Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord.
Today. We welcome guest reader Brenda Piazza. Brenda is a parishioner of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mendon, New York, where she joyfully serves in a variety of ministries.
Brenda also shares her gifts with us each liturgical season, narrating our little book's reflections.
And now, here is today's gospel and homily,
[00:00:46] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
When it was evening, he was there alone.
Meanwhile, the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.
During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea.
When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified.
It is a ghost, they said, and they cried out in fear.
At once Jesus spoke to them, take courage, it is I. Do not be afraid.
Peter said to him in reply, lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
He said, come.
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 cried out, lord, save me.
Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter and said to him, o you of little faith, why did you doubt?
After they got into the boat, the wind died down.
Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, truly you are the Son of God.
The Gospel of the Lord.
This gospel passage is a fascinating story.
But the gospel writers didn't include these stories just because they're fascinating.
They are always for us and for our salvation.
They are here to help us.
This passage in particular can be very helpful. Let's look at it.
The first thing to do is set the scene. It takes place in the northern part of the Sea of Galilee.
The Sea of Galilee is 7 miles wide and 13 miles long.
In the northern part, it is over 150ft deep.
So it is a large body of water.
Jesus came walking on that water, the gospel Sundays, during the fourth watch of the night.
This would be between 3 and 6am the darkest part of the night.
Then there's a storm, a bad one. We've all seen them, been in them, maybe even when we were in a boat. We know the fear.
But in the darkest part of the night, in 150ft of water, that is frightening.
Then there's the boat. No doubt it was one of the fishing boats owned by Peter and his brother Andrew, or James and his brother John.
As you recall, they were fishermen.
What were boats like back then?
Well, in 1986, an old fishing boat was discovered buried in the mud a few hundred feet offshore in the northwest part of the Sea of Galilee, which is where this gospel scene takes place.
By carbon dating, they were able to establish this boat goes back to the time of Christ.
There's no way they could identify it as belonging to one of the disciples.
But it appears to be a typical fishing boat used at that time.
It is seven and a half feet wide and 26 and a half feet long.
It's not a very large boat to be sailing on a body of water that large.
But it's all they had back then.
So that's the scene. The northern part of the Sea of Galilee. During the darkest part of the night. A storm coming on. And the disciples in a small boat.
And Jesus, he's not in the boat with them at the beginning of this passage. He was up on a mountain alone.
Then he appears some distance, walking on the sea.
You know the rest of the story.
What do we learn from this scene?
The Sea of Galilee represents our world.
You and I were born into this time and place.
This is the piece of history on which we sail, where we spend our lives.
It wasn't our choice, but here we are.
And we can't escape into the past or into the future.
This is the sea. We sail the darkest part of the night.
The fourth watch represents whatever darkness there is in my life.
We all have dark parts in our life.
Sometimes we don't know exactly why.
It's just part of my life that's dark, not bright. We've all got those dark places.
The storm represents the problems in my life, problems great and small, which I can't seem to control any more than the disciples could control the storm.
Some are on a world scale.
We worry these days about terrorism and wars.
That's on our minds, or the economy or jobs or chronic illness.
And we can't do much about them.
There are also problems in our church. There always have been.
We've faced a great scandal in our church.
We've watched Catholic schools close because of the costs.
Something you and I don't want to see happen.
There's also a shortage of priests and religious.
There's something that bothers all of us very much.
We haven't been able to inspire many of our children to follow us in the Path of faith that we were given by our parents.
They don't go to church regularly, if at all.
We haven't been able to pass it on very well.
Then there are the storms in our personal lives.
I can't list those for you, but we all have them.
And like the storm on the Sea of Galilee, we can't control them.
Each of us has our own.
What about the small boat?
It represents each of us.
We face all these things and we feel small.
We're tossed about by them, like the small boat on the Sea of Galilee.
We're just trying to make it through a day, through a week.
And Jesus, where is he?
We believe in Jesus, and we come here to celebrate the Eucharist. But these dark places and stormy places in our lives, he just doesn't seem to be part of them.
He seems one step removed. Looking at them from the outside.
He's not in the boat with us.
He can seem as far away as the mountain, praying alone or nearby as he was on the sea when the disciples spotted him from the boat.
Or close to the boat, but not in it, as when Peter thought he had to get out of the boat and walk on the water to get to Jesus.
So what do we do about all that?
Well, as I said, we can learn something very helpful from this passage.
We do what the disciples did. We cry out to him and we bring him into the darkness, into the storm.
We bring him into our boat.
That's the key.
The dark places in my life, the storms in my life, I sit there and talk to Jesus, who seems to be some distance away.
I go to Jesus rather than bringing Jesus into the boat.
That's the mistake Peter made. He wanted to walk across the water toward Jesus rather than bring him into the boat.
Jesus is willing to go there. He wants to go there.
We have to let him in.
But usually we don't think he belongs there.
So we talk to him as though he were one step removed from us as we face the darkness, the waves and the storm.
Another thing. When we call the Lord into our boat, we shouldn't pray in general terms or too politely or indirectly using carefully chosen words.
We need straight and direct talk.
Peter, when he was sinking, didn't say, lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, and I praise you and thank you for your goodness. And I was wondering if you would please turn toward me and help me.
No.
Peter said, lord, save me.
We need to talk straight to the Lord about the problem parts of our world, our church, our personal lives.
We need to speak clearly emotionally.
What happens when we do that?
Well, the problems don't all evaporate, but the storm inside me calms down and the darkness in me brightens.
And when the Lord gets into my boat, my life I get a sense of peace.
In this gospel passage, when Jesus got into the boat, the wind died down.
I invite us now to take some quiet time, about a minute of silence, and think about the dark spots and the storms in our world, our church and our personal lives, and bring the Lord into our boat.
And then we experience the peace and the light the Lord always, always brings.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today.
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Sa.
