Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XIX per Annum A
13 August 2023

  Today’s first reading and today’s Gospel selection give us examples of theophanies.  ‘Theophany’ is a word that simply refers to a manifestation of God, an event by which God reveals Himself.  In fact, theophany has been a bit of a theme lately since last weekend’s observance of the Transfiguration is also a good example of a theophany.  In a theophany we have a manifestation of God’s presence and power in a sense perceptible manner.  Theophanies in the Old Testament are accompanied by the typical sense perceptible manifestations of wind, earthquake, and fire (cf. Ex. 19:16-19).  God revealing Himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai is a standard example of this, for when God comes to the mountaintop there is fire, there is wind that moves smoke up in a column, and the earth trembles.

Elijah in the first reading experienced a theophany when the Lord God decided to pass by him.  Those typical signs accompanied the event in the crushing wind, the earthquake, and the fire.  A unique contribution of this particular theophany is that the manifestation of God to Elijah is such that those typical signs of wind, fire, and earthquake are – in this instance – simply precursors to silence, the tiny whispering sound that mysteriously communicated the grandeur and the majesty of God.

The Gospel likewise presents us with a manifestation of God.  Keeping in mind the context of the passage can help us see this theophany.  After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, the disciples are in a boat preceding the Lord across the Sea of Galilee.  That sea was a familiar place to the apostles, a place they often fished.  It is a large lake about 13 miles long and about 8 miles wide at its widest.  The passage tells us that the disciples were already a few miles into their journey offshore.  They were in a terrible storm.  And it was the fourth watch of the night, meaning it was between 3 and 6 in the morning.  This was a time on the water familiar to the disciples because it was a common time to go fishing.  We obviously understand that it was very dark out on the water and the storm made it very dangerous.

It is in this context that Jesus comes walking on the water toward them.  When the disciples are afraid and think they are seeing a ghost we get more evidence of this theophany, that Jesus is showing himself to be God.  Jesus responds to the disciples, “Take courage, it is I.”  That is a fine translation of the Greek text of St. Matthew’s account of this event.  It is an acceptable translation to suggest that Jesus is identifying himself (“It is I”).  However, we get more depth of understanding when we know that the Greek text can also accurately be translated as, “take heart, I am.”  The “I am” or “It is I” gives us a rich connection to other theophanies and that revelation to Moses from the Burning Bush of the Name of God: I am Who am.  In response to those who would dismiss this miracle as an optical illusion, as if Jesus was really walking on the shore or on a shallow sandbar, we can note Jesus’ use of “I am” to reveal himself precisely while walking on a stormy sea, in a place where his disciples are already several miles offshore, in a place where, when he doubts, Peter begins to sink down.  Is that use of “I am” significant?  You bet!  If there is any doubt, please see that the Lord uses it to reveal himself while breaking the laws of nature as he walks on water.  And the disciples truly get the theophany by the end because they say, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

It doesn’t require much imagination to place ourselves into the lesson of this theophany of God showing Himself in the midst of a storm that tosses us about.  It doesn’t take much imagination to come up with a whole host of examples of things in life that we might call storms.  Our own character defects and weaknesses can be like storms.  We may feel overwhelmed by the setbacks we experience in our humanity.  Perhaps we face times of particularly strong temptation and it feels like we are drowning in sin.  We know the areas of our life where we are less than the disciples that we should be.  But we don’t always find the energy and the resolve to take a new step to breaking bad patterns and growing in virtue.  A storm may come from a bad decision we make with consequences we can’t undo.  Someone else’s sin may be a storm that impacts us or makes us a victim.  Times of grave social evil overwhelm us like storms.  Our storms may be worries we have for a friend or loved one.  Storms may come from illness and loss, where we are rocked by suffering and death.  We also can’t ignore that anytime we have a boat in Scripture we have a common image for the Church.  Various times in history show the boat, the barque of St. Peter, that is the Church, tossed about by waves and storms both internal and external.  History gives us ample evidence of leaders – from popes, bishops, and on down – whose immoral lives promote scandal and whose teaching fails to address the danger of heresy.  At other times the boat of the Church seems to suffer not so much from active threats but from weakness and lack of courage, as if she is just drifting about with no one’s hand on the rudder.  Our violent reaction to storms in life can reveal to us our tendency to believe a false idea that somehow life is supposed to be easy.  We don’t have that promise, especially not in our fallen world.  Recall that foundational, basic belief in Original Sin that tells us our world is fallen.  If we integrate that belief we know that things will not be easy in this life.  At times we uncritically adopt the notion that we’ll have a utopia in this life or that the march of history and progress means things are better simply because they are modern, and so our time must surely be the best.  That’s pure insanity.  Take a look around and see how everyone’s face is in a screen while they starve for real and meaningful human relationships that always elude them on that misnomered sphere of social media.  Things are better simply because they are modern?  That’s insanity.  And maybe one of the most fearful lessons of this passage (I almost hesitate to mention it): sometimes the Lord may call us, like he did with Peter on the water, to come INTO the storm, to leave the comparative safety of the boat to come into the storm for some mysterious purpose only the Lord knows.  Yes, there are hosts of storms in life from all manner of directions and sometimes too from the places we think least likely to be stormy.  But at the same time, there is Jesus in the midst of them, and he’s there to reveal Himself.  Therefore, we are called to avoid being people of doubt and little faith.  We are called to avoid being people of distraction who are primarily known for focusing on the waves, while taking our eyes off the Lord.  In the passage the disciples recognize Jesus as God because he is doing the things that God does in their Jewish Scriptures.  He treads upon the waves of the sea (cf. Job 9:8; Hab. 3:15).  He stills the storms (cf. Ps. 65:8; 89:10; 107:28-30).  And he reaches out to save his people (cf. Ps. 18:17; 144:7).  Yes, we do and we will face storms in life but the Lord Jesus is not a ghost for us either.  He is very much real, very much God, very much the one we need to call out to at the same time as we ignore and quiet the raging windy “voices” of life’s storms!