Sunday Gospel Comment

 

Alberic Jacovone OSB

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YEAR A

1 Kg 19,9.11-13; Rom 9,1-5; Mt 14,22-33

Messiah - Mission - Missionary - Mass 

If we read attentively ‘the great section about the Church’ (Mt 13,53-18,35), we notice that the author forgets on purpose that he is telling us a specific event in the life of Jesus & switches into a strong desire to address the Christian community of his time, two generations after Jesus. The story & its details are strongly symbolical; here, the post-resurrection Jesus -present until the end of time!- takes charge. And rather than allowing the tradition to present the events of Jesus’ life, the story allows the disciples (united as a Covenant-Community with their Risen Lord) to inform, describe, give colour and life to the tradition. Matthew intends to nourish in us readers, the conviction that we are continuing the Mission of Christ, are his co-workers; even now, Jesus as Risen Lord is in command; even now he nourishes the people he has redeemed and leads them through the stormy waters of world events: Jesus’ nourishment and leadership is always present, never unfolding as we would predict but in a totally unexpected way: God’s ways are never our ways. In the course of world events, across the centuries, Jesus is the Messiah from God the Father, indeed the Son of God. He is ever on his Mission for our salvation. He makes us his own Missionaries: christened with the Holy Spirit and made Christ-like, we are all nourished and empowered at his eucharistic meal: our ‘Mass’. In the Church (Ekklesia) we should radiate a bonding, trusting & unconditional love, which is typical of a strong Covenant-Community, forever locked-in together to our Risen Lord, forever proclaiming the ‘wonders of God’ in the midst of the stormy, conflicting events of life.

‘Faith factor’ & the Bark of Peter. In today’s Story, Jesus calms the stormy waters.

It starts with the word ‘immediately’ to link what follows with last Sunday’s realization that God provides for us personally and abundantly at all levels. In the Old Testament, the Crossing of the Red Sea into freedom comes first & then comes eating the Manna in the desert. In our story, first comes the eating the bread of heaven in a desert, and then comes the journey through stormy waters into freedom. Here Jesus ‘made the disciples get into the boat’ but he did not. The image of the boat struggling through stormy waters is one of the earliest symbols of the Church. The early writers have delighted in describing the Church as a boat in all details: the stormy waters of life, the fragile boat tossed by the fury of the waves, the helmsman & the oarsmen are Peter & the Apostles, the mast & beam holding the sails take the shape of a cross and as such, anticipates Christ’s redemption on commerce and travel by sea: ‘In this sign you will win’!. In the boat Jesus, though invisible, is Risen Lord; is the captain who leads the boat into a safe harbour, indeed is the great pioneer who -ahead of us- secures the anchor into the safe shores of eternity: we are safe as long as we do not lose faith in him. The words: ‘It is I" = ‘Ego eimi’, are the Greek translation of the Hebrew divine name: YHWY, Yahweh = I am who am (Ex 3,11-15 & Is 43,8,13). In the story, Peter calls Jesus ‘Lord’ and those in the boat worshipped him saying : ‘truly you are the Son of God’. Nevertheless, their faith is far from strong: the disciples, amazed as they were at the miracle of the loaves & fishes, lacked faith: when Jesus appeared to them walking on the waters they were terrified and so was Peter when he began to sink. To move mountains, faith must operate out of its own inner logic, with a total trust in God. In modern jargon we called it: ‘the faith factor’

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