19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
The episode of Jesus walking on the waters is to be found in two gospels: Mark's gospel, and Matthews which we've just read. However, on Matthew has this vignette stressing Peter's impetuous folly. In Matthew we have two people walking on the water, but with very different results. Matthew's particular interest is in the development of Peter's faith. "Oh man of little faith, why did you doubt?" Jesus asks Peter. When Jesus is not on board, there is panic, fear and turmoil. When Jesus is on board, all is calm and serene. Matthew takes the small little community of fishermen in the boat as the Church in microcosm. Unless they retain their faith and confidence in Jesus, they will be destroyed by the turmoil around them. Faith and trust are almost interchangeable words. Fear and suspicion represents the opposite pole of human experience. If we do not trust, we are condemned to live miserable lives, forced to face the world with fear and suspicion every The English Victorian poet, Matthew Arnold, attempted to come to grips with a loss of faith among his contemporaries. In his great poem Dover Beach, he uses 'the sea of faith' as a metaphor for what was happening to the faith in 19th century Britain.
"...The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar...
Faith, like the tide, had gone out, leaving us only with ugly mudbanks to contemplate. When the sea of faith recedes, we are left only with the ugly underbelly of life, according to Arnold.
Faith is not something earned or acquired; it is pure gift, a gift from God, a vision of life that enhances humanity. But faith is mediated to us through other people, mainly through our families. It is natural, but it is also a great gift. Edith Stein. Within the Catholic tradition we are often given the impression that the more 'religious' or 'theological' articles you believe in, the stronger and the better your faith.
In our own time, the Christian faith is going through something of a crisis. Apparently, in times of economic prosperity, faith diminishes. The need for a dimension beyond our selves and our selfish world is not so keenly felt. Faith is under pressure too from another undermining agent: apathy, lack of interest, an absence of wonder that seems to be blighting the lives of our young people, and indeed the lives of many who are no longer young. Technology and sophistication seem to militate against wonder. And wonder is an essential foundation for faith.
There is a temptation to react to this diminution of faith in two ways: either to retreat into a world that is long dead, 'back to the good old days', or else to indulge in blind fundamentalism: "We have all the answers if only you would listen to us......The Pope has all the answers if only you would listen to him." Once again, wonder is snuffed out. Fanaticism, not faith, is being promoted. Such temptations should be resisted for various reasons. As Fr. Dermot Lane has so often pointed out, a faith that retreats from the modern world is no longer 'faith' in any real sense, nor can it be called 'Christian', because faith without reason is not faith but a distortion of faith. Faith without reason leads to fanaticism, and we now see almost daily the destructive force fanaticism can be.
The role of religion is to point this 'basic faith' beyond the shoreline to a wider horizon. Christianity, if we live it properly, will point to that transcendence while at the same time keeping its feet firmly on the ground. We are grounded in history; we are destined for eternity. Ultimately, it comes down to a trust in the word of God, the person of Jesus. Like Peter, we too will sink if we cannot find the courage to place our trust and faith in him.