Three men today are in trouble, and not one of them is told to stay where he is. The word that comes to each of them is a word that sends them out.
Immediately after he had fed the crowd in the desert, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night, he came towards them, walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. "It is a ghost," they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, "Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid." Peter said to him in reply, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water towards Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God." (Mt 14:22-33)
Elijah has run for forty days to reach Horeb, and when he arrives he goes into a cave and spends the night there. He has every reason. Jezebel wants him dead, and as far as he can tell the whole enterprise has failed. The cave is not cowardice; it is exhaustion.
And the first thing God says to him is: "Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord." Not "rest here". Not "I will come in to you". Out. Onto the exposed ridge, in the open, where the wind is. What follows is famous — the hurricane, the earthquake, the fire, and God in none of them, and then the sound of a light silence. But notice that Elijah had to be standing outside to hear it. The whisper was not audible from inside the cave.
Then Matthew. The disciples did not choose this crossing; Jesus made them get into the boat. They are a good way offshore, the wind is against them, and it is the fourth watch — the last, coldest hours before dawn, when a night of rowing has emptied everyone. And into that comes a figure on the water, and their first reaction is not relief but terror. "It is a ghost." We should be gentle with them. When help finally arrives in a form we did not expect, our first instinct is very often to be frightened of it.
"Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid." And then Peter says something no one asked him to say: "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." This is not a request for proof. It is a request for a command. He does not want to be reassured; he wants to be sent. And Jesus gives him the one word that will hold him up: "Come."
He walks. That is worth pausing on, because we usually remember only the sinking. Peter walked on the water. What carried him was not his own capacity — he had none — but a word addressed to him personally. Then he looked at the wind, which had been there all along, and the word stopped being the thing he was standing on. "Lord, save me!" And the hand, immediately.
Between these two comes Paul, and his sentence is the most violent in the liturgy today: "I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kin according to the flesh." He is not being rhetorical. He is saying he would give up his own salvation if it would save his people. This is a man so far out of the boat that he has stopped calculating his own position entirely.
Put the three together and the shape of the day appears. God does not come to make our shelter more comfortable. He comes to call us out of it — out of the cave, out of the boat, out of the small safe accounting of what is ours. And the going out is always towards a person, never into a void: Elijah goes out before the Lord, Peter walks towards Jesus, Paul's whole anguish is for his brothers.
This is the missionary instinct in its purest form, and it is why the Missionaries of Bethlehem read this Sunday as their own. Nobody leaves home, language, and family because they have calculated that it will work out. They go because a word was addressed to them and they answered it. And every missionary knows Peter's second moment too — the day the wind becomes visible, the project stalls, the community disappoints, and the water that held yesterday no longer holds. The Gospel does not pretend that day does not come. It says what happens in it: the hand is faster than the sinking.
One last detail, easily lost. The wind does not drop when Peter is rescued. It drops when they get into the boat — when Jesus is aboard with them. The storm ends not because someone was brave enough, but because he came in. And it is only then that the disciples say, for the first time in Matthew, the sentence the whole Gospel is driving towards: "Truly, you are the Son of God."
They did not learn that on calm water. They learned it in the fourth watch of the night, from a man who had walked out to find them.
Scripture text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV), public domain.
Prayer of the Day
Lord, you called Elijah out of his cave when he had every reason to stay in it, and you gave Peter the one word he needed to leave the boat. Give us the courage to come out — of our shelters, of our calculations, of the safety we have arranged for ourselves — and to walk towards you across whatever frightens us. When we look at the wind instead of your face and begin to sink, be quicker than our sinking. And let your Son come aboard, so that the wind may drop. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
For Meditation
- Which cave are we sheltering in at the moment, and what would it cost to stand outside?
- Peter asked to be commanded, not reassured. Would we dare ask for that?
- Paul would have given up everything for his brothers. Who are the people for whom our own comfort has become negotiable?
