HOMILY WEEK 18 01 – Year II
The Power of Genuine Faith
(Jer 28:1-17; Ps 119; Mt 14:13-21)
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How strong is our faith? What difference is it making in your life?
Today’s readings invite us to place our complete trust in Jesus, pray from the heart and come to him for healing.
We can discern five distinct movements in the gospel, all centered on faith. The first involves the prayer of Jesus himself. After the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the feeding of thousands, we are told Jesus dismissed the crowds and “went up the mountain by himself to pray.” It was like after that intense period of ministry, Jesus needed solitude, time alone, a break, a retreat, a time to be with the Father in silence, to commune with the Father and soak up the Father’s love.
Traditionally, members of a religious congregation are to do this on a regular basis. At one point in the life of our Oblate province, we decided to try to go back to the practice of making our annual retreat an eight-day retreat, and wrote a letter to all the bishops of the dioceses in which we served informing them of that development. All were supportive, but some of our own pastors resisted, unwilling to be away from their parish on a Sunday. Somehow, I think Jesus would have approved of this initiative. My own practice is to emulate Jesus by doing a monthly poustinia – a 24-hour retreat of prayer, fasting, resting and writing. I think every believer, every follower of Jesus, should strive to spend time in prayer daily, monthly and annually. If Jesus felt the need for that, how can we not follow suit?
The second movement involves the disciples in the boat, struggling with high winds and far from land. In the midst of their struggle, Jesus walks toward them on the water. The lesson for us is that Jesus is present whenever and wherever we are struggling in life, ready to walk on the waters of our turmoil and difficulties. We need only to have faith in him.
The third movement involves Peter, who asks Jesus to allow him to walk on the water. Peter has faith, but it is a somewhat heady, proud faith – wanting to do something spectacular. To his credit, upon hearing “come” from Jesus, Peter steps out of the boat and actually walks on the water. Our pilgrimage group celebrated the Eucharist on a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and I could not help but marvel at Peter’s faith – he actually walked on this lake!
I think I know what happened next, because in so many ways I am just like Peter. He got kind of proud, took his eyes off Jesus, looked back to the boat to show off a little, felt the wind, and started to sink. Then his prayer changed to three words only, coming from his heart: “Lord, save me!” And suddenly, Jesus was there, drawing him out of the water, with the comment, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Now here is an important question – what do you think Peter did next? Tell Jesus he could manage on his own again, of hang on to Jesus for dear life, and walk together with him back to the boat? I am certain it was the latter – walk together with Jesus, holding on to him, back to the boat.
That experience and those three words are what I call the Prayer of the Anawim, the prayer of the poor persons who know they need God, who have no pretensions, who turn to God every day for the help they need to walk through life that day, for none of us can live one day the way Jesus wants us to, without his help. In terms of addictions awareness, anyone can get through the day sober if they are stubborn or afraid enough, but they will be a dry drunk – not really healing or changing inside. Our faith in Jesus is meant to be transformative, to bring about change, healing.
That is the fourth movement in the gospel. After they landed, the people recognized Jesus and came to him from the surrounding countryside, bringing to him all their sick, who even by only touching the fringe of his garment, were all healed of their ailments. We are also invited to come to him daily for forgiveness of our sins, and healing of sinfulness, that which makes us sin, as well as our physical ailments. That is transformative faith.
The final movement shifts us from the prayer of faith, to expressing our faith through worship. We are told the disciples, after Peter arrived back in the boat, worshipped Jesus, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.” That act of worship and praise is the fullest response we can make to this powerful love of God made present to us in Jesus Christ, and that we do best as a community of disciples when we gather for the Eucharist, as we are doing now.
The Eucharist is the priestly prayer of Jesus Christ, when we, like Peter, the disciples and the people of the country side, all come to Jesus to hear his Word, experience his love as forgiveness and healing, and offer him heartfelt praise.
May our celebration strengthen our faith in Jesus, help us place our complete trust in him, and transform us into greater and greater Christlikeness. Amen.
