If you haven’t done so already, I recommend reading the previous series on story:
This is now the third installment in an ongoing series where I provide real life examples of how one can incorporate story, imagination, poetry and the mythic in teaching, whether it be children’s or adult education or even homilies. If you would like to read the previous two, you can do so:
Sunday School
Homiletics (part 1)
The homily below is actually two. For some reason, I wrote one for the gospel reading from the previous week. I began writing one for the correct reading and thought that they complimented each other well, they shared themes. So I told everyone, “you get to hear two homilies today!” I had written notes in the margins so they would flow smoothly from one to the other. For our purposes that is unimportant.
This one incorporates storytelling, mythology and symbolic patterns. I hope you find it edifying.
Homily 8-18-19 – Matt. 14:14-22 – Feeding of the 5000
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, One God.
Christ is among us!
Let me preface this with a story:
Thence for nine days’ space I was borne by direful winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth we set foot on the land of the Lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. There we went on shore and drew water, and straightway my comrades took their meal by the swift ships. But when we had tasted food and drink, I sent forth some of my comrades to go and learn who the men were, who here ate bread upon the earth; two men I chose, sending with them a third as a herald. So they went straightway and mingled with the Lotus-eaters, and the Lotus-eaters did not plan death for my comrades, but gave them of the lotus to taste. And whosoever of them ate of the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no longer any wish to bring back word or to return, but there they were fain to abide among the Lotus-eaters, feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of their homeward way. These men, therefore, I brought back perforce to the ships, weeping, and dragged them beneath the benches and bound them fast in the hollow ships; and I bade the rest of my trusty comrades to embark with speed on the swift ships, lest perchance anyone should eat of the lotus and forget his homeward way. So they went on board straightway and sat down upon the benches, and sitting well in order smote the grey sea with their oars. (Odyssey Book IX)
Let me tell you another story:
And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather [a]a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. 5 And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily…32 Then Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer with it, to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’ ” 33 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations.” 34 As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept. 35 And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan (Exodus 16)
In the Gospel reading for today, we see that Jesus and His disciples and the throngs of people are away from the city. Christ was later to be crucified outside the walls of Jerusalem. “Outside” here means that they’re in the margins or periphery of reality. It’s an analog of the desert. We’re in similar territory as the ancient Hebrews wandering the desert. So too are Odyssesus’ men away from home, lost at sea. Seas and deserts often share the same meaning: chaos.
It has been said that “man is what he eats.” These words have echoed down to our present time and have been interpreted to mean any number of things. What Feuerbach himself meant by these words has been contested. For our purposes today, we’ll take the approach of assimilation, meaning that what we eat becomes part of us. Overly simplified we can easily speak concerning diet and nutrition, quite literally a person becomes what they eat. However, this reduction is a diversion. What we mean to say is that a person becomes what they take in both tangible and intangible, physically and spiritually.
In the Odyssey, the men ate of the lotus fruit and became forgetful of their way home; their desires changed; they wanted to stay where they were and enjoy pleasures. Whereas the ancient Hebrews began to long for what they thought was home. God had to remind them that Egypt was not home, but captivity. He provided food for them in the desert that offered sustenance until they arrived to their true home, the promised land of Canaan. This story foreshadows Christ feeding His people. And, again, we see this today in the Gospel that Christ feeds the multitudes that followed Him. The Eucharist is a fulfillment of both stories. Traditionally, an Orthodox temple is laid out with the Altar facing East. We enter through the West doors, which is a symbol of us coming from the world, from chaos, from the sea (remember this is also an Ark), from the desert. As pilgrims we travel here and arrive at the center of reality, the City of God. And here Christ comes to us as food. The Risen Lord is revealed to us in Bread and Wine.
Yet, while we are away from here, what do we sustain ourselves on? If a man is what he eats, then we become what we consume. Do we feast on the lotus fruit, which makes us forgetful of our way home, our way here? Or do we feast on manna, which will aid us on our journey back? Lest we become like the ancient Hebrews who mistook the land of captivity for their home, we need to be mindful of what we “eat”…we do not want to be like them or like Odysseus’s men desiring to settle down in a place that was not home. We often talk about nepsis in our spiritual tradition. This idea of watchfulness is not really an idea, it is a practice. And a difficult practice. St. Paul tells us that we must take every thought captive (2 Corinth 10:5), this means that we need to be prayerfully hyperaware of what we’re doing and thinking. What are you consuming? And will it lead you to God or away from God?
Homily (Matthew 14: 22-34) – Jesus Walks on Water
Water is complicated. If we break it down into its constituent parts, we are left with Hydrogen and Oxygen. Sixty percent of the human body is comprised of water. About seventy-one percent of earth is covered with water. Here is where we get into confusing territory. In the biblical sense, earth–or land–is separated from the waters of the deep. So one can say that the planet is covered by that much water, not the earth, for the earth is dry land. This idea ambles closer to the meaning of water. Just as J.R.R. Tolkien in his poem Mythopoeia warns that one must not simply look at a star and see burning gas millions of miles away, reducing the star to mere materiality and scientific observation, but one needs to gaze upon the stars. Just as ancient man, in awe and reverence, looked to the stars and provided poetic meaning. So too, when we see water, when we gaze into the primordial deep, we should intuit water for its many layered meanings.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” God hovered over the deep. The Creator then proceeds to separate things: light from darkness, water from the waters, dry land from the waters. Water is perceived as formless, as chaos. Dry land is stable. On this land, animals and man can live. Rivers flowed in the Garden of Eden, these waters sustain life. So not only is water chaos, but it is also life-giving. This two fold idea of water being a source of chaos and life, it can also be seen as destruction/death and healing/life. The Flood story is the greatest example of this. It is simultaneously death and a prefigurement of baptism. In the story of Moses, this pattern repeats. Baby Moses floats in a basket on the Nile, saving his life; he will become the one that God uses to save His people. The same river turns to blood–this is the first plague. Later, God separates the water from the land, then Moses and the Hebrews cross through the Red Sea, safely, a sign of salvation, while it swiftly brings death upon the Egyptians.
In pagan mythology, according to Hesiod, humanity was destroyed by a flood at the end of the Bronze Age. Ovid also tells of a violent flood. Odysseus visits the underworld, so too does Aeneas accomplish the same feat. Both men must cross Acheron to enter the underworld. Guided by Virgil, Dante does the same thing as he descends into Hell. Crossing a river has significance, a crossing into the unknown. Entering the periphery of reality, or even crossing back into the center of reality. [Note: It also often means a change of power, which I didn’t discuss here] As mentioned earlier, the Hebrews crossed through a dry river to reach safety. Before they entered the Promised Land they had to, again, cross a river, this time it is the River Jordan. Famously, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon typifying the “point of no return.” More popular depictions of St. Christopher show him crossing a river, he represents a person on the margins of reality–in older icons he is painted as a dog-headed man. Of more recent history, George Washington crossed the Delaware. These patterns repeat all through history and storytelling.
I tell you all of this as to set the stage. The Feast of Theophany we celebrate Christ’s baptism. We also celebrate the sanctification of the waters. They are hallowed, and returned to their original intent in Creation, and now also point towards an eschatological reality, meaning they point towards the Kingdom. Taken from the Blessing of the Waters text: “All the spiritual Powers tremble before you. The sun sings your praise, the moon glorifies you, the stars entreat you, the light obeys you, the deeps tremble before you, the springs are your servants. You stretched out the heavens on the waters; you walled in the sea with sand; you poured out the air for breathing.” Christ has restored order to the chaos of death and destruction.
Today’s Gospel reading He shows that He has mastery over the waters by walking upon them. Today He treads upon the water instead of succumbing to them as Jonah did. He shows mastery over Creation, He foreshadows His conquering of death when He will descend into the nether regions of the underworld and harrow Hades. Yes, He comes out just like Odysseus and Aeneas did, but unlike those men, He brings its captives with Him. Yet, we get ahead of ourselves…this is not today’s story. Today we see Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee. One biblical scholar interprets this sea as a stand-in for the Meditterean Sea, which is, essentially, the sea of the Roman Empire. Christ not only shows that He has mastery over the chaotic, primordial waters, over death and destruction, but also over Rome itself, which is the superpower of the day. He can tame these waters because He is the very Word of God that brought them all into existence.
Epic as this is–and who doesn’t like an epic story?–we must bring this story to a place where we can apply this to our everyday lives. His disciples are at a distance from the safety of dry land. St. Peter sees Jesus and attempts the walk. We are like Peter…oh, how we are like St. Peter. In the midst of the chaos of our lives, in the tumult that inundates our very existence, we may coware like Jonah (and then those in our lives throw us overboard), or we get overly ambitious because of our joy in seeing Christ. We step out like Peter…and in fear of our own audacity we begin to sink. Or the fear of the world envelops us. That same passion we have to step out…if too extreme or misplaced, will also lead to our demise. That’s the tricky thing about passions. We are taught to redirect our passions so they don’t consume us. Peter was still too immature in his faith. He stepped out into chaos and death; he crossed into the unknown; he crossed Acheron; he traversed the Rubicon. Simply there was no going back. But in the midst of this chaos, Christ was there. “Lord, save me!” In the turmoil of our lives, Christ is there. He is walking on the tamed waters. He is there waiting for us to step out…and we will, more than likely, sink like St. Peter. But Christ is there to pull us up from out of chaos, death, destruction, passions.
Today we remember that water is not simply a specific combination of hydrogen and oxygen, that will reduce creation to the banalities of scientific materialism. Water has meaning. It is crucial that we restore the mythic meaning of this element: water as one of the four classic elements, not just something comprised of elements of the periodic table. When we restore the mythic, scriptural meaning, we will begin to see the fullness of Christ’s feat. We worship the Master of creation. We worship the tamer of chaos. We worship the conqueror of death. Let us tremble at His feet. Let us welcome His outstretched hand and His warm and dry loving embrace.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
