Readings of the day: Numbers 12:1-13; Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 6cd-7, 12-13; Matthew 14:22-36
Tuesday of the 18th week in Ordinary Time
“You of little faith”… Whenever I hear this Gospel account of Jesus walking on water, Peter taking up Jesus’ invitation to walk toward him on the water and then becoming frightened and sinking before Jesus reaches out to save him, I have a lot of empathy toward Peter and Jesus’ other disciples.
Much of my empathy toward Jesus’ disciples here derives from my having stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and seen a fascinating (and possibly frightening, if one were ever caught out on the water when it happened) phenomenon about this body of water. The Sea of Galilee is not especially large. But, because of how it forms a basin surrounded by hills and how this orients the wind over the Sea of Galilee, the water can go from perfectly calm to white-capped or even choppier waves in little time and with seemingly harmless winds.
Much of my empathy toward Jesus’ disciples here derives from my having stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and seen a fascinating (and possibly frightening, if one were ever caught out on the water when it happened) phenomenon about this body of water. The Sea of Galilee is not especially large. But, because of how it forms a basin surrounded by hills and how this orients the wind over the Sea of Galilee, the water can go from perfectly calm to white-capped or even choppier waves in little time and with seemingly harmless winds.
And I am sure it is not every day that one witnesses a person walking on water, even if that person is the Son of God! So in many ways I empathize with Peter’s and the other disciples’ reaction to Jesus walking on water, when the wind had already been “against them.”
Peter and the other disciples endear themselves to me by how bold they in fact are when they witness Jesus walking on water. I do not think I would have asked Jesus, as Peter does, to command me to walk toward him on the water, even if I knew it was Jesus, the Son of God.
Jesus seemingly chides Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt”? But I interpret this less as Jesus scolding Peter than motivating him to see just how significant the “little faith” he has is. Peter’s “little faith” enables him to ask Jesus to command him to walk toward him on the water. Although Peter takes his focus away from the Lord and begins to sink, the fact that Peter has already willed himself to get to this point is significant.
We can think of other moments in the Gospels—the parables of the mustard seed and of the small measure of leaven come to mind—when Jesus points out how significant even a small amount of faith can be, because Jesus will take our small contributions and multiply them: Quell our fears, motivate us to see the best in ourselves. In today’s Gospel is not so much a moment when Peter is scolded as a “you can do this… See what you did there?” moment.
And I pray that Jesus will motivate me in the same way as he once did his disciples on the sea, when I need to be motivated or to exercise a quality in myself that I may not value as I should. I pray that I will be able to perceive the best in other people—confrères, family members, friends, the People of God who are the Church—to be able to encourage them, people of (a) “little faith” as we all are, so that the “little faith” we contribute will enable us to act with great boldness, great courage, great loving kindness in the Lord’s name.
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