of the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Standing Committee and the Presiding Bishopess. Winds and waves have blown upon us, and they have not fully ceased even though we have seen and experienced promising signs of calmer seas and a harbor where we could drop anchor.
We have seen and continue to see the portion of the Church we have known and relied upon taking on water and floundering in the waves. We see people rowing in different directions or looking for different life boats through various groupings and alliances. We see people increasingly coming to the point of realization that the crew should be rowing in the same direction, which is to where the Church is clear and forthright in what is essential to counteract being “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine” (as St. Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians).
Jesus has called us to row hard, and at times we have said (at least I have), “How long, O Lord?” But as we continue to row, Jesus is with us in the day and night watches, and He wants us both to remain faithful and to trust in Him while we simultaneously row and pray, and are regularly fed with His Body and Blood.
As the last six years have unfolded, there have been many twists and turns of events that have been divine sources of encouragement and evidential of the providence of God, that He is outside of time, that He does work for good to those who love Him, even though our desired timetable is not met. We still face irresolution in critical areas of our parish life and in the larger life of the Church Catholic, so we keep rowing and praying.
As many of you know, my two daughters were much involved in the sport of crew. It is called the ultimate team sport because the success of the shell depends upon all rowers in near perfect cadence with one another, able to row through individual pain for the good of the entire crew be it two, four, or eight rowers.
We are all to maintain the cadence and to row through any pain we face with Jesus as the coxswain as He steers the boat and calls out the pace, as He speaks and teaches through the earthly vessels He has established from one age to another―those who succeed the Apostles who were led by Peter. Whether we think analogically of the Church as a shell, a boat, or a ship, it is our Lord Jesus Christ who has placed us in the vessel to move forward in unity guided by the Holy Spirit as the wind that blows where it wills (as Jesus taught Nicodemus) – often in ways and directions that both soothe and startle, but it is a holy wind that equips the Church to maintain the Christ-ordained course and direction against the unholy winds that blow hard to take it off course.
Our common vocation is to be faithful and to trust the Lord who holds our hands lest we sink and who calms the storms by His grace.
+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. |
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