In our CLC group recently we prayed with the story of Jesus walking on water. At a time when I’m thinking of taking a punt on a way of life that’s closer to my heart, it reminded me to trust that what God knows I can do is a much more accurate guide to life than what I think I can do.
The scene is set in confusion. It sounds a lot like life. Jesus has asked the disciples to take the boat on ahead, but now he needs to get in it, and it’s drifted off. Imagine Jesus standing on the shore, shaking his head; he wouldn’t have started from here, given the choice. He’s got to get to that boat –they need him – but what are the options? Well, he’ll have to walk on the water. Off he goes.
His initiative is met with panic, rather than gratitude, in the direction-less boat. What on earth? Never mind that the disciples know Jesus, have seen his work, and have every reason to trust him from prior experience. “It’s me,” Jesus insists. How many of the scary changes that crop up in life are actually presenting an opening for Jesus? This is where Ignatian discernment proves so helpful for me.
Peter steps up and enters right into the spirit of things. “If it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” I love this part. Jesus would never wish to humiliate Peter, so he must actually believe that Peter can do it. He knows Peter is just an ordinary man – but instead of saying, “don’t be daft, stay dry,” he encourages him to get out and give it a go. And it works. Peter really does walk on water, until he realises he’s doing it, and that it should be impossible. That’s when he begins to sink. It’s like watching a child riding a bike for the first time, turning round and realising his Dad is no longer pushing, then falling off simply because he thinks he doesn’t know how to ride.
Jesus rescues Peter at once and they get back in the boat. The focus is often put on the rebuke about Peter’s lack of faith, but to me it sounds like the bike-teaching father dealing with the endearing idiocy of his offspring. The message for me is this: get out of that boat, get back on that bike. Trust in a God who thinks we are up to even the unlikeliest task.

Third Sunday Mass – 19th February 2012
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
First Reading: Isaiah 43:18-19, 21-22, 24-25
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 41:2-5, 13-14
Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
Gospel: Mark 2:1-12

Points for Reflection Fr. James Hanvey SJ

Opening to The Word of God

All the readings presented to us have much that is worth dwelling with and in. Every time we come to scripture we do not simply come to a text, we come first to a person: the person of Christ and then a community of faith, the Church. Although the texts will vary, speaking in many different voices and genres, there us a inherent unity. They are God’s Word addressed to us. With most texts we study them and analyse them, we can do this with scripture too, but if this all we do, then we have misunderstood them. Beyond all our attention to form and detail, the Word of God speaks to us, invites us into a relationship. It is not one in which we are in control. We do not master the Word of God or the person of Christ, we receive. We must open ourselves and trust; let the Word open a new world to us, a new way of seeing, thinking, being and doing.  When we can do this then we know truly, “the words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” (Jn.6:63)

Praying the Sunday Texts

The readings come from different sources and periods but they have two uniting themes: 1: The Freedom and the Constancy of God in his desire to heal us and bring us into the fullness of life with him and in his service. 2: Our need of his healing and our freedom to live confidently in its gift.

For our prayer, a few questions might help us. When we ponder the readings, what do we begin to see of God’s own nature, especially as shown by Jesus? What is there about our own past or history that still weighs us down?  What is the ‘new deed’ that God needs to do for me? In the case of the paralysed man, he needed others to bring him to Jesus.  Who is bringing me? Who do I wish to bring? Can I see in these friends an image of the Church or a Christian community? The scribes presented obstacles and objections to Christ’s demonstration of the Father’s love and its power. They let these get in the way of compassion  “ happy the one who considers the poor and the weak….” But Christ is not bound by them – they are the ones who are strangely paralysed. How can this help me?  The psalm, like the reading from 2 Corinthians, celebrates the constancy of God’s grace and love. For Corinthians, that is now absolute and certain in the person of Jesus. We too have that faith and knowledge of him ‘alive in our hearts’ by the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Take time to give thanks for the gift of the Spirit in your life. How would you like to live more completely and joyfully that ‘Yes’ that God has said to you.

In his now much quoted 2005 Stanford address, Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” Looking back over a given period in our lives we can connect the dots and see where God has been actively working through us and those around us. What poses a much greater challenge is to trust that God is right with us in the here and now, in every single moment, and has the dots of our future in His hands.

At work last week I was observed and assessed as part of performance management in my job as a teacher. I was having a challenging week and the day before I began to seriously doubt whether I could successfully get through it. As I was considering whether to ask if it could be postponed, the woman who was to do the observation came to discuss another matter with me. I came very close to asking. When she left I realised that God had clearly been telling me not to, assuring me that even though it seemed a tough task, that the dots would lead to peace, not disaster. (Jeremiah 29:11). Indeed they did. Despite having a heavy workload of her own, a very dear colleague turned her energy to me and stayed for 3 hours to help me prepare. We have been praying together in a quiet room we recently discovered was free, so that evening the first thing we did was to pray for God’s wisdom and strength. From there, we began to discuss ideas and eventually formed a plan. At several points she warned me of the danger of thinking too much about each detail or of changing my mind about things we had decided on, that those things were not from God. Instead she reminded me of our prayer, and that now we had to trust that God was providing exactly what we needed.

On the day of the observation I received the grace of courage and an inner peace and calm that could only have come from God. There was such power in that peace, I felt released to be who I was created to be, trusting that God is in charge. I heard someone recently describe faith as believing that even when you are in a situation you do not like, no matter how stuck you feel or how long you have been in it, God can transform it. In her book “Inner Compass (1999)”, Margaret Silf invites us to trust that God’s Spirit will hover over the mess, bringing wholeness out of brokenness, as once that same Spirit brought creation out of chaos.

Even after experiencing and witnessing the fruits of faith, both in my life and the lives of others, I can quickly find myself fearful and doubting. “I know you were there then God, in an amazing way, but what about next time?” Or, in the next step I can find myself walking back down paths I have painfully learned many times lead me away from God. But I have come to understand that at such times, God does not want us to be consumed with guilt, as that takes us further away from Him. The gift of forgiveness is always there, if we can but first forgive ourselves. I am greatly encouraged by the fact that despite living alongside him, hearing his teachings and witnessing his miracles first hand, Jesus’ own disciples repeatedly struggled to believe what was before their very eyes. Jesus knows our human nature. He does not give up on us and certainly does not want us to give up on ourselves. The Spirit repeats over and over, in as many ways as necessary, the call to have faith in the power of God. Though we cannot connect the dots looking forward, we can pray for the will to surrender all in ever deepening trust that we are being led in our mission to serve God and be a light in the world.