In today’s Gospel reading we learn how Jesus walked on water to rescue his disciples, who were being tossed about in the boat that he had ordered them to get into to reach the other side of the Sea of Galilee which was Gentile territory.
Even though the disciples had just witnessed Jesus healing the sick and feeding the five thousand with loaves and fishes, it only took one moment of witnessing the divine ability to walk on water for them to doubt that they were looking at Jesus. This doubt prompts Peter to seek assurance that it is Jesus by asking him to command him to walk on water. Jesus does so but when the wind blows and Peter begins to sink, he cries out to Jesus to save him.
This doubt of the disciples and Peter’s cry for help tells us that for the disciples their journey of faith was not filled with certainty but Jesus reprimands them for their uncertainty. Reprimands them because doubt implies little faith.
Why, though, does God, our loving Creator, put the disciples to the test in a tempestuous sea? It appears that, from time to time, God does put people to the test to reveal to him how strong their faith is. He put his son, Jesus, to the ultimate test of death on the Cross for our salvation and Jesus passed the test when he said to God: ‘not my will but thine be done’.
‘Thy will be done’ are words in the Lord’s Prayer and they are an affirmation that we trust in God’s purposes in heaven and on earth. Here we find that trust is essential to faith in God and the promise of the kingdom to come. The darker the situation we are in, the more our faith may be tested. This accords with the statement made by Christopher Chapman in his book ‘Seeing in the Dark’ that God ‘does not want stable mediocrity’. ‘We grow, he writes, through response to God’. This, he writes, ‘makes the relationship more intense’. The challenge to the disciples then, and to us today, is to stand firm in faith, particularly when times are hard which they are for many people today.
Sometimes, imagery can help us. If we liken the Church to a ship on the sea, we can think of ways to keep it afloat and encourage people to get on board. Ways such as praying for God’s mercy and for the healing of the trouble spots in the world. Working to avoid the sea getting in because if it does, we cannot, as Alistair McGrath writes in his book ‘The Spirit of Grace’ sustain our life of faith. To stop the sea getting in, the current mission of the movement entitled ‘Save the Parish’, which began in 2021, is working to ensure that the church can prosper through use of funds which will help the clergy and worshippers to have fulfilling roles so they can fulfil God’s will in the cure of souls and sustain their worshipping communities.
When the ship is in stormy weather our faith should remind us of the lovely sentence in Psalm 77 that: ‘the Lord overcomes the waves of death’. In walking on water Jesus also overcomes the waves of death in his authority over nature that even the wind and waves obey him.
The journey the disciples make with Jesus across the Sea of Galilee has a purpose. The other side is Gentile territory and the land there known as Gennesaret is where Jesus will heal the sick. Here we find the link between faith and mission. We need to have faith in our journey because if we give up through lack of faith then our welcome, help and healing of others will not happen. We need to keep going and encourage others to do so.
Sometimes, though, in our Christian life, we need to give ourselves the space to be alone in communion with God. To reflect, meditate and be at peace away from the distractions of everyday life. Today’s Gospel reading gives us an example of this aloneness when Jesus leaves the crowd and goes up the mountain to pray.
When we distance ourselves, it is not necessarily anti-social but can be a means to help others by having an overview of a situation. Thus, Jesus is able to see from the mountain top that the disciples are in trouble in the boat and comes to save them. Similarly, in today’s reading from the Book of Kings, when Elijah meets God at Horeb, God is not in the elements of earthquake, wind and fire but speaks through them. In the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’ we ask God to speak to us through the earthquake, wind and fire as ‘the still small voice of calm’.
So let us continue to seek that still small voice of calm so that we can keep the ship afloat that it may one day leave the harbour and sail on to the Kingdom of God.
AMEN