Matthew 14: 22-33 excerpt After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.
When it was evening he was there alone.
Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night,
he came toward them walking on the sea
Homily >>> This is a homily about Jesus and His traveling in boats or else by walking with His disciples to get to places.
The Twelve apostles were asked to follow their Rabbi-extraordinaire Jesus all across Israel. Back 2000 years ago, that would have mostly involved walking, so much so, that having a walking stick was a normal walking tool for them. Very long walks were common.
What has been your longest walk this Summer? I have been pondering a walk to Riderwood and back, only 4.5 miles apart from Resurrection church. Even at a good pace, it’s 80 minutes each way. But it’s doable. I was pondering walking to the Lincoln Memorial for a challenging walk. It could take 6-7 hours to do! I’m not so sure of it. Yet Jesus and His disciples did it all the time. My grandpa also used to take me on long Summer hikes—but since I was with him, I didn’t mind the effort. I enjoyed it.)
Back in Jesus’ time, there was another way of travel in Galilee that was usually faster than walking—it was traveling by boat.
We heard about that in last week’s gospel (In Matthew 14, after verse 22, it says Jesus got to the shore and disembarked and saw the crowds waiting on Him. His disembarked a boat. Now when that event was over, Jesus sent His apostles to go ahead of him to their next destination in the boat, and He said He would catch up with them later. They weren’t sure how’d He do it, but off they went rowing and sailing. They headed off on the familiar Sea of Galilee on calm waters, and four of the apostles aboard were experienced fishermen on this sea. They had directions to go to a known seacoast place, for Jesus to next see them there, but later on in the night they hit upon a storm, when they were far from land. The Sea of Galilee is 12 by 8 miles—so they were in deep water, and in deep trouble with this storm. It was getting pretty scary for their boat’s safety, even for four experienced sailors; so they wondered: Would they sink and die? It’s at this time that the mighty miracle happened of Jesus walking on the sea to them and with Him easily calming the waters and weather by His power, and when that took place—they became really in awe of Jesus.
The apostles had many other boat trips with Jesus to get to places, but they worried no longer about weather! They never forgot this one, and said: Who is Jesus that He commands the sea? Is He indeed God in the flesh with us, the Messiah?
Yet boat trips were usually long, slow trips when the disciples and Jesus could be together, talk, rest, and so forth. At the end of this homily, I’d like to share about family car trips and Sunday drives that helped us a lot to bond as the Barry’s.
Before the boat stories, the gospels tell of Jesus going from Nazareth to Cana in Galilee, walking with a group as to go attend a wedding. It would have entailed at least five straight hours of walking for them all—maybe more, in a trip when Mary and other Nazarene relatives and Jesus and His disciples would have group-walked the distance. No problem! For them! I did a wedding on Friday across to Virginia about 55 miles away. I drove! It still took 90 minutes to get there (by 200 to 270 to 495 to 66 to Rt. 7 to Algonquin Pkwy).
But I think of Jesus and those folks walking for hours to that wedding in Cana town, and it tells me that it was different back then! People were together more, not so distanced as today.
What do you do to come together, like in the Summer or Sundays? Is it for barbeques outside? Dinner out? Beach or pool time? Shows? Ballgames? And do you visit and talk and share?
This Cana Wedding brought them all together, and the stay in Cana was for a 7 day celebration, hence the amount of wine Jesus made for it in the miracle. Then it was to walk back home. This was normal travel back in Jesus’ time. Only if one were rich or powerful did you get to ride by camels, elephants or horses and carriage/chariot. The Jewish people walked on grass and ground mostly on the bare feet or sandals. So Jesus did this, too.
I’d like you to picture that—because today most of us get around in cars, suvs, or motored or electric vehicles of transportation. For much our getting around. Yes, we still have our walking. But we like our vehicles to move around fast and easy.
But the people of Jesus’ time might have liked their slower travel for one reason—it gave them time to talk to one another and see the scenery and be in nature. Even in a boat, they were together and could talk, or even just rest and be quiet, but be together.
I’d like now to share with you a happy Summer memory and often-on-Sunday memory of my childhood. I had a dad who liked to get us all in the car, including mom, grandma, my brother, my sisters and I—and we’d go for a long drive on an afternoon when we could be free to all do it. It happened on a lot of Sundays, especially in the Summer, when Dad would have us pile in the station wagon (no minivans then). We didn’t know where Dad would take us, but we had our picnic basket ready and folding chairs.
In my earliest memories, it was in a car without air conditioning, so the windows were down. We did not have personal items like phones or music devices, so it was for us to listen to the radio for awhile (we each had a push-button station to choose for a time), but more of it was our talking to one another and just looking out the window in some quiet and seeing nature and the new places on the map. We all were in this together, and Sundays usually had no sports games or school activities scheduled, nor even big food stores open for shopping—so Sunday could be a driving day. It was quite an adventure.
So I wanted to point out that the automobile was one of my favorite places to be, because it gave us all family time. We went to Mass in the morning, a bagel shop, came home and ate, then packed up, and took off. I’d bring a doodle drawing book and some games along for the shared fun. I remember as an elementary school boy in these family outings that I liked spotting new gas station signs and drawing and coloring them by memory. Or I’d draw other things I saw. My brother Kevin liked the trips, as well as any longer supper time we had, so to talk a lot and fill us in on his perspective in life, which was always entertaining. Sometimes the trip involved infants in Mom’s care, but they always seemed to fall asleep and like the motor car drives.
One time on a drive, and then on several repeated ones, Dad announced that we were in Canada at Niagara Falls (we lived in Rochester NY from 1962-66—our car was a Chevy then a Rambler station wagon). Seeing the Falls was the most amazing surprise of any of the trips. Often we would find an ice cream stand or such a place and have a treat. In Maryland, we seemed to go find every remote place for a family outing, but the Rehoboth Beach trips after an early Sunday Summer Mass were great fun. So too was a trip to Mt. Vernon or Monticello or the Gettysburg battlefield. But going to and fro also might fill us in on a family history story or a lesson on life, including faith instruction.
That takes me to the homily wrap-up (show toy car) This is a toy car made of wood by our Riderwood woodshop, it’s one of many that they made and gave to me to pass out to whoever likes toy cars. I chose it to be our 9 am Family Mass, and to tell my car trip stories.
Last week, when I heard the Matthew 14 line– When Jesus disembarked the boat and saw” I kind of applied it to this memory of when we disembarked the station wagon after a drive to go and see new places around the Del/Mar/Va area or earlier in the New York years. We saw Amish country a few times on these drives, and once it was a pretzel factory we saw and a Schmorgasbord restaurant we visited in Dad’s planned food stop. I have so many good car trip memories.