Patrick Comerford
The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Mark 6: 45-52 (NRSVA):
45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.
47 When evening came, the boat was out on the lake, and he was alone on the land. 48 When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the lake. He intended to pass them by. 49 But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ 51 Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
Today’s Reflection:
Saint Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000 (6: 34-44), which was the Gospel reading at the Eucharist yesterday, is followed today by his account of Jesus calming the storm on the lake (Mark 6: 45-52).
Each of Saint Mark’s feeding miracles is joined with a water miracle, evoking the Exodus stories, including God parting the waters (Exodus 14: 19-31) and God feeding the people in the wilderness (Exodus 16: 31-21), and the disciples’ misunderstanding is a serious condition, akin to Pharaoh’s misunderstanding that is linked to his oppression of the enslaved people (see Exodus 7 to 11).
In today’s Gospel reading, the disciples are on a boat on their way to Bethsaida when they are caught in a storm on the lake. Jesus walks on the water, calms their fears and shows his divine power – in this case over the stormy, choppy seas (verses 45-52).
In the Gospel reading, the disciples feel abandoned as they face their worst fears and face the abyss in the sea, the fear of drowning in the storms of life, of falling into the pit.
But Christ tells them, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ And they respond with faith, bow down and worship him, and proclaim him the Son of God.
Christ tells the disciples to get into the boat and to go ahead of to the other side of the lake while he sends the crowd home.
Then, instead of using another boat to follow the disciples, or walking around the shoreline, he goes up a mountain by himself, and he spends the evening and much of the night in prayer.
The Sea of Galilee is shallow, but storms can rise suddenly. Early in the morning, before dawn, the boat is far from the shore when it is battered by waves and the wind. The disciples have lost control and are frightened. They see Jesus walking on the sea, and are terrified even more, thinking they are seeing a ghost. They cry out in their fears, but Jesus seeks to calm their fears: ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’ (verse 50).
During the past year, I have enjoyed a number of journeys on boats, and walked by countless rivers, harbours, lakes and canals, enjoying the sight of other people enjoying their time in boats and on the water – in Cambridge, Dublin, Great Linford, Iraklion, Kuching, London, Oxford, Paris, Rethymnon, Singapore, Stony Stratford …
It is almost 60 years since I first went rowing as a teenager on Lough Ramor in Virginia. But as an adult, I had long thought that I would be left regretting that I had arrived in Cambridge as a student in my 50s, too late in life to learn, or to re-learn how to row. I had come to enjoy rowing as a sport and an activity, but in a very passive way.
Then one evening, as I was standing casually at the slipway at Askeaton, Co Limerick, where I was living as the priest-in-charge, I was suddenly and unexpectedly invited to get into a boat and started to row.
I was fearless. It was a pleasure I had often hoped for and wished for. And for almost an hour, we rowed upstream, under the bridge at Askeaton, and as far as the castle, and then downstream past the factory, although not as far as the estuary.
When I suggested that I might be too old to learn, I was told brusquely and with humour, that once I stopped learning I had stopped living.
Since then, I have watched children and teenagers hop in and out of boats, freely and fearlessly, confident of their own ability and the ability of those who are training them.
Freely and fearlessly. But as I was messing about on boats in Crete during a holiday some years ago, hopping on and off boats in the sun as I visited smaller islands and lagoons off the coast, I thought of how this was a pleasure that I was paying for, while many refugees were full of fear as they boarded boats in the dark trying to arrive on Greek islands, or cross the Channel, having paid exorbitantly for the risk and the dangers.
Freely. Fearlessly. What are your worst fears?
Many of us have continuing fears about the economy, and some of us have fears that there may be yet another about the Covid-19 pandemic, or that the conflicts raging between Russia and Ukraine and throughout the Middle East may spill over into our own ‘safe areas’. Others of us also have well-founded fears about the ways a second Trump presidency threatens stability in the US and across the world.
As we grow up and mature, we tend to have fewer fears of the outside world, and as adults we begin to cope with the fears we once had as children, by turning threats into opportunities.
The fears I had as a child – of snakes, of the wind, of storms at sea, of lightning – are no longer the stuff of the recurring nightmares they were when I was a child. I have learned to be cautious, to be sensible and to keep my distance, and to be in awe of God’s creation.
Most of us have recurring dreams that are vivid and that have themes that keep repeating themselves. Yet in sleep the brain can act as a filter or filing cabinet, helping us to process, deal with and put aside what we have found difficult to understand in our waking hours, or to try to find ways of dealing with our lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy, with the ways we confuse gaining attention with receiving love, or with our needs to be accepted, affirmed and loved.
The disciples’ plight in today’s Gospel reading seems to be the working out of a constant, recurring, vivid dream of the type many of us experience at some stage: the feelings of drowning, floating and falling suddenly, being in a crowd and yet alone, calling out and not being heard, or not being recognised for who we are.
As seasoned boat-handlers, the Disciples know not to try walking on water. They know the risk of sudden storms and swells, and they know the safety of a good boat, as long as it has a good crew.
But since the early history of the Church, the boat has symbolised the Church. The bark (barque or barchetta) symbolises the Church tossed on the sea of disbelief, worldliness, and persecution but finally reaching safe harbour. Part of the imagery comes from the ark saving Noah’s family during the Flood (I Peter 3: 20-21). Christ protects the Disciples and their boat on the stormy Sea of Galilee (see also Matthew 14: 22-33; John 6 16-21). The mast forms the shape of the Cross.
It is an image that appears in Apostolic Constitutions and the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We still use the word nave for the main part of the church, which, architecturally often looks like an up-turned boat.
None of us should risk walking on water, or risk play stupidly in boats on the river or in choppy waters or storms. But if we are to dream dreams for the Church and for the Kingdom of God, we need to be aware that it comes at the risk of feeling we are being sold out by those we see as brothers and sisters, and risk being seen as dreamers rather than people of action by others: for our dreams may be their nightmares.
If we are going to dream dreams for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we may need to step out of our safety zones, our comfort zones, and know that this comes with a risk warning.
And if we are going to dream dreams for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to keep our eyes focussed on Christ, and to know that the Church is there to bring us on that journey.
Let us dream dreams, take risks for the Kingdom of God, step outside the box, but let us keep our eyes on Christ and remember that the boat, the Church, is essential for our journey, and let us continue to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Today’s Prayers (Thursday 9 January 2025):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘The Melanesian Brotherhood Centenary’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update by Ella Sibley, Regional Manager for Europe and Oceania, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 9 January 2025) invites us to pray:
God of peace, we pray for the Pacific Islands, asking you to bring unity, stability, and harmony to the region.
The Collect:
O God,
who by the leading of a star
manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth:
mercifully grant that we,
who know you now by faith,
may at last behold your glory face to face;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Lord God,
the bright splendour whom the nations seek:
may we who with the wise men have been drawn by your light
discern the glory of your presence in your Son,
the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Creator of the heavens,
who led the Magi by a star
to worship the Christ-child:
guide and sustain us,
that we may find our journey’s end
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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