Matthew 14:22-33

 NINETEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini

Greetings to all. 

Remember that last week's gospel text concluded with the scene of the twelve apostles who, after having served the crowd that Jesus had made to lie down on the green grass, gathered twelve baskets of pieces of bread. One basket for each apostle. And I also pointed out that Matthew no longer spoke of fish, and the apostles had only bread. What did they do? They took it with them... Where to? This is the question. The evangelist Matthew answers it in today's text with an enigmatic narration full of biblical symbolisms that we will try to decipher. 

Jesus will give an order to the disciples: he will tell them where to take that bread that—let's say it immediately— it is he himself. He is the Bread! He is the Word of life; that bread is his Gospel. Where should they take it? Let us listen: 

“Then he made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.” 

We have heard that Jesus did not tell his disciples to depart and go to the other side. He did not only give them a command; he compelled them. The Greek verb is ἠνάγκασεν (anankasen), which we translate as "made." Jesus compels his disciples to depart and cross over to the other shore because they are reluctant to do so. They do not want to get into the boat and go alone. In the Gospel, the expression "to precede to the other side" means "to go to the East." Let's look at a geographical map of the Lake of Galilee. We will understand that "to go toward the East" means to go toward the pagan land where people raise swine and, therefore, they are impure, unclean people... Jesus asks his disciples to bring to those people the Bread that—we have already said—is Christ himself, is the Gospel. But they don't want to take it to the other shore; they want to keep it for the holy people, for their people, the people of Israel. 

To fully understand today's Gospel text, we must mention the situation that Matthew's community is living in. The Christian communities are worried about a problem that affects them a lot. This time, the problem does not come from outside; it is not from the opposition of the pagan world; it is a problem internal to the community. What is it about? The book of the Acts of the Apostles states that many Pharisees had converted to Christ when they entered the Church. However, they created serious problems because they were still Pharisees, firm in their traditionalist positions, and resisted accepting the novelty of the Gospel. The novelty of the Gospel is a very great thing: the unconditional love of God for all. The Pharisees still thought that God's blessings were reserved for the sons and daughters of Abraham. They had not understood that the election of the people of Israel was not 'against' the pagans but for them. 

In this context, to help resolve this internal conflict in the community in the light of Christ, the evangelist Matthew introduced the text we are examining. It is a page of catechesis composed of images with biblical symbolisms that are well known to the readers of Matthew and that we will also understand well. Therefore, the twelve leave alone and reluctantly go to the pagan land. Let us listen to how the text continues: 

“After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone.” 

Strangely, Jesus does not go with the disciples to the other side and goes alone to the mountain to pray. What need was there to go to the mountain to pray? Then night comes, and he stays there alone on the hill. As a chronicle, the fact leaves us somewhat bewildered, but if we consider the symbolism of the mountain in the Bible and the Gospels, everything becomes clearer. The plane is where our life takes place; the mountain indicates the world of God, and going up the mountain means going to meet the Lord. 

The disciples we see leaving in the boat are alone, or instead, they feel lonely because they do not have Jesus with them. Why has Jesus left them? Mark's account tells us with an image: "Because evening has come." It is the evening of Jesus; his day has ended—the day of his life—and he goes up the mountain. Now we understand what evening is in Matthew's symbolism. This image represents the end of Jesus' life. Jesus has left our world and has entered the world of God. He has ministered to the crowd, symbolic of all humanity; he has concluded his mission; he has consumed his whole life, giving himself as bread, curing all diseases, and now he has entered the world of God. 

That is why the disciples are alone. Jesus is no longer visibly with them. I repeat that this is not a chronicle page but a parable composed by Matthew with biblical symbolism to answer the problems of his communities. Let's look at these symbolisms. 

The boat is the Church; the community of disciples moves on the sea, and the sea symbolizes all that opposes life. In the boat are those who must carry Christ, the Gospel, to all without discrimination, to any people, nation, culture, to whatever social condition they belong to, and it is clear that the evil, represented by the image of the sea, will be opposed; all hostile forces will unite to prevent this crossing. 

The boat with the disciples does not move in the sunlight but during the night, in the darkness. What does this darkness mean? The book of Genesis tells us that the first creature of God was light, and ever since, in the Bible and also in the New Testament, light always indicates everything beautiful that is positive. Psalm 104 says: "God is wrapped in light as in a mantle" (Ps 104:2). The First Letter of John, right at the beginning, says: "God is light; in him, there is no darkness at all" (1 Jn 1:5). On the other hand, the darkness and the black color that it represents are symbols of the kingdom of evil and death. Job says that sheol, the world of death, is a land of darkness and gloom. Therefore, the darkness enveloping the disciples in the boat symbolizes the kingdom of evil and death and their disorientation; they must fulfill an order of the Lord, but they hesitate, they are confused, and it seems that they no longer see clearly where they should go. 

It is an image of the problematic moments they go through in the communities of Matthew's time. But not only those of that time. It is also an image of our ecclesial reality today. Do we not often have the feeling of being enveloped by darkness? We are disoriented, aren't we? We frequently don't know what options to take, what positions to adopt, or how we should move, and so many certainties that we see are questioned, and we wonder what will be correct and what will be wrong. Jesus assured us that the gates of the underworld, that is, the world of darkness and evil, will not resist the Gospel's impact; it will break through all resistance. But often, we have the opposite feeling, namely, that the kingdom of evil is too strong for us, that it is invincible, impenetrable to the Gospel. And many times, we are also seized by the doubt that our commitment to the cause of the kingdom of God is no longer useful. These are the nights of our Church, the nights of abandonment, discouragements, oppositions, and divisions within our communities. 

Also, on a personal level, we experience these anguishing nights; life sometimes confronts us with disturbing events, great dramas, betrayals, and injustices to such an extent that even our faith sometimes falters, we enter into crisis, and we ask ourselves if it is still worthwhile to continue to behave according to the Gospel; we feel alone; we have the disturbing experience of what is called the silence of God; we no longer feel his presence at our side, and hear his voice resounding loud and clear in our hearts. 

Let us now listen to what is happening to that boat that, moving in the night, is heading toward the goal indicated by Jesus: 

“Meanwhile, the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it.” 

The waves tossed the boat. The Greek verb used is βασανιζόμενον (basanozómenon), which comes from βάσανος (básanos), a tough stone used in Asia Minor to test whether a metal was valuable or vile. The metal was rubbed with básanos. But here, the meaning of this verb is not just "to rub" but means "to torture" to test the resistance of this boat. 

What are these waves? They are the tests that every Christian community is confronting today. What are these waves that shake and toss us today? We know them well: the waves of worldliness, which propose to you as good what you like, as correct, what the whole world does, which suggests to you as an ideal of a human being to be applauded when successful, that is to say, the opposite of what the Beatitudes of Jesus of Nazareth propose. 

And they are the waves of difficulties that come from within the Church, the waves of scandals, of the hardness of heart at the time of listening to the word of God, the waves of those obsolete traditions that some still insist on maintaining, certain credulities that have nothing to do with the Gospel. This challenges the Christian community that wants to open itself entirely to the proposal of the Gospel. These trials make us suffer but can and must purify us because they reveal the gold of true faith and are the common metals that have nothing to do with it. They are the waves that we experience continually and that also hit out of the boat to those insecure, undecided, and unconvinced Christians. And then there is the headwind. Not just the waves but the opposition of the wind. Christian communities do not have the wind at the stern of the world. 

The Bible often speaks of the wind blowing against ships. Psalm 48, for example, says of the east wind that breaks the ships of Tarshish, and Psalm 107 says that there is the wind that causes storms on the sea, storms that sweep ships into the abysses and make the sailors stagger like drunks. It is a very effective presentation of what is happening today in our Christian communities. It is the experience we all do and are called to face. Worldliness never blows in favor of the Gospel. If, in the face of certain oppositions, we begin to doubt the choices that we have made, it means that our faith in Christ is weak and fragile. 

But, like the Twelve, Do we believe that we face the journey alone, abandoned, forgotten by Jesus? Let us listen: 

“During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward 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.’” 

In all the Ancient Middle Eastern cultures, the sea was considered the symbol of evil, the demonic, of death. In Babylon, there was a very famous New Year festival, the Akitu. During this feast, the most solemn day, the high priest of Marduk chanted the Enuma Elish, that is, the mythical account of the Creation in which it is narrated a titanic struggle between the supreme god, Marduk, and Yam, the sea imagined as a monster who wants to perpetuate chaos and prevent life. 

We also find in the Bible this mythical image of the sea as an enemy monster that the Lord confronts. The God of Israel does not defeat it at the end of an epic struggle; he dominates it in a prolonged way with his word. In the book of Job, the prophet expresses his tremendous grief and laments strongly to a God who seems indifferent. God finally intervenes to answer him and, at one point, asks him: "Where were you when I created the world when I laid the earth's foundations? Where were you when I formed the mountains?" And then: “Where were you when I spoke to the sea: ‘Thus far shall you come but no farther, and here shall your proud waves stop?’” (Job 38:11). Here is God who quietly dominates the sea with his word. 

Remembering this symbolism to understand the story we are examining is necessary. The disciples are not afraid of drowning in the waters of the Sea of Tiberias or the little lake of Tiberias; after all, they are skilled swimmers. The only one who probably didn't know how to swim was Jesus because he came from the mountains of Lower Galilee, from Nazareth. Other waters frighten the disciples; they are afraid of being submerged by the waters of paganism; they fear to go to the failure of their mission. It is the situation of the communities at the end of the first century and our communities today. 

In this dramatic situation, Jesus appears, walking on the sea's waters. This fact is remembered twice because it is essential. He does not fear these waves that frighten the disciples; he walks calmly on the waters and treads on them as one who can calmly put the enemy under his feet. Who is this? The book of Job tells us that only God walks on the sea's waves (Job 9:8). The disciples see him but do not recognize him; they think he is a ghost. Matthew is not relating a material fact; he is describing with biblical images the situation of the Christian communities tormented by so many trials, distressed by doubts, and, above all, disoriented by the fact that they no longer have visibility with them the Master who would have infused them with security and courage. 

The evangelist wants to enlighten these communities and also ours, and therefore, he reminds them of a truth that they know very well and that they should always keep in mind: the Risen One has not gone away; he has not abandoned them to their fate; he is always by their side, as he promised, until the end of the world, not physically, as when he walked the streets of Palestine, but in a different way but no less real. Moreover, he is next to each one because limitations no longer condition him of space and time. Before, when he was in Nazareth, he was not in Capernaum, and his mother felt him distant. Now, he is no longer distant because all the limits of space and time have collapsed. But there is no need to confuse him with ghosts. On Easter day, when the Risen One appears amid the assembled disciples, they are frightened, astonished, and think they see a ghost. It is him, but in a completely different condition, and material eyes cannot see him; only the gaze of faith can recognize him. 

Let us ask ourselves whether we are aware of the real presence of the Risen One at our side or whether this presence is rather vague and fleeting, a bit like that of a ghost. Yes, it does not influence our choices. If we don't feel it present, it's no wonder we are frightened under challenging moments when we feel lonely. 

Matthew introduces in the narration, which we also find in Mark and John, this account of Jesus walking on the waters. However, only Matthew introduces a strange request from Peter to Jesus. Let us listen: 

“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 toward 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?’” 

Peter's question is not only strange but completely improbable. How can an experienced swimmer like him be afraid of sinking in the waters of the Lake of Galilee? Here, we are at the apex of the symbolism of this story. Peter's fear is another one: it is that, after giving his life as Jesus asks him, he will be swallowed up forever by the sea's waters, which is death. This is an image that is repeated in the Bible. The psalmist, the author of Psalm 18, recounts the drama he lived through when a deadly disease came upon him, and he describes it as follows: "I was bound with deadly snares, destructive torrents terrified me." "Sheol, the ocean's waves were about to submerge me." 

Peter's fear is this: ‘If I go to Jesus, that is, if I do what he asks me to do, that is, to lay down my life as he has done, Will I not lose it, will I not be devoured forever by the waters of death? And, in the end, shall I not remain remorseful of not having enjoyed life like the Gentiles?' This is Peter's fear, the fear of giving his life. 

Peter knows that the waters of death did not swallow up Jesus. This account was composed after the disciples had the experience of the Risen One. But Peter wants to be sure that it will happen to him the same that he saw happen to Jesus, that is, the entrance into life, into the world of God. Jesus invites him to come to him and asks him to do what he has done. Peter tries, but then he doubts that he has made the right decision. He begins to be afraid. 

Peter is the image of our condition of undecided, doubtful disciples. We believe in Jesus, but up to a certain point, we no longer trust in giving our lives or are unwilling to give it all. At a certain point, we even want to keep it for ourselves. The doubt is not that Jesus is incorrect, that the gift of life for love is not the right choice; the suspicion is something else. It's that we don't feel very confident that we can go all the way. So, what does Peter do? He asks the Lord for help. That's what we are invited to do; he can give us the strength of his Spirit to live life, as Jesus did. This doubt, Jesus says, is the sign of scarcity of faith; we have a little faith but not much. We trust him, but only up to a certain point. 

Perhaps it would have been better for Peter not to get out of the boat, stay with the other disciples, and make another choice. Let us listen: 

“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.’” 

We must go through many dark moments and storms in our lives. What to do in those moments? Peter decides to leave the boat; he should have stayed with his brothers and done what Jesus had asked: "Confirm your brothers in the faith." This is the task that Jesus gave him, but he got out of the boat. He was to welcome Jesus into the boat, that is, to make all his brothers aware that the Risen One is not a ghost but a real presence in the Christian community and the life of each one of us. 

The message of this passage is precisely this: In the difficult moments of your life, in the stormy moments of the Church, embrace the Gospel, embrace Christ in your life, and welcome Christ in the life of the Church, and you will realize that the storms will subside. 

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.