The 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

October 6, 2002

Isaiah 5:1-7 + Philippians 4:6-9 + Matthew 21:33-43

Back in the vineyard, a parable invites us to wonder about something, and I want suggest that its focus is God. The easy way with this parable is be threatened by the behavior of the tenants so that we do not act like them, or to see an image of the Passion of Christ in the owner’s Son. All of these work at one level or another, but if we stay with our level and raise the issue of what this parable says about God, something different happens. We are then left to wonder – to wonder about God, and that’s a good place to be today.

There is a historical way of looking at this parable that excuses the behavior of the tenants. If we knew anything about their condition and the customs of the time, their revolt might be justifiable. There is another level that gives us reason to consider this son and his relationship both with the father and with the tenants. Finally there is the level that leads us to realize that the one constant in all levels and in every episode of this story is the landowner.

If we stay at our level of this parable, we can maintain our focus on the landowner and do some serious wondering at which point the living Word of God brings us to life. It is a story about being entrusted with a role in the vineyard by God. It leaves us to wonder what happens when those entrusted with something try to possess it and keep it as if it was their own. The gift turns to greed, and service in the vineyard to violence. Something is wrong here, and we need to wonder about it.

If you read very carefully this story of the heartbreaking betrayal of God and of terrible violence toward his slaves and his son, there is no suggestion that God is violent nor that God responds violently. That idea comes from the betrayers themselves. They are the ones who suggest that God will be angry and violent, not Jesus nor Matthew. So full of their own violence, so permeated in mind and heart are they, that they cannot imagine a God who is any different from them. They suggest the ending to this story, and Jesus never says it’s the right ending – he simply talks about rejected stones and insists that those who produce fruit in the vineyard will come into the Kingdom of God. So as always, wondering about God leads us to understand something about ourselves.

This is a parable that says a great deal and raises a lot of questions in a violent nation that looks to violence as a greed driven solution; to a culture so permeated with violence that it no longer can conceive of any other option to conflict; and to a people who continue to shape the image of God in their own likeness. It is a parable that gives wonder to anyone who has forgotten their role in the vineyard and has begun to think of possessions as their own and consider ways of making it so. The persistence and the eventual victory of God’s plan is clearly announced by this parable with the hope that their hearts of stone will be turned into the cornerstone; something that would be wonderful to behold and to celebrate. We are left to wonder when and how it shall come to pass, and what we should be doing in this vineyard to produce this fruit.

The 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

September 29, 2002

Ezekiel 18:25-28 +Philippians 2:1-11+ Matthew 21:28-32

The entry to Jerusalem is complete. The palms are cleaned up. The Hosannas have echoed away. Jesus has made a mess in the Temple, and the authorities are demanding to know who he thinks he is. Tension is building that will eventually explode in a hostile confrontation. The vineyard is the focus of conversation. We heard it last week and again this week, and we shall hear of it again next week before we go to a wedding. All are full of hard sayings to those authorities who are closed to any action of God they cannot control.

This parable is a strange one, because neither of the two options presented are perfect. There are always three levels to the parables we proclaim: the original level at which the historical Jesus is the teaching Rabbi at a certain time in a particular place. The second level is where we find the evangelist; in this case Matthew retelling the parable at another time to a totally different audience. We are the third level: another time, a different place, and different audience.

Jesus addresses those confrontational Pharisees who remain closed to his ministry and the slightest change in the way God may be working. Matthew addresses the Jewish Christians struggling for their identity in the face of the Jewish communities emerging from the chaos of the Temple’s destruction. Today the parable is proclaimed in Norman, Oklahoma and everywhere else in the world this autumn day by a church stunned by its own sins against justice, children, and its own servants.

We have every reason to look at this family and wonder if the father might not have another son or two. If parables are supposed to move us to wonder, in this age we might then wonder if there could not be another option or two. Neither of these two sons is an example of what we want to be, and even though Matthew uses the parable as a story of conversion’s power when it comes to the work of the vineyard, many of us listen to this story from a much deeper spiritual level and don’t care to identify with either of them. Beside that, this Father, God, has plenty of children who say “No” and mean “No.” Another issue of wonder is how we are we to live with them?

The best option is not even offered, but perhaps we ought to wonder about it, and the wonder stirred by this parable might lead us there. There is the option of saying, “Yes”. It is, in the end, a parable about promise and performance; about words and deeds giving us cause to wonder about perfection and what it might look like for us who seek to do the Father’s Will.

True disciples are distinguished from false disciples by what they do, not by what they say. All the power in this world and the next means nothing; knowing all correct theology and making oneself look pious and perfectly orthodox means nothing. Doing the Will of God is what brings in the harvest from this vineyard. Our integrity as disciples of Jesus and as a church has to do with what we do when no one is looking. That is my favorite definition of integrity. It means we have integrated what we say with what we do, and the two have finally become the same. It has nothing to do with who is watching or what anyone is going to think. It has to do with backing up what we say with what we do, and that is the style of the third son we do not meet in this parable, but are left to wonder about. The third son – who says yes, means yes, and goes out to do his best. It’s a great ideal – integrity of this sort. My own experience is that only God pulls it off perfectly. God’s Words are Deeds. God speaks and something happens. Only God perfectly achieves this unity of word and action, or action that becomes one word: Love. But the children of this God strive to achieve this perfection, and this is the offer of this parable, that like the others says as much about God as about anything else.

Our prayer today springs from this parable and it is a prayer that we shall be worthy of the work to which we are called, that we shall become more and more a people of integrity, and open ourselves to the possibility that God can work and is working in ways we do not understand, and with people whose presence in this vineyard may surprise us.

The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

September 22, 2002

Isaiah 55:6-9 + Philippians 1:20-27 + Matthew 20:1-16

“The Kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…..that is the point of this parable, a landowner. It has nothing to do with wages, work, hours, or justice. It has to do with the landowner – God. It tells us about God, and in so doing, we find out something about ourselves. It does not explain divine justice, but stirs us to wonder about how God acts toward us. Even adjusted to the time and place in history from which it comes, the story makes no sense. After all, what employer who was going to do what this one did would have the ones who worked the longest hang around to be paid last and see what was going on? He would have paid them first and had them out of there so they would not see what those who came last received. This behavior makes no sense unless you are Matthew’s Jesus and want to stop people in their tracks and leave them wondering.

Wonder, we should, at this story of God’s care for us. The trouble is, we don’t wonder. We are too busy looking around at everyone else. Instead of being focused on God, and living in that provident, loving friendship, we are comparing and competing, day in and day out. Instead of living with our gaze on the source of all that we have, we are looking to see who got what, how much, and when. Echoes of our childhood are heard in our whining. “It’s not fair! He got a bigger piece!” “How come he gets to stay up longer than me?” Sometimes the laments are unspoken, but heard nonetheless. The rejection comes from a job we wanted. Someone we know gets more financial aid for school, and we need it more. Someone else gets a raise, and their work isn’t as good as ours……

Toxic thoughts that get internalized and lead to depression and anger. A parable about God gives us reason to think about ourselves. A parable about God calls into question the ideology of entitlement and uncovers our self-centered, self-serving, competitive vision of things. But the Kingdom of Heaven is like a landowner, it says. And the landowner is the one we should leave here thinking of. If the parable is true, it leaves us humbled, embarrassed by our whining, and stunned once again by grace. Few of us have earned a full day’s wage; and I suspect that those who have would think they had not done enough.

The question asked in the parable is probably one being asked again today: “Why are you standing around all day idol?” It’s a loaded question that invites us to take a long look at what we do all day. When you think about how far we still have to go to establish the Kingdom of God; we know there is work to do in the vineyard. The work of Justice, the work of Peace, the work of Forgiveness, the Work of Healing and Reconciliation. Probably if we were not so worried about what everyone else has, concentrated a little more on what we do have and what we can do with it because of the one who gave it and called us to use it, there would be a lot less anger, resentment, and jealousy spoiling our days in the vineyard. The results of those days would certainly be more productive. Then when we saw God’s gifts lavished on others we could rejoice with them and for them.

In moments of clarity and honesty, we ought to breathe a sigh of relief, for when we look honestly at how we often think and behave, and then remember that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways, it’s probably a good thing! This Parable is about God and about us. It is not about anyone else. It is about the awe we experience when we think of how God cares for us, and it is about our work in the vineyard.

The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

September 15, 2002

Sirach 27:30-28:7 + Romans 14:7-9 + Matthew 18:21-35

The final verses of Matthew’s “Discourse on the Life of the Church” are the sum and substance of it all

for those who would count themselves among the saved, the faithful, and the loved. From what has just been said, and we heard it last week and the week before, we are not to be soft on sin, and there is no reason to think that “mercy” means looking the other way or that it proposes some kind of “denial” in the face of evil. On the contrary. The church has been given a step-by-step instruction on what to do and how to respond.

The final verses here before Jesus turns his face toward Jerusalem address what happens when the sin has been named, and the sinner has been identified. These verses serve as a corrective against a too zealous application of the earlier verses. They serve as check against continuing the wrongdoing by repeating the offence in a spirit of revenge or by an effort to “get even.” Pay attention to the parable. The one forgiven his debt turns right around and does what he has been forgiven for doing. He ends up trading places with the other man! This Gospel is about revenge and the foolishness of calling it “justice.” This Gospel insists that for those who would be “church” for those who would be one with Jesus forgiveness is about the future, not the past. There is no future if the sin is repeated. If someone smacks you in the face and your smack them back, there is no future without the offence. It has just continued. If someone takes a life, and we take one in punishment, we’ve made no progress toward ending the sin.

Forgiveness is about ending the sin, stopping the evil, having a future. This forgiveness Jesus speaks of is a process, not a feeling. To be a forgiver does not always mean that we shall feel good. It means we make a choice to stop the evil in its tracks and not become part of its story. It means we chose to be guided by another force and use another power. As is clear from the earlier verses, forgiveness in the Christian heart is part of conversion. It goes on and on and it has more to do with what we are becoming than what we have been. The reconciliation to which we are called has as much to do with inner peace as it does with external unity. At its most basic level, forgiveness occurs within the heart and mind of the one who was wronged. This level of forgiveness involves replacing thoughts of anger and revenge with a simple desire for the other’s well-being. That is where forgiveness begins. Genuine forgiveness is a movement of grace that takes us beyond the limits of human justice.

Doing the work of forgiveness is an ongoing process we repeat seventy-seven times. It requires courage, understanding, and wisdom: “Gifts of the Spirit” for which we ought to pray. This would be a good time for that prayer, and Matthew suggests it would be a good time to begin – not with the sentimental toleration of hurtful behavior, not with ignoring offence too often and too quickly, but with looking within ourselves to honestly inquire about our own participation or contribution to the conflict, surrendering the fantasy of our own perfection, and humbly embracing the truth that we are all made from the same clay.

Forgiveness then is about the future. It creates for us a reason to hope. It provides for us a taste of the Kingdom. It secures for us a measure of peace and gives us reason to rejoice.

The 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

September 8, 2002

Ezekiel 33:7-9 + Romans 13:8-10 + Matthew 18:15-20

In Roman Catholic tradition, the “REAL PRESENCE” is a significant issue. It is a matter of faith. Yet for many that idea is focused only on the Sacrament of Eucharist. To leave it there, to think that this is the only “REAL PRESENCE” is to live one’s faith in a very passive and very incomplete way. The promise of Jesus recorded for us in Matthew 18 is a promise of presence, but it is not a presence reserved only for the Eucharist. It is a presence to be felt deeply in the human heart, acknowledged humbly in human life, and celebrated joyfully in the reconciliation of those who have been isolated, alienated, and broken by sin. I would suggest to you that Matthew is proposing that the experience of real presence that Jesus offers is first to be found in forgiveness. Those of us who have known in our lives the experience of reconciliation, the overwhelming peace and powerful joy that fills the human heart at the moment of reconciliation with another have known the presence of Christ as really and as surely as anyone. They have seen the victory of love over anger and hate and hurt.

This world and this church are filled with people who long for the presence of Christ; who seek him; who have felt his absence; who know the suffering of alienation and estrangement. Some in this world seek him, or what Christ provides in money, power, prestige, and privilege. Some come here week after week to begin their search for God, to sustain and renew it, or to bring it to a joyful close. No matter where, the longing and the search for God continues day in and day out.

What we proclaim as church, what Matthew announces as Good News is that it is possible to know the real presence of Christ, and we may live in that presence by the power of forgiveness. The heart of the Gospel text that we proclaim this day is the remarkable promise of Jesus: “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am in their midst.” Do you hear that ancient Biblical language: “I AM?”

This is Matthew – Old Testament images and references are important. This is “I AM” speaking – this is “I AM” revealing where he is to be found. This promise is not simply about the power of prayer, but in the context of this Gospel, much, much more. Sin isolates and estranges us from one another. It leaves us in alone and impossible to “gather as two or three.”

Reconciliation breaks through that isolating barrier, and in that coming together, “I am in your midst.”

This promise is not a recipe for prayer. It is an invitation to discover the presence of Christ. The very identity of and essence of Church is found in the reconciling experience. Forgiveness and Healing is what we are, and it is where we first discover the one for whom we long in the depth of our hearts. Reconciliation is the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is where he is to be found and where His glory will first be discovered.

Only after there is reconciliation can we move into the union and peace of the Eucharist. In ritual this is why we begin with: “Lord Have Mercy”. In ritual it is why we reach out to each other in peace before we come to the altar. To do this in ritual, it must be so in life itself. In as much as we are reconciled and at peace with each other, we shall be in the Presence of Christ.

The 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

September 1, 2002

Jeremiah 20:7-9 + Romans 12:1-2 + Matthew 16:21-27

It would be easy to think that this Gospel is about Peter, but I don’t think so. The easy way is rarely the right way, or the way that is going to take us deeper into what is revealed or into what God is saying to us through His Word. It is more difficult to focus on Jesus in these verses than on Peter. We understand Peter’s reaction. It is our own. Nothing in his history; nothing in his scriptures; nothing in his tradition prepared him for a Messiah/Hero who would suffer disgrace. We do not connect with Peter here. There is nothing to be gained by identity with him or his attitude.

We know things differently. We have seen and come to believe in the Messiah, Jesus. We are not invited by this Gospel to follow or imitate Peter, but rather, Jesus Christ. In the structure of Matthew’s Gospel, the very next story is the Transfiguration; but up to this point, Peter is in the dark. He has no clue about how things are going to work out. We do. Jeremiah is the clue that opens this Gospel for us and shifts our focus from Peter to Jesus. He is the prophet who meets opposition, is ridiculed and mocked, yet stays with God’s plan because in the first chapter of Jeremiah God says: “…have no fear before them, because I am with you to deliver you.”

So the task we find in this text is to focus on Jesus Christ, to wonder how he was able to remain faithful,

and then draw from his story the strength, the knowledge, and the understanding to do the same. We must avoid the temptation to trivialize or minimize his trust in God by the thinking that because he was Divine, he had it made. The Divinity of Christ did not keep him from fear, doubt, or anxiety. Minimizing his full humanity robs this text of its power to transform and encourage us. Just as Peter had to surrender his preconceived ideas about a messiah, we must surrender any idea that proposes that good, holy, just, and faithful people should be free of suffering, free of fear, and free of doubt.

If we live in this life, we are going to know those things, and having terrible things happen does not mean that we are bad, being punished, or that God has turned away from us. In the face of tragedy and suffering there is no reason to think God has left us. On the contrary, these times are the greatest occasions to discover just the opposite. That is what Jesus found, and what Peter had to learn. He learned it by going to Jerusalem with Jesus. He learned it by going all the way, and losing his life in order to find it, just as the master did before him. “Losing” one’s life does not always mean the ultimate act of martyrdom.

None of us lives a day without losses. Things do not happen the way we had planned. People do not say what we expect. Disappointments and frustrations pile up, and the best made plans fall apart. Large and little losses can make those who bear them bitter and cause them to complain that life is not fair. But this is what we learn from Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. Losing one’s life can mean finding one’s soul. These losses can set us free, and when we are free like Jesus to surrender to and embrace the will of God, we shall know what Jeremiah knew, believed and lived: that there is no reason for fear because God is with us.

The 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

August 25, 2002

Isaiah 22:19-23 + Romans 11:33-36 + Matthew 16:13-20

We stand in the face of raw power today. It is a power greater than any known source of energy. Greater than the universe and its boiling stars, greater than the fusion of atoms, greater than the wind and the sea and all that is in them. It is the source of the greatest cures and miracles and healings. It is the power exercised by Christ Jesus, rooted in the faith, and given to those who will call it by name and embrace its potential.

It is the greatest of the miracles. It is greater than anything we’ve heard so far in Matthew’s Gospel. It is greater than water into wine or the raising of Lazarus. It is greater than walking on water. It is greater that restoring sight to blind people or strength to the lame. It is the power given to those who have named Christ their Lord and accepted the new identity that Christ has come to bestow upon his believers. It is the power of Forgiveness.

The greatest weapons used by the greatest armies have no power to bring peace. The power of wealth, privilege, and position are inadequate. We cannot buy, bribe, force, nor reason our way to peace in Ireland, the Middle East, Central America, in our families, between friends, nor in our hearts. It only has one source: Forgiveness.

The power of forgiveness is the gift Jesus provides in the Gospel today. It is the turning point of Matthew’s Gospel. Having been dazzled and awe struck by the things that Jesus has done, we will, in the weeks to come shift our attention toward Jerusalem and what will happen there. The seed is planted in us that bears fruit in understanding the Passion and Death of Christ as he experienced it and rose from it. The power he had to rise above the betrayal, the abandonment, the hatred, the questioning of his motives and sincerity, his own wonder about God’s care for him all are wiped away by the power he used as he was nailed to a cross: “Father, Forgive them.”

We are a church, as Matthew says, founded by and upon the power of forgiveness. Not one of the apostles more clearly models that truth than Peter, who no sooner answers the question: “Who do people say that I am?” than he says in the courtyard of Pilate: “I do not know the man.”

Peter, and you and I know about forgiveness. We want to have it all the time, but are often too give it. We are church gifted with an ancient and wise tradition rooted in a ritual we fail to use wisely. Lately some have chosen to hide in the crowd and enjoy the convenience of “Communal Penance Rites” and while those rites might well maintain a level of communal prayer and demonstrate our public confession of need; they leave unattended a greater need of confession. I have often found it curious that many find healing and discover the deep meaning of the Incarnation not in their churches, but in A.A. or other Twelve Step Programs where they come to the awareness of God’s healing presence in the confessing community of those who dare to search for healing.

None of us can really feel loved and cared for when we have to hide our sins and failings. The expression of love from another gets blocked when our minds say: “If you only knew the feelings I have sometimes or the things I’ve done, you wouldn’t be saying you loved me.

Even in our relationship with God, there is forgiveness to share, and I’ve come to discover in recent years that it isn’t bad to forgive God now and then and keep alive a relationship of love and trust. “I will give you the keys.” says Jesus. With them, we can unlock more than the Kingdom of Heaven. We can open the human heart and the wounded soul. We can open the boundaries of hatred and dissolve generations of memories that retell and repeat atrocities of the past. We can recreate broken friendships and restore unity. Best of all, with this gift and this power, we can endure every trial, know peace and embrace love.

The 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

August 18, 2002

Isaiah 56:1, 6-7 + Romans 11:13-15, 29-32 + Matthew 15:21-28

It is the third of a series of miracle stories leading us to what is probably the most significant event in Matthew’s Gospel outside of the Passion Narrative. It comes next week.

Like two before, this one is not what it seems to be on the surface. A deeper look at the text; the setting, the characters, the narrative conversation, and the interplay of words and deeds gives us reason to see and hear more than what Mark provides in his earlier telling of this story.

With Mark, it is a simple matter of a miracle cure.

With Matthew, we have reason to wonder: “Where is the miracle?”

There are seven verses here. Only one of them is devoted to a cure. Jesus says: “Let it be done for you as you wish. And the woman’s daughter was healed from that hour.” That’s all there is to it.

But six other verses concern Jesus and the disciples revealing what may seem to be a rather shocking attitude of disinterest and dismissal.

The first clue that there is something really important here is the language. Matthew uses terms that are archaic for his time. Tyre and Sidon, Canaanite, Son of David, God of Israel: these terms are not in use at the time in which Matthew sets the story. It would be like referring to someone from the State of Georgia as a “reb” or a “Confederate.” The only possible reason for using that kind of language would be to suggest some other inference or some other reference by the language. These terms in Matthew’s text are old, out of date, and heavily rooted in Old Testament overtones that would suggest that the attitude here is an old one – an old prejudice that has been around for a long, long time.

Even Jesus seems subject to this prejudice. He doesn’t look so good in this situation. The one who proposes leaving 99 and going after the 1 who is lost is about to pass by this woman without even a word. He won’t even acknowledge her presence! The disciples, with the most disgraceful of motives, force him to deal with her because they’re tired of her pestering. They don’t like her either.

Now if you stand back and look at this picture, ask the question:

“What is more significant and surprising here, the cure of this woman’s daughter or the fact that Jesus and these disciples change their mind and decide to share what they have with someone they don’t particularly care for?”

This is a miracle story all right, but it is not the miracle we might first suspect. While the story certainly has some historical elements, it reveals more about us, the early church, and Jesus Christ than we may be comfortable with seeing.

At the same time it reveals something of God as well.

Unpleasant as it is to admit, most of this world is under our table waiting for some scraps to fall. We are very conscious about what is ours, and we are very determined to keep it. This Jesus of history and his disciples are very conscious of their privileged position among the “Chosen People.” They are Jews, not “Canaanites.” They are very aware of their power and their privilege.

In the story, I believe they heard the voice of God. It sounded like a woman foreigner who came begging, not for herself, but for her child. The miracle is: their change. What they considered theirs alone, they decided to share, perhaps not for the best reasons at first, but eventually they got it right. Perhaps we may be hearing the voice of God calling to us from under the table, across the border, or with an accent.

The miracle stories are not all told, and the best of them are not about healing. They are about conversions and changes in the human heart. They tell of enemies that begin to speak to one another, of ancient distrusts and prejudice collapsing in the face of grace and the real truth about our relationship to one another and our God.

Perhaps we might listen today very quietly and carefully to see if God is calling out to us, and hope that God has not and will not, like the woman of the Gospel, give up on us.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary at St Mark Church in Norman, OK

August 15, 2002

Revelation 11:19-12:6 + 1 Corinthians 15:20-27 + Luke 1:39-56

Song, Prayer, and Scripture weave together to make this Feast. In some ways, they all three boil down to a lot of words: words sung, words spoken, words heard.

As a result, I’m not sure we can really get the point. It’s almost as though there is simply too much here, certainly too many words. Words of John in the Book of Revelation,

words of Paul in First Corinthians, words of Luke in the Gospel, all trying to awaken in us the Spirit and Faith of this woman whose faith and trust in God changed the face of the earth.

Luke weaves together a string of texts from the Psalms, and he puts them in the mouth of this young Hebrew woman in the story of her visit to Elizabeth.

It is a chapter filled with extraordinary poetry when words and images dance with life and promise. Among those words, leaping from the psalms come ten words that say it all,

that give purpose, meaning, and motive to our assembly today. They are the reason why we are here today at noon and not having lunch at mid – day on a Thursday in August.

They are the reason we are here tonight and not at home clearing the supper table. They are the reason why we are here, in Norman, Oklahoma.

They are the reason for all that we do. Many of us have learned by memory ancient prayers and sacred words that have the power to turn our minds to God.

The Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Prayer before meals, the Act of Contrition, the Creed, the Memorari, the Angelus, and the list goes on into cultural traditions. Late in my life, I learned another prayer, Mary’s prayer, more authentic, more deeply rooted in our Jewish/Christian tradition than any of the others.

It is prayer the Church lifts up to God every evening of every day. It is the test of this day’s Gospel. If you haven’t learned it, begin today. If it seems too long to learn quickly, then get one verse and go from there. Get it right, and say every day. Simply speaking those words should pull us to our knees in humble gratitude, or bring us to our feet in wild joy. The one verse that captures the spirit of the whole prayer is the reason we are here today or tonight, the reason we have come to sing, to pray, and hear the Word of God………………

“God who is mighty has done great things for me.”

If anyone asks you why you went to church today: Or why you go to church every Sunday, Why you give, why you pray, why you sing, why you have hope, or joy, there is only response.

It is the reason for this day, for this season, for this place: “God who is mighty has done great things for me.”

The 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Mark the Evangelist Church in Norman, OK

August 8, 2002

1 Kings 19:9-13 + Romans 9:1-5 + Matthew 14:2-33

It takes some thinking to figure out where the miracle is.

It is not Jesus walking on water.

That image is an old one found in the Old Testament: in Job 9:8, Psalm 77, and Isaiah 43. God walks on water. No big deal here. That surprised nobody in Matthew’s church who knew his or her scriptures.

Keep the story in context. We are dealing here with Food provided by God last week, and a water passage this week.

These are serious Exodus events: food in the desert, passage through water.

But there is a miracle here, and like last week, this one concerns a change in the disciples rather than something Jesus did. Last week they stopped their whining about what they didn’t have and celebrated what they did have. This week think of it this way as I propose an alternate reading to this Gospel story, and you will get the point and see the miracle…….

“Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was, he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he turned around and swam back to the boat while the other disciples threw him a line and pulled back on board.”

Or maybe it could go this way:

“Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you come over here and get in the boat.”

The miracle here is not about Jesus. It is about a fisherman getting out of a boat in the middle of a storm, and what happens to him because of it. If he had stayed in that boat, or turned back when it got really scary, nothing would ever have happened. But he did not stay in the boat, and because he was willing to take the risk and get out; because he reached out to the Lord who was reaching out to him, Peter experienced the power of God, and for moment, I believe he stepped into the Kingdom of God.

Peter had to leave the boat and risk his life on the sea in order to learn both his own weakness and the almighty power of his Savior. Only by doing so did he come to faith. It cannot be different for us. We all sit in our little boats, thinking we are safe and sound, but those boats rock and they sink. They get swamped, and they turn over. The stock market fails us. Our houses burn down or blow away. Health fails. A loved one dies, or we find ourselves abandoned or divorced. Friends turn on us. We lose a job. We sit in our boats, and Jesus walks by, and he invites us to get out, because faith does not mean sitting and waiting. It means getting free from everything except God alone, knowing and acting as if only God can save, protect, and get us home.

The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus: “Come.” The only possible way to be a disciple of Jesus is to take the step. We saw it last week when they were willing to find out what Jesus could do with what they had. We see it again this week as we discover what Jesus can do if we are willing to get out of the boat, so to speak. The miracle at which we marvel this week is what God can do for those who will get out of their boats and reach out to the one who calls. The miracle is what happens to Peter or anyone for that matter who imagines that they are losing it all, and will reach and out and cry out: Lord, Save me.”

The story ends with the winds dying down and the disciples bowing down before Jesus in adoration. In a historical sense, this does not make sense because Jesus has not yet risen from the dead. The title: “Son of God” could not have occurred to them yet, but Matthew gives us a glimpse of the end of time. Those who trust in God rather than their boats, those who reach out after responding to their call, are at peace. They shall be found in the Heavenly Kingdom.

None of us will ever know what God can do for us much less know what the Kingdom of Heaven is like unless we get out of the boat and go toward the Son of God.