19th Sunday Ordinary Time Cycle A. 6-7/2005

My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

In today’s gospel, Jesus takes some time to get away and be alone to talk with His Father in prayer. He must have been tired from preaching to the crowd’s day in and day out. Think how exhausted he must be! He probably wishes he could hang a sign out saying, ‘gone on vacation. Be back in two weeks.’ However, he knows he has only so much time with his followers and he has so much he needs to teach them. When Jesus finally goes to be with the disciples, they are out in the boat. It is night, the wind is blowing, and the water is a bit choppy. They are terrified when they see him walking toward them on the water, thinking that they are seeing a ghost. But when Jesus convinces them it is he, Peter insists on going to his Lord. Don’t you love Peter? Peter is predictable. He is so much like us. He has the very best of intentions – he wants to show Jesus the faith that he has – but he fails miserably. As he walks on the water to Jesus, he begins to sink and screams out to Jesus in fear.

Let us take a moment to think about this – about what is going on with Peter. First, Peter asks God: Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you across the water. ‘Come’ Jesus answered. Then Peter got out of the boat and started walking towards Jesus. Here Jesus called out to Peter to come to him across the water. What does this calling out mean? That means Jesus has put his faith in Peter. Jesus believed that Peter could do it, walking on the water. In a response, Peter expressed that he also believed in Jesus, he then stepped out of the boat onto the water. Peter found himself doing the impossible simply because he believed in Jesus. The interaction between Jesus and Peter, having faith in each other is a significant point to notice here. It would help us to understand a question of what faith can do for us? It is a simple answer that is, it could make a miracle to happen. In short, Jesus believed in Peter that he could walk on water, and Peter also believed that he could do it; then the miracle takes place. So, the first message for us to learn today is the importance of faith in our lives. We need to have faith in Jesus, we need to increase our faith in Jesus, since Jesus already has faith in us. Today, Jesus has called each one of us to be his followers. Trying to follow Jesus today is almost like trying to walk on water. It is hard, it is difficult, and it is next to impossible. But Jesus believes we can do it. So like Peter, we should believe we can do it, too.
Secondly, as Peter walked across the water to Jesus, he suddenly grew alarmed. For a brief moment he took his eyes off Jesus and looked down at the turbulent water. He began to focus on the impossibility of what he was doing. And that was his fatal mistake. He began to sink.
We are a lot like Peter. There are times when we grow alarmed at the high winds and the high waves of being a Christian in today’s world. And, like Peter, for a brief moment we take our eyes off Jesus. And that is our fatal mistake. We begin to sink. The second important message for us to learn today is the importance of keeping our eyes on our goal, on our God.
This raises an important question: what should we do when we find that we have taken our eyes off Jesus? What should we do when we find that we are sinking spiritually, just as Peter found himself sinking physically? The answer is so obvious: we should do exactly what Peter did. We should cry out to Jesus. We should turn to Jesus in prayer.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the message in today’s gospel comes down to this: if we are to follow Jesus across the stormy sea of today’s world, we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on Him. If, however, we should take our eyes off him-, as we will certainly do from time to time- we should do what Peter did. We should call out to Jesus for help. And in the process of being helped by Jesus, we will discover what Peter did: that Jesus is, indeed, the Son of God.
Let us close with a sincere prayer: Lord, help me to trust you always and to never doubt your presence and your power to help me. In my moments of doubt and weakness, may I cling to you as Peter did? Strengthen my faith that I may walk straight in the path you set before me. And never let me fail to recognize you in my life. Amen