Mountains of prayer filled with noise and loneliness, and seas of distress, filled with winds, waves and fear form the context for the first reading and the Gospel narrative, this weekend.
The context for the first reading might be helpful, I’m not sure....Elijah had just had a marvelous success over the priests of Baal (“the” rival religion of the day), but his success had infuriated the Queen, and he was, now, under a death sentence and a hunted man. He is at the place where Moses stood, hoping to “find” or “re-find” the God of Strength. And the context for the Gospel seems to be a “parallel” to that of the first reading. John the Baptist had just been killed by Herod, and this put those in any way connected to him on the defensive, and, according to the text of Matthew 14:13, “Jesus ‘withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place, by Himself.’” But, He was discovered, and crowds came...and then He, too, had a great “success,” in that He had just fed 5,000 from very little. But, this meant that his whereabouts would become public knowledge, and how long before “troops” or somebody arrived to shackle Him and drag Him off to a fate similar to that of John the Baptist? So...he sent the disciples away, sent the crowds away, and like Elijah of old, went to the mountain alone.............
Now, Elijah experienced the storm, himself, on the mountain. In Jesus’ case, the storm awaits Him until he descends in search of his disciples, who are caught up in the midst of that storm. And it is into that storm’s center that Christ walked, as He ALWAYS walks into the storms in the lives of His disciples...
Now, I want to jump over the walking on water, and the sinking of Peter, to note that when both Christ and Peter get into the boat, the winds calm down...and the same stillness reigns that enveloped Elijah, and in the stillness the voices of the disciples whisper: “You are the Son of God."
Several lessons seem to “emerge”:
1) Success often brings us the opposite from what we hope for; we think it will make us loved and respected, whereas it often brings only envy and hatred, and folk plotting our downfall. So...a healthy approach to success is always to “go to the mountain” to wait out the “noise” of self-congratulation, so that in the stillness we may touch again the Source of the Power, which is NOT us, but God. This gives us the humility to deal with the fallout of success.
2) When life is storming about us, it simply isn’t safe to step out of the boat! DUH! The “ark” that carries us over the sea of turmoil is the “center” that knows its God........we abandon that center at our own risk.............a risk we take when we begin to think that we ARE God!!! And can do what God does!!!
To see that more clearly, let’s go back to the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Christ asked what was available, then blessed it and broke it and gave it to the disciples who distributed it............What Christ blessed and broke were 5 loaves and 2 fish. What the disciples distributed fed 5,000!!!!!! WHO “did” the miracle???? Can you hear them in that boat??? Peter might have said, “Did you SEE what happened? I had a fish and I fed a thousand people! John would have countered, “Well, I had a half a loaf, and fed 3,000!!! And on and on....THAT’s the “noise” the “self-congratulation, the “storm,” that led them to think “THEY” were God...it was “THEM” who’d done it!!! And, so, when Christ came walking....of course they thought they could do that, too! They were miracle-workers, right? Well, such thinking leads to drowning!!!!!!!!!! It’s only when we are “in the boat”...back in the “center” where God is in control, that safety and peace come.......
So, the questions for us, today, are:
#1) What has our success been? And, how are we living with it? The only “Grace-filled” path is
to live with it VERY humbly...
I rarely can speak of “humility” and myself in the same breath, for it is NOT one of my virtues...I’m sad to say! Pride has always been my downfall. But, I remember ONE time: I had created a way to teach Bible to classes of Fundamentalist students in a Catholic university that did not “rob” them of their knowledge and expertise.
Let me explain: I taught in at Xavier University in New Orleans, a historically Black college, where lots of African-American kids of all religions–Baptists, Pentecostals, Apostolics, Church of God in Christ, as well as Catholics and Lutherans and Methodists, came to study, often from small towns throughout the south, where they had used textbooks that were 30 or 40 years old, and there were all sorts of “holes” in their education that had to be remedied quickly if they were to succeed. BUT, the ONE THING they came with that they KNEW backwards and forwards, was their BIBLE! They had memorized much of it. Then, they got into a Catholic classroom, of “Historical-critical method,” “literary-reader-response theory,” “political-theological stances,” like Liberation Theology, and they were lost.....not to mention the “dogmatic” thing, and how our Roman Catholic reading of certain texts goes back to the earliest centuries, long before their denominations were even thought of........The ONE THING that they THOUGHT they had going for them, all of a sudden was robbed, and they found themselves getting C’s and D’s in biblical theology classes, and it was so depressing for them.
I said to myself, “There HAS to be a way around this!” There has to be a way to teach an academic approach to the Bible that honors everyone’s “expertise.” And, finally, I figured it out. It took 4 years of teaching, there, and experimenting. But, finally, I had it. And the lines to get into my classes were some of the longest at enrollment! Imagine, a “theology enrollment line” being longer than the Pharmacy line!!! Oh, that was rich!!!
Then, the dean met me in a “creative thinking seminar,” one day, & wanted to talk about this “phenomenon.” And INSTEAD of bowing and taking the limelight, I had the good sense to say, “We all had a hand in it! The department chair gave me some freedom to experiment, and my office mate–another Scripture professor, gave me loads of advice and feedback. The other teachers let me know what they needed to have covered in Bible so that when a kid got into Moral theology or Systematics, he or she would be adequately prepared. WE ALL DID THIS TOGETHER. And, then, we all shared the limelight. And that led to more cooperation, and shared teaching. The success didn’t stop with that one class....it spread.....because EVERYONE was empowered.
#2) Where has our pride distracted us, and created a storm that is about to drown us? The only
“Grace filled” way to deal with storms is to stay centered....and if we’ve gone “off the
deep end,” as it were, we need to get back in the boat! We need to re-find our humble
center.
I remember I was once a part of a team of three creative people in a small rural parish, planning for the future of our congregation, and we dreamed of an ecumenical venture that would touch our youth and our elderly, and after getting some local Protestant clergy to get “on board, we were able to secure a $25,000 Faith In Action grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But, the envy that grant caused! Other parish council committees in the parish felt “overshadowed” by the “planning committee,” and found ways to be uncooperative. Pretty soon, other congregations wondered why the “Catholics” had so much control of the Grant, EVEN THOUGH all agreed that our property was the only one where this outreach could unfold!!! It was just one mess after another...and before long, I was beaten down, and wished we’d never got the darn thing! AND, I fear I deeply hurt and lost a friend by not trying to continue the grant! Oh, the STORM that raged all ‘round that success!!!!!!!!! None of us lived with humility in the midst of “success,” and our pride nearly destroyed us!
What do you need, today? Do you need to go to the mountain to re-learn “humility?” Or, do you need to hop back into the “boat” before you drown???
The readings of the weekend are all about our inner life, and they ask us to walk softly on the earth, while we empower others to do GREAT things. My prayer for each of us is that we will have the humility to be good servants of the Master, and that our lives will, indeed, become benedictions of goodness in our world. And may God bless you all. +
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