Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

How often do we meet God in our own workplace?  In the Bible reading assigned to this week we have John’s account of Jesus walking on the water to come and meet John and his colleagues in their fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee.  What actually happened that night?  After the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus told his disciples to set sail without him while he went into the hills to pray.  However, a storm blew up and, doubtless, they were concerned for their safety.  It was then that they saw someone walking on the water and they were terrified until they discovered it was Jesus.  As with most of John’s Gospel, there are two layers to his writing.  There is the historical layer and the spiritual layer.  Jesus must have been looking down from the hills to see his friends in trouble.  Jesus was watching over his disciples.  Next, He immediately responded and came to meet them to tell them not to be afraid and to bring them to a safe haven on the seashore.  In spiritual terms, we can see the significance of these events in our own personal lives as God watches over us comes to us and commands us not to be afraid.   However, there is also the more ‘earthy’ reality that this was a fisherman’s experience about a boat and a stormy sea where God came to him in a familiar setting.  The old fisherman turned evangelist found the full wealth of Christ in his own workplace.