13 August 2023 – 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

by Fr Fabian Dicom

The story in Matthew’s Gospel this morning is certainly symbolic. Symbolic.

The boat, the boat represents the church. Now the disciples were threatened by evil and that is represented by the darkness. And death, the water. This turmoil they were in, that storm and everything else. Everything is symbolic about what Matthew is writing today.

Now it is important to understand the background. The community for which Matthew wrote for was a Jewish Christian community. The early Jewish converts. And they were encountering some new tensions in the period of reconstruction after the first revolt, the Jews against the Romans. And they were experiencing new tensions and new problems in the aftermath of the revolt, as the political and social reconstruction is taking place in their land. They were also facing persecution and betrayals because they had kind of left Judaism and embraced Christianity.

Jesus, for that community, is not with them physically. But Matthew writes in Verse 23, he is praying to the Father. He is praying for them. Now in their need, He comes to them, like Yahweh striving over the waters. Now in the Old Testament it is Yahweh who tramples the waves of the sea and Matthew uses these symbolic images for the people to understand. And they knew the Old Testament very well. So it is Yahweh who tramples the water. So He is striding over and Jesus comes to them. But they were of little faith and fearful and they panicked. Comfortingly he reassures them “It is I“.

Now in Exodus 3:14 “I Am” is the title of Yahweh, signifying His saving presence with His people. Now Jesus does what God does, speaks as God speaks. So the people understood this.

I would like you right now to imagine us here, the church gathered here and bring into this church, the church of Malaysia, and by our connection as daughters and sons of the Father, the whole country. Bring everyone into that symbolic metaphorical boat. This boat we are in is trying to steer in the darkness. It is trying to steer in strong winds and heavy seas in the days to come now that all the elections are over.

Why I say that because we are still a nation that is divided, at least on fundamental and important aspects of life. A country still struggling with political chaos and a relatively unstable political landscape. Corruption and economic woes. Racism and religious intolerance. We still see abuse and apathy to all that is happening. And evil and malice lurks. And it is evident where our brothers and sisters still live in poverty, are still marginalised and their dignity violated.

But, but perhaps there is some hope that the boat will steer towards a calmer sea. We must acknowledge on the other hand there is progress. There is some semblance of reform happening. It is a work in progress and we need to be patient. But we need to be part of it as well.

But this can also digress if our leaders, both secular and religious, are not sincere. If they continue to constantly dwell in rhetoric or lose focus and become obsess with power. Now here in our quest to respond and do something, we can actually find ourselves sad for similar reasons Saint Paul in the Second Reading was. We want something for others that we know will serve them well and yet they do not seem to be opened to it. At such times, we simply have to live with that sense of helplessness that Paul experienced before his own people.

And from Paul, because of this helplessness, we go to Peter in the Gospel. And therefore, like Peter in the Gospel today, we want Jesus to command us to come to Him. Perhaps a reflection of the dynamics of Peter and Jesus may give us a clue. In most of the Gospels when Jesus sends the disciples to cross the lake, He is about to do something or tell them something that is going to get them to cross to a new level of faith, a new level of understanding. And that is symbolic as well.

He is really not talking about crossing the lake but He is talking about crossing boundaries, coming to a new consciousness, boundaries of understanding. And He doesn’t go with them. He stays on the other side to pray almost as if He knows that they are going to need prayers to get to this new lesson. He is always giving them lessons. And for these three years, He has been walking the roads and using the real experiences to teach them about what really matters.

So we have the boat at four o’clock in the morning. Strong wind comes up and they seemingly see this impossible presence, Jesus, where men are not supposed to be, walking on water. And so their first response is not excitement but fear. We are used to the predictable. When God does anything unpredictable, we don’t actually get excited, we get afraid. Jesus says:

Take courage. Don’t be afraid.

But immediately Peter instead of saying what we would have I am sure so often said: “Save me, Lord”.

He instead had the courage to ask you would not think anybody would ask: “Command me to come, to walk to you across the water.”

Knowing that this life from Jesus, this energy, this power, can be transferred to him.

All it takes is Jesus’ command but instead of a command, it is an invitation and Jesus says: “Come.” Just one word. That one small invitation, Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water towards Jesus. As long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he kept walking but then it says:

He saw how strong the wind was and he became frighten and began to look down and began to sink. And he said: “Lord, save me.”

My dear brothers and sisters, as soon as we look at ourselves, as soon as we ask:
What is wrong with me? Why am I not good enough or smart enough or perfect enough? Why am I not brave enough to stand up for justice? Why can’t I really make a change?

We will always lose faith.

The secret is keeping our eyes on Jesus. God has to lead all of us to the edge of our own resources. Really and I speak from experience and many of you can testify to that. He will lead us to the edge of our resources. Only then do we depend on the absolute source. We keep thinking we can generate the energy simply by trying harder, by our will power but we need to be connected to the absolute source, which or who of course is symbolised by Jesus himself.

As long as Peter can keep his trust, his confidence focused there, he keeps walking. But when he doesn’t he sinks and yet even then Jesus does not condemn him or shame him. He just says: “Man of little faith. Why did you doubt?”

You know the best translation for the word ‘faith ‘ is ‘trust’. It is not believing a bunch of doctrines, really. Anyway I hope all of you in this church believe in the doctrines of the church. It is important. Because by itself, these doctrines make no difference in our lives. Rather it is really to trust the absolute source and to trust there is a perfect love out there. That there is an infinite life out there. There is One who is more for you than you know how to be for yourself. That there is One who is more for you and me than you and I know how to be for ourselves.

That is faith.

And He puts him back into the boat and the wind dies down and it seems they come as a group on the boat, probably did a group hug, and said “This moment of trust and faith.”

That is where we want to come into now. From the threshold of this post-election period, we want to come to that. There is no doubt that you and I are the daughters and sons of the Father because of Jesus. There is absolutely no reason to doubt that, that we are redeemed. From the boat we are in and looking out, imagine Jesus looking at you and saying:

Come, it is okay. You are saved. You are redeemed. You are liberated. Don’t doubt. Come.

Because Jesus has clearly told us ‘I came (in John 10:10) that they may have life and have it abundantly.” And John 6:39: “And this is the will of Him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me but raise it up on the last day“.

Now come. You can make a difference. Yes, You. You can make a difference in this community. You can make a difference in society. You can make a difference in this country, in this nation.

So my dear brothers and sisters, please consider this. That more than voting for the candidates or party or coalition and their manifesto, your vote yesterday represented who you are. A person liberated by the Lord, seeking to do good for people we are responsible for. The vote carries a value or values. Our votes says that we are committed to that value come what may. And that we are pledging to live by these values in our community, in our city, in our country. He is calling us today to walk on the water.

If Peter could, we can too. And what does it entail? What does it entail?

For this, today I want to turn to Elijah in the First Reading. Eventually he was harassed by Jezebel. His mission before he came to this place was bloodthirsty mission. He comes to this holy place, Mount Horeb. Theophilus have happened there. The given of the 10 commandments there. There he discovers the presence of the Living God when everything was lost. Not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire but in what today’s First Reading calls ‘the gentle breeze‘. It was in that moment of stillness that Elijah found the courage to hit back into the work that the Lord has asked him to do.

So my dear brothers and sisters, I end with just this:

We need to be still. There is too much noise. We are so uncomfortable when it is still and silent. We need to fill everything up. We don’t need always to have praise and worship. We don’t need to have spectacular programs. We don’t need to shout and scream. We need to be still and feel the gentle breeze and be refreshed and be strengthened by the Lord who keeps on saying ‘Come. Don’t doubt. Walk.‘

Let us pray for that grace today and perhaps that would be the main thing in our lives if we could try that. Just like Elijah to experience the Lord in the gentle breeze who gives us the strength to really live and testify and witness to the values of the Lord, the values of the kingdom.

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