It’s not easy to see why Jesus
would send his disciples away at nightfall to start rowing across a lake, but there
might be a clue in the larger order of events in the gospel. You see, the story the feeding of the
multitude comes right after the sordid episode where Herod, the ruler of
Galilee, has John the Baptist beheaded at a dinner party. Word then comes to Herod about this new
fellow, Jesus of Nazareth, and he declares that this must be John, come back
from the dead. News of this comes to
Jesus, and that is the point at which he leaves town and heads out into the
bush. A great crowd goes after him—with
John dead, Jesus is the only prophet they have left, the only one who can challenge
the violence and corruption of their rulers in the name of God’s justice and
truth.
It’s not clear whether Jesus
set out to have the great world-changing career that he did. It seems to me that a lot of what he did was spontaneous
and personal. He had a profound personal
experience of God’s love for everyone, and he related to everyone he met on
that basis. But because of his
historical circumstances, every little thing he said and did to relieve people’s
suffering, to satisfy their basic needs, to lift their spirits and bring them
together, had revolutionary impact, and this is the point in the gospel story where
that starts to be clear. Jesus had to
know that news of miraculously feeding a multitude would travel fast, and that the
reaction might be swift and brutal.
Maybe he sent his disciples out in the boat that night because he feared
for their lives, and decided they should slip away under cover of darkness.
From the evidence we can piece
together, Matthew’s gospel came out of a community that was crossing over from
their ancestral home in the world of Judaism to the strange new reality called
the Church. It was a journey that put
them in a boat with other people they would never have given the time of day
before, and now they were all depending on each other for their very
lives. They were running into unaccountable
hostility from their fellow Jews, who rejected and denounced and even
persecuted them for preaching and praying and gathering in the name of Jesus.
Yet it was a community that
had experienced the fulfillment of what it means to be human. In their gatherings they had received gifts
of the Holy Spirit in baptism and the Eucharist. They had died with Christ and been reborn in
his resurrection to a new life of imperishable glory. They had tasted the heavenly banquet of God’s
justice and love, where all pain and grief are at an end and evil and suffering
are no more. But somehow they still
found themselves on this side of things, in the world where children die of
hunger and nations are laid waste in war.
Or more precisely, they found themselves in a small boat in the dark,
rowing against the wind and against the waves, trying to cross over to the
other side.
The image of Jesus coming to
the disciples over the sea, calming the storm, and their fears along with it,
must have been a great comfort to these people.
Less comforting is the little story that Matthew works in at this point about
Peter. The troubling part is where Jesus
says to Peter, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" It has always struck me as an accusation that
if Peter really had faith, he should be able to do like Jesus. But that just doesn’t seem fair, to Peter,
or, for that matter, to us. If walking
on water is the minimum standard of faith, we’re all in trouble.
But reading the story this
time around, I realized that walking on water isn’t the only thing Peter has
doubts about. Before that even happens,
Jesus calls out to the terrified disciples, "Take heart, it is I; do not
be afraid." But Peter doesn’t calm down and wait in the boat for Jesus to
come and rescue them. He doubts that it
is really Jesus, and he demands proof. He
wants Jesus’ power, for himself and nobody else, so he can take matters in his
own hands. “Go ahead, knock yourself
out,” says Jesus, and Peter leaves his brothers behind and steps out of the
boat.
I don’t imagine Jesus was surprised
when Peter started sinking. Peter’s
faith wasn’t big enough to believe that Jesus was a living man, and not a ghost. It wasn’t big enough to just sit tight in the
boat with everybody else. So it sure as
anything wasn’t big enough to walk on water.
Now just a little faith is enough, as long as it is faith in Jesus and
solidarity with the others in the boat. But
it seems like there were some in the early Christian community who weren’t content
with that. They began to doubt that
faith was sufficient to their historical situation. They wanted some kind of supernatural
escape plan, to leave the whole soggy mess behind and walk away over the waves.
In May I was with a bunch of
priests and deacons from our diocese, when Sally Hubbell, from St. Paul’s
church in Healdsburg, asked the group if we knew anyone who might be able to do
a service in Spanish. St. Paul’s has a
small but lively Spanish-language congregation and one of the girls from the
was going to celebrate her quinceañera on August 9. Sally would be away on vacation and neither
of the priests who usually substitute for her on such occasions were going to
be able to do it either. With a certain
amount of trepidation I raised my hand and said, “I can.”
For the past six years all
the time and money that I get allotted for Continuing Education has gone to
learning Spanish. I have a weekly lesson
via an internet video call with a man in Guatemala, and I spend three or four
hours of my free time every week doing written exercises. Progress has been painfully slow at times,
but I’ve stuck with it. So yesterday I preached
in Spanish for the first time. The same
goes for celebrating the Eucharist. For that matter, it was the first quinceañera
I’d ever been to. When I first agreed to
do it, I was excited about the chance to show off my skills. But by the time it came around it was all I
could do to get through it.
Friday night I hardly slept
a wink, and I got up yesterday morning feeling like death warmed over. It didn’t help that I was coming down with a
cold. I made it through okay, though,
with a lot of help. I used my Spanish
lesson on Thursday to go over my homily with my teacher, and he helped me
polish up my grammar and use more popular idioms. I got a lot of help from a lady named Gretta,
who is a kind of bridge person between St. Paul’s Anglo and Latino
congregations. Her Spanish is way better
than mine, and she was the emcee for the event.
The family had hired a fabulous trio of musicians who had a huge repertoire
of Mexican folk music. Whenever I
decided I needed a little music, I’d just give them a nod, and away they’d
go.
But the biggest help of all
was having someone there who was, if anything, even more scared than I
was. I mean, of course, fifteen year old
Jessica Castañeda. She was sitting in
her tiara and purple dress and high heeled shoes, in the center aisle right in
front of the altar, so we were physically close and looking at each other throughout
the service. We traded off being the
center of attention, and had to take a lot of cues from each other. And I think the fact that both of us were
coming out in public, in different ways, at the same time, that both of us were
thrilled to be there and at the same time just getting by on a wing and prayer,
enabled us to help each other, to keep rowing against the wind and waves.
One year-old Ave Marie
Boazman is having a coming-out part of her own this morning, at her
baptism. We can’t know how historical
circumstances are going to shape her life.
I’d like to be able to say it’s will be smooth sailing, but a quick
glance at the headlines, or even the weather report, suggests otherwise. Lucky for Ava she has parents who recognize
that she’s not going to get very far walking across the water. She needs a boat, and a Lord who can still
the wind and the waves. She needs people
who will stay in the boat with her, no matter what happens. And so do we, so we are glad to welcome Ava aboard.
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