Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

In our Office Gospel this morning, we read John’s version of the story of Jesus walking on the water… and it’s a decidedly less dramatic version than the one we heard a few weeks ago from Matthew during our Sunday worship. John seems to give us the bare outline of the story—following a miraculous feeding of a multitude, the disciples set off in a boat, a storm happens, Jesus walks on water, the disciples are terrified, Jesus tells them “Don’t be afraid,” and then suddenly they’re at their destination, safe and sound. It’s as if John is interested in us knowing about this miracle occurring (it’s one of seven miracle stories in John), but is eager to move on to other things…in fact, this story is a bit of an interlude in chapter 6 which is all about bread and nourishment (who feeds us and on what do we feed?). In that context, the interlude underscores allusions and references throughout the chapter to the feeding of the children of Israel with manna in the wilderness following the Exodus out of Egypt—the walking on the water serves as a version of the crossing of the Red Sea and the leading of God’s people to “the land toward which they were going.” It’s something of a pivot point as well—led by Jesus, we’re coming into a new understanding of things: from being fed by God in the wilderness, to understanding that God desires to feed us on God’s own self and substance, to give us real and eternal life. Sometimes it’s the case, with shifts in understanding like this, that we need to reach the (spiritual) shore toward which we’re moving in order to understand more fully where we’ve really been and where (and what) we’re called to be; we can’t receive the new thing until we’re in a new place—not because the new thing is withheld from us, but because we don’t yet know how to hold it or be held by it until we come into that new place, that new understanding.

The image of a ship, such as the one in which the apostles traveled in our story, is such a ready metaphor for understanding what we might experience on our way to the “new place.” We might find ourselves foundering or adrift; we might so accommodate ourselves to the storms of life or circumstance that we come to believe our equanimity is an anchoring, that we’re fine, when really we’ve just gotten used to the storm and adapted to it (it is apparently ill-advised to set anchor in a storm—if that isn’t good advice...!); we can find ourselves stabilized by setting anchor, but eventually, we’ll need to pull it up if we want to get where we’re meant to go. And it may prove to be the case that, in order to navigate to- and reach the new place, we need to look outside the boat every now and again…to find our bearings, to catch a glimpse of the North Star.

Beloved, whatever new place to which you’re called in order to deepen your faith, stretch your hope, and expand your love, I pray that you’ll take the time—even and especially in the midst of whatever storms you may find yourself—to lift your head by bowing it in prayer, to see the True Polestar shining, to see the One who walks upon the waves of life storms, who is himself the Way we must go…and who is also our End and Goal, even Jesus Christ.

It might just happen that, when we see him, truly see him, we discover that (as if by some wondrous grace) we’re already where we need to be.

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+