Don't Drown in a Sea of Despair: Homily for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 3:9-17: Matthew 14:22-34

It is so easy for us today to become so focused on our worries and fears that we start to sink into a deep sea of despair.  We live in a time of almost constant distraction in which we are bombarded with images and messages that make us anxious, angry, and depressed.  We have been formed to ground our sense of wellbeing in serving cultural standards of success, including what we possess, how we look, and whether national events are unfolding in ways that we like.  Even in the richest and most powerful country in the world, people who bear the image and likeness of God will never find true satisfaction in the pursuit of such insubstantial goals.  Even those who seem to have achieved them know that they can disappear in the blink of an eye.  If the horizons of our hope extend no further than that, then we will never have any true peace in our souls.  

 Today’s gospel lesson provides a vivid example of what happens when we attempt to ground ourselves on the weak foundation of such illusions.  St. Peter began to sink like a stone in a raging sea when he turned his focus away from the Lord to fear about where he stood in relation to the wind and the waves.  By his own nature, there was simply no way that Peter could have avoided drowning, but he called out “Lord, save me!”  That is precisely what the Savior did by reaching out to Peter and rescuing him as He said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  The stress of the storm revealed the weakness of Peter’s faith, which is not surprising because he had gotten himself into this situation by foolishly putting Christ to the test, saying “Lord, if it is You, bid me come to You on the water.”   By his lack of humble trust, Peter literally got himself in well over his head. He had to learn the hard way that he had no other foundation, no other basis or hope for his life, than Jesus Christ.  If left to his own devices, he would have sunk like a stone into a watery grave.    

That is a destination completely different from the one to which our Lord calls us. The God-Man came to do nothing less than to transfigure us in holiness with His gracious divine energies as the uniquely beautiful persons He created us to become.  The Savior called His disciples to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48) He cited the Psalms: “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6; Jn. 10:34) While we remain human beings by nature, Christ enables us to become like Him by our personal participation in His grace. That is why theosis is an eternal process, for God’s holiness is truly infinite.  We must not pretend to be isolated individuals looking for fulfillment in the conventional terms of this world, for Christ calls us to become persons united in love with Him and fellow members His Body, the Church. Such uniting love should transform our relationships with everyone we encounter and overcome all merely human divisions that do nothing but enslave people even further to their passions.  We become more fully our true selves not in self-centered isolation or by identifying with divisive factions over against other groups, but through growing in loving relationship with all who bear His image and likeness.  

The contrast between humanity seeking fulfillment on its own terms and our Savior’s restoration and fulfillment of the human person is starker than the difference between night and day.  It is truly the difference been death and life, between sinking to the bottom of a dark sea of sin and becoming resplendent with the radiant glory of God. Our Lord has conquered death, Hades, and the tomb in His glorious resurrection on the third day.  His divine glory has flooded even the darkest abyss, even the most tragic and painful pits of despair into which we can fall.  He has liberated us from slavery to the fear of death as the God-Man Who shares His eternal life with weak, fearful, anxious, and confused people like us.  When we call out to Him with faith from the depths of our hearts, as Peter did when he began to sink, He will illumine our darkened souls to receive His healing light.   

As St. Paul taught, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”  No one and nothing else can have that place in our lives, for to ground our existence elsewhere is to commit idolatry.  No matter how virtuous or appealing any project or ideal of this world may appear, it cannot keep us from sinking under the weight of our own sins.  The darkness roots so deeply within us all, both personally and collectively, and nothing but the brilliant glory of the Lord can overcome it.  Whether we know it or not, we inevitably sink like stones into the abyss whenever we make the foundation of our lives anything or anyone else than the One Who has conquered death itself.  All good things have their place in God’s creation and we should despise none of them, but we will not fully embrace the healing of the New Adam until we ground every dimension of our life on Him, our one true foundation. 

 As St. Paul teaches, we are by no means self-made, self-sustaining, or self-defining.   Our true identity is not determined by any merely human accomplishment, ability, or affiliation.   Instead, “we are God’s fellow workers…God’s field, God’s building…God’s temple… God’s Spirit dwells in you.”  Christ has made us members of His own Body, the Church.  The very foundation of our life, of our identity, and of our hope is in Him, not in our achievements, possessions, characteristics, or inclinations.   In order to avoid sinking like stones amidst the raging seas of our passions, we must mindfully turn away from whatever tempts us to reject our true vocation to become ever more beautiful living icons of God.  If we surrender to those temptations, we will become just like Peter in being so overwhelmed by the wind and waves of worry and fear that we will turn our focus away from Christ.

 Let us, then, remain constantly on guard against the temptation to entrust the meaning and purpose of our lives to anything or anyone other than the Lord.  There is no way to do that without cultivating the habits of daily prayer and mindful protection of our hearts from embracing thoughts and desires that fuel our passions.  The next time that you start sinking in the winds and waves, focus your attention on Him, as Peter did, saying “Lord, save me!”  He alone can raise us up from drowning in the sea of our passions. We also must not pretend that we are so strong spiritually than we can simply wait until there is a crisis; no, we must attend to the health of our souls every day.  We all remain too weak before our passions to focus fully on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God.

 That is why we should all take a close look at our lives during this Dormition Fast and identify the habits of thought, word, and deed that keep us so distracted, confused, and weak that we easily sink like stones under their weight. We need to build new habits to replace them, such as limiting our exposure to images, messages, and media that lead us to hope in the passing things of this world.  We should replace them with edifying spiritual reading and listening to Orthodox chant and spiritual commentary.  Instead of worrying about this or that in the future or despairing about matters beyond our control in the world, we should devote our attention to grounding ourselves on Christ in the present and to serving Him in our neighbors who need our assistance and companionship. 

            The path to transfiguration in holiness is open to us all and exemplified most fully by the Theotokos, the woman who was the first receive Christ as His virgin mother and then to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the heavenly kingdom upon her death.  As we fast and ask for her prayers, let us entrust ourselves so fully to her Son that we may join her in saying with every ounce of our being, “Behold the servant of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  If we remain so grounded on our one true foundation, we will never drown in the sea of despair.