Homily for the Week of August 10, 2008

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2008
1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a · Rom 9:1-5 · Mt 14:22-23

Most of us in the Saranac River Valley and Cadyville might be walking on water if the rains we have had in the past few weeks continue. Water like sunshine is one of God's gifts that we either have too much of or too little of. Water symbolizes many positive things. It can quench thirst, sustain life, cleanse, even be a means of relaxation or the means of contemplation. As Christians we certainly relate to the cleansing waters of baptism and we speak of the Water of Life and of Living Water. Water has such a positive symbolic value that we can forget that water also represents chaos and death. In recent years we have had at least two examples of the disasters caused by water.

On the day after Christmas 4 years ago a 9.3 magnitude earthquake shook the ocean floor under Indonesia. The island of Sumatra was the first to be affected by the resulting tsunami. Over 300,000 died that morning in raging water. We cannot soon forget Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago this month. It was the sixth most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. The storm surge devastated cities all across the northern Gulf Coast. The failed levee system and consequent flooding of New Orleans displaced thousands. Worse, there were 1,836 people who died. With the third anniversary of Katrina less than two weeks away, bodies are still being found.

Water can sustain life, but it can also destroy life in equal and frightening measure. The ancients were so afraid of the sea that they saw it as the home of violent gods. For the Greeks, Poseidon, the lord of the sea, was a moody and violent god. When he hit the earth with his trident the earth trembled, so he was also called ''Earth Shaker.'' Occasionally he could surprise humans with a good mood when he would raise new islands and still the sea.

The writer of the book of Genesis knew this fear very well. He wrote that ''in the beginning, the waters covered the earth,'' and they were violent. They represented the chaos that God overcame when He created the dry land. Later, however, and in anger, God almost completely destroyed creation in a flood. God also used water to slay the Egyptians who pursued His people.
In our first reading we find that Elijah was miserable. He felt himself to be a failure and he wanted to die. But he was ordered to eat, and to journey to Horeb, the Mountain of God. There he was told to stand on the mountain, where the Lord was to pass by. But instead he experiences a great wind; then there was an earthquake and thunder, and then a fire. God was not in them. Instead, God was in the sound of a gentle breeze. God was in a whisper, God was in the sound of silence.

We find again the themes of silence and the unexpected in the Gospel. In the Gospel today we find the disciples in the evening in a boat on Lake Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee. Because of the topography of the land there, huge windstorms can develop without warning. For the apostles, water still represented a place where demons and evil gods lived. To be caught after nightfall in a boat in a windstorm would have been frightening. They surely thought they might die that very night. It is over these waters that Jesus walks.

Not so for the disciples, who were rowing right into what would turn out to be big wind storm which overturned their small fishing boat. But Jesus came to them, and called out to them; and Peter on impulse walked towards him across the waves. Was he testing Christ or himself? His courage failed in the wind's strength, and in fear he began to sink, and cried out for help. Jesus put out his hand at once, and held him. Then came the silence as the wind dropped and the storm abated, and in the calm the disciples recognized him as Jesus, but more than Jesus, a person who is also the Son of God. And it is over these waters, by the power of Jesus, that Peter himself could walk if only for a moment. The boat was a safe haven once Jesus entered it.

Perhaps this gives us a clue as to how God speaks to us, not in a storm or strong wind, but in what the sound of silence. God's voice speaks to us in the ordinary events of our lives. But if our lives are so full that our minds are cluttered with thoughts and feelings for our attention, we will miss hearing the voice of God. Or we may have learned to tune out many noises. We can easily develop a pattern of not listening.

Religiously, spiritually, for most Catholics there has been for centuries a struggle between faith and doubt. That was Peter's problem. Peter's fears and doubts showed the smallness of his faith. Peter began to sink when he took his eyes off Jesus. As long as he focused on Jesus, he walked on water. The moment he lost his focus and saw the storm, he began to sink.

That is also our story. Most of us have faith, but we often lose our focus. We see the storms and the wind around us. The wind in our live can be most anything that prevents us from being real. It could be pain: the pain of loneliness, insecurity, envy, not enough money or job. It is easy to over come this pain with homemade remedies or addictions which make matters worse. Just as we go to dentists and doctors to get rid of our pains and to be healed, we Catholics must turn to our faith in Jesus to heal our deepest personal wounds. Daily, however, we need to put into practice the faith that we express here today. The Bible and our Catholic Church tell us that God is with us even in these difficult moments. Like Peter It would be so easy to believe if we could only get rid of the wind.

Our faith does not take away suffering, but it provides us with remedies. If you keep your focus on Jesus and not on your surrounding storms you too can walk on water. There is no struggle God cannot calm. We must find time in each day to be silent with him--a short prayer in the morning, or just the words "thank you" when we remember his goodness--then his voice will be in that stillness and his hand will hold us. We need to appreciate the sound of silence.