Homily 651 – 9 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
August 10, 2025
Epistle:  (128) 1 Corinthians 3:9-17
Gospel:  (59) Matthew 14:22-34

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

When we hear the account of Peter walking on the sea to Christ, we sometimes miss some important context.  There is so much here – all of which are engaging – that it is really easy to miss some very important details.

For example, this story occurs during the “fourth watch”.  This was the absolute dead of night, the last watch before sunrise.  So, sometime between 3am and 6am on our more detailed clocks.

Now I don’t know about you, nor do I know about biblical times, but nothing terribly good typically happens around those hours.  Sure, at the end of those hours people begin rising from sleep.  But if you’ve been up absolutely all night, fighting a storm in a boat that is only powered by the wind, maybe rowing, then my guess is that those hours of the morning are particularly harrowing.

So – you have very likely been in an open boat, probably not a large boat, with your closest companions, for several hours, in the middle of a storm.

Then, you see a shadowy figure walking across the sea.  Bit of a shock, to say the least.  But that figure calls out and says don’t be afraid – it’s only me.

Still unsure exactly who, but recognizing the voice, you ask and are given permission to walk on the sea yourself.  You are tired, terrified, and perhaps a bit seasick, and not terribly sure what you are seeing, or doing.

Now – here is where the lessons start happening.  There are so many, but I will focus on one.  Peter ventures out, and then unceremoniously starts to falter and drown, no longer able to walk on the sea.

Notice, if you will, what our Lord says to Peter – not, “Oh, wow, you must be terrified, here let me help you.”  That isn’t what it says.  Christ says, after rescuing Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

So, what this lesson should teach us is something about faith, and doubt, and the consequences of both.

The whole sequence of events seems to be revolving around Peter’s focus on Christ.  When Peter is completely focused on Christ, he steps out of the boat and doesn’t falter.  When he diverts his attention from Christ, when the waves and the wind distract him, he falters and sinks.

That attention to Christ – and I’m trying to come up with a better word – that “hyper-focus” on Christ, that “obsession” with Christ, being “consumed” with Christ – that is faith.  Have you ever met someone that was so obsessed with something that any topic or conversation eventually turned to that obsession?

That is the obsession of faith.

And diverting one’s attention, one’s obsession, away from that topic gives us the definition of doubt.  Because why would you shift your gaze from perfection, from Truth itself, to anything imperfect or untrue?

We need to rethink faith.

Many of us, those brought up in western protestant traditions particularly, think of faith as a mental thing, an intellectual thing.  Which in my view is why we are seemingly obsessed with learning, and reading, and thinking about faith.  But thinking about something separates you from that something.

Once you introduce the idea of learning about something, according to our paradigm of knowledge and education, need to detach from it.  We are supposed to remain objective – and we are supposed to observe and reason.

When the object of study is a person, like for a health professional, we expect that distance, and people get in trouble for not maintaining that distance.  Sadly, in some cases, priests are held to that standard as well.

We don’t want to be distant from you, but in many cases we are expected to maintain that distance.  What we as priests frequently want to do is reach out and hug you and remind you that everything will be fine, just as we would our own child.

Which of course, you are!  You are all my children, and the children of Archbishop Alexander, and ultimately of our Lord Himself!

We have seen, though, that the distance that is expected in our society is seen by Christ as doubt, and when we doubt, we flounder.  We start to rely even more on ourselves, distancing ourselves further and further from God, until we recognize we are drowning.  Then, we call out to God to be saved.

Thanks be to God, He stands ready and willing to answer our call for help.  Doesn’t mean we will be absolved of the consequences that follow from our choices.  But we will live, and grow, and be saved.

What I encourage us to begin doing is to be obsessed with Christ.  Not just about Him – that will come on its own – but being obsessed with His presence with us, even when we don’t feel it.  Especially when we don’t feel it!

We will begin to see the world differently.  The things that matter to Christ will matter to us, and vice versa.  We will begin to see things differently perhaps, even our family.  We will begin to see them through Christ who lives in us and with us.  That perspective is critical to our proper understanding of our relationships.

We will begin to see wealth and power and status completely differently.  We will begin to see them for the distractions that they are, stealing Christ from us, because we cannot serve both God and mammon.

If we have learned anything in the past decade or two, it is that the world in which we live serves mammon.  To the extent that mammon is the only god the world knows.

But if we are distracted by the world, by mammon, or any of the things of the world, we are doubting Christ.  We are doubting the Christ, our God, who created us, who designed us.  God works through and in us, transforming us without our recognition.

God shares not the things about Himself – His mercy, His justice, His wisdom – instead, God shares Himself with us.  Through Christ our Lord.  It’s OK to be obsessed with that.

Because that obsession, is faith.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!