“Can you walk on water? Have you ever been asked that question? Can you walk on water? Someone over here said, ‘no.’ Well in some sense, yeah it’s a miracle isn’t it? But did you know that all the miracles Jesus did in the scriptures we’re meant to do ourselves? So, how do you walk on water?
First, we have to see what is the water? In today’s Gospel it’s the stormy seas. We’re in the boat, but first what is water? In our faith, water can be used in the sacraments to drink, to cleanse, to nurture, but sometimes in the scriptures water is used to destroy. It’s chaos. It’s disruption. In Genesis- before the world was created it was the water that God separated with the word of God. IN the Noah story it was the waters that were gonna destroy. The rains came and the floods came and it was destroying the world. Moses- who struck the ground and the waters moved away for them to pass through, so waters…water is often seen in this sense as chaos, corruption, our sinfulness. Now that we have what water is in this scripture passage, what is St. Peter and the apostles in the boat? Whenever Peter and the apostles are in a boat it represents the Church, us, the Church. So now that we have the scene set, let us see how Peter walks on the water.
Peter walks on the water with faith in Christ. That’s the answer. It’s your faith that you walk on water. Jesus comes walking toward the boat and it’s Peter’s faith that says, ‘tell me to come to you.’ and he starts coming to Jesus, but what happens? He takes his eyes off of Christ and he starts to notice the wind and the stormy seas and he starts to sink. We do that often in our lives, don’t we? What is the chaos in our lives? What is the stormy seas in our lives? Really it’s anything that keeps us from Christ. It’s that Christ should be the center of our life. Christ should be the focus of our life and if we do that, we can also walk on waters. We can have peace on the stormy seas.
Now, let’s look at what these stormy seas could be in our life. When we put politics as the center of our lives, we’ll start to see it will crumble. We’ll start to sink into that water. If we put our own health into the focus of our lives, we’ll start to see that someday it isn’t always true. We’ll start to sink into those waters. If we put money, success, we keep our eyes focused on those we will sink into the chaos, the water. In today, especially in our world things are being shaken up. People are being fearful, but it’s only if we keep our eyes on Christ that we will be able to withstand those stormy seas. So what is it to have faith? We’re all given the gift of faith through our baptism. Faith is to participate in the divine life. That’s why I said everything Jesus did in scripture he invites us to do in our life. That’s why St. Peter was able to start walking on the water. To have faith is to participate in the divine life. To have faith is to have peace in your heart even in the chaos, the corruption, the sinfulness of the world. To have faith is to keep our eyes focused on Christ even though we get distracted by everything else, our own self consciousness, our own sinfulness. To have faith is to walk on water.
So, as you come before Christ who is truly here before us in the Eucharist, let us continue to ask the Lord for the strength and the courage to come towards him, to acknowledge our fears, our anxieties, to acknowledge we are in the boat. There are stormy seas, but to give us the courage to keep our eyes, our hearts and our souls focused on Christ. Amen.”