TOE TAPPING

Matthew 14:22-33

²²Then he made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. ²⁴Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. ²⁵During the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them, walking on the sea. ²⁶When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. ²⁷At once [Jesus] spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” ²⁸Peter said to him in reply, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” ²⁹He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he saw how [strong] the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” ³¹Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³²After they got into the boat, the wind died down. ³³Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

                                                           

The small group of students began to meet with me just seven weeks ago to begin their Confirmation preparation process.  Each of these young women (no guys this year) are college students and each is coming into this with their eyes open, freely, not in reaction to some familial expectation or what all their friends and classmates are doing (this is at a large state university so the friends and classmates are decidedly NOT doing this).  Each has made the decision that the time is right to move toward this sacrament.  What exactly makes the time “right” is different for each of them and one of the young women is not yet convinced that she is ready to be Confirmed but is convinced she needs to at least actively move in that direction. Very mature.  This is one reason I love walking with college students toward Confirmation, toward Christ.  No one is making them do it.  There is a real freedom there, a freedom that opens up space in their lives for the Spirit to enter and work significant change.

One of the students is Bianca.  Bianca was baptized as a baby but was never raised with any connection to Christ, any connection to the Church.  Her actual knowledge of Christ and the teachings of the church were just about zero.  Not her fault.  She just never had the chance.  But God began to work in her life, began to move within her in God’s typically spectacular way.  Well, maybe it’s better to say, in God’s spectacularly ordinary way.  It was through a boyfriend. And the boyfriends’ mother.  Lot’s of college students have boyfriends or girlfriends – and pretty much all have mothers.  That’s pretty ordinary.   This young man is a person of faith and prayer.  The Mom is a woman of faith and prayer.  That’s the spectacular part.  It was through them that Bianca first came to see how faith-filled people live their lives, saw the significant practical impact of Jesus and Catholic Christianity on how they negotiated the realities of life.  So Bianca, on their advice, looked up the Newman Center and entered into our Confirmation preparation.

Not having near the same background as most of the other girls she seemed to be a little tentative, unsure, feel a bit unsteady when we first began meeting.  Who in her shoes wouldn’t feel that way?  Yet, each week Bianca had something to say that made it clear that she was engaged in the discussions, was thinking about it outside of our meetings and was taking it in.

At our last meeting of the semester, the week before finals and the beginning of the Christmas break I asked these “Countesses of Confirmation” (as I refer to them in my humorously sophisticated way) to sum up how they have changed over the weeks or how Christ had impacted them, taught them or worked in them.  What each of these young women had to say was inspiring in its depth and thoughtfulness and it was clear that Jesus’ Spirit was truly at work in each of their lives.  (Do I have a great job, or what!)  As is her habit, Bianca spoke last.  She said that she has changed in that when she began the process she didn’t understand God, and wasn’t sure she even had a relationship with God. “But now I know that I really do have a relationship to God. That’s how I’ve changed.”  And pointing out the window, across the small lawn, to the first of three small steps leading up into the Center she said, “I know I’m just up on that first little step, but I’m there.”

My reaction?  Well,  beyond once again thinking to myself, as I do so many times working with students, “I can’t believe I actually get paid to do this,”  was the thought, “Bianca, you are wrong!  You are so wrong……..That is NOT a little step.”  I wanted to say, “Bianca, you are climbing out of the boat!  You are Peter and have managed to see, amidst the storm and wind of life, Jesus walking on the water.  You, Bianca, have seen, in the guise of a boyfriend and his mother, the one - the One – who offers you hope that maybe, just maybe, you can walk on water, too!

The passage from Matthew just says that Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water.  I figure since paper was hard to come by, and expensive, Matthew had to leave out a few things for the sake of brevity and the paper budget.  Like the wide-eyed GULP Peter took when, after he invited Jesus to invite him (Peter) out of the boat and onto the water, and Jesus said, “Go for it, Peter.”  (Jesus had to have a bit of a chuckle at that – He knew that Peter sometimes engaged his mouth before putting his brain in gear).  Matthew had to leave out the actual process of climbing out of the boat – which I am sure was a bit more involved than Matthew could fit on the paper and stay within budget.  Here’s what he left out.

When Peter hung that first leg over the rail of the boat, leaning out as far as he could and stretching down to reach the water he gave the water a few tentative, unsure, unsteady taps with his toes – just to see if the water really was solid.  After a few toe taps he brought that test leg in and then sat on the rail with his legs dangling over the water.  Then easing off the rail of the boat, weight supported by his hands, arms straining, he eased himself down to the water.  Imagine the widening of his eyes when, with a touch of panic, he realizes it’s just a bit too far down and he’s going to have to let go and drop the last inch or two.  But, drop he did – inches in distance but miles in significance

Yes, I am sure that for Bianca these first steps seem a bit tentative, unsure, and unsteady but Peter’s first steps were no less tentative, unsure, and unsteady.  True enough.  But tentativeness isn’t the issue.  Climbing out of the boat is the issue.  Bianca’s climbing out.

A BBQ and a Flashlight

Abraham - The End

Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18

¹ Some time after these events, this word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:  “Fear not, Abram!  I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” ² But Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what good will your gifts be, if I keep on being childless and have as my heir the steward of my house, Eliezer?” ³ Abram continued, “See, you have given me no offspring, and so one of my servants will be my heir.” ⁴ Then the word of the LORD came to him: “No, that one shall not be your heir; your own issue shall be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can. Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.” ⁶ Abram put his faith in the LORD, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness. ⁷ He then said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as a possession.” ⁸ “O Lord GOD,” he asked, “How am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He answered him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle-dove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ He brought him all these, split them in two, and placed each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not cut up. ¹¹ Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram stayed with them. ¹² As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram, and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him. ^{… 17} When the sun had set and it was dark, there appeared a smoking brazier and a flaming torch, which passed between those pieces. ¹⁸ It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River (the Euphrates).

Okay, so far we’ve seen Abram struggle to trust.  We’ve seen God give this pretty odd seeming response about cutting up animals and laying them out to form a path between them.  And we’ve seen Abram have do battle with the vultures over whether the recently deceased animals were going to be, in some weird and rather gruesome way, a place where God would show up or would they simply a next meal for scavengers.  We’ve seen that Abram “Stayed with them.”

At this point of the story we are supposed to see a turn around, some sign that Abram's faithful, "staying with it" is paying off, being rewarded. That's how it is in the movies, on T.V. After a heroic struggle the hero, bloody and scarred, attains the victory and basks in the glow of triumph - and walks away with the beautiful girl who fell in love with him while he was saving the world. But that isn't how it always goes in life. Sometimes it just piles on. Bad news after bad news, struggle upon struggle. And, when it seems you are completely exhausted and all the fight has gone out of you, it sometimes gets darker still. For Abram, a "deep and terrifying darkness enveloped him." At this point he had to have come close to breaking, giving it all up, admitting it was never real in the first place. "Maybe the 'voice' of God that I heard wasn't real, was just my imagination, was only my needs playing themselves out.  Or maybe I was just out in the sun way too long.  And all this ritual stuff, the animals cut in two, the path between them, the 'promise' of a covenant -- all that is just empty religion, worthless. Maybe it's time to grow up and just admit that I was wrong, God has NOT been leading me, has NOT been speaking, is NOT here now and is NOT about to show up. I'll get over it. It's sad and depressing, scary actually, but it's time to move on. "

            Talk about a "terrifying darkness!" Everything that seemed so sure and solid now seems slippery and ready to give way. We've all felt that, all had moments, days, months, years when the light of God's presence seems an illusion and the darkness of God's absence seems all too real.  But, finally, when the sun had set and the darkness was at it darkest, God actually shows up. Not in some blaze of glory, a blinding flash or a thunderclap. No, here God shows up in the form of a smoking oven and a torch (which sounds suspiciously like a barbecue and a flashlight -- I don't get it either). But somehow Abram knows that God is in the smoke of the oven and the fire of the torch, and God passes between the animal’s carcasses and makes a covenant with Abram, "You know, Abram old buddy, all those promises I made before -- I'll keep them.

            And, again, isn't this how it happens with us. We have fought and struggled to remain faithful, kept at it long after it seems pointless, were terrified in the darkness of those times and then God shows up; shows up not in some fantastic Hollywood special effects way, not in the spectacle or glory that we think we need to believe again. No, God shows in the kind word from a stranger, the listening ear of a friend, a Scripture passage that we've heard a million times suddenly taking on meaning. God shows up without all the fanfare, without the pomp and circumstance but in the little lovely ways that God seems to prefer -- a smile, a spark of hope in a fearful heart, a stable on a cold night in Bethlehem. And in those moments, if we had "stayed with them" and, truthfully, even if we haven't, God says to us, "You know all those promises? They're real!" And the darkness begins to lift, not in a sudden rush of blinding light but in a small little flame that helps us see just enough. The darkness that has weighed us down, bent us over as we tried to carry it, begins to lighten and we realize that finally, instead of staring down at defeat, we are looking up at the stars God laughed in place eons ago…and can believe again.