Becoming Who You Are
“Becoming Who You Are”
Matthew 14:22-33
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 14, Year A, August 9, 2020
First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho
Andy Kennaly, Pastor
Many people in our culture dismiss philosophy as a college degree that leads to nowhere. In a society based on production and consumption, philosophy sounds a bit airy, ethereal, and doesn’t come across as practical, hands-on, or based in real-world, pragmatic demands. But dismissing philosophy is like looking in a mirror with your eyes closed; the image doesn’t do you much good if you aren’t open to taking time to reflect. In terms of production, or building stuff, like construction of a house, a foundation is what gives something it’s structure and function, and philosophy is so important that it’s not only the foundation, but it’s the footings that hold the foundation. It’s not only the footings, but it’s the very earth dug to hold those footings. It’s not only the ground that holds it all, but philosophy is what makes the thought of building a house possible. This gospel story in Matthew has transformational power at the level of shaping your very being, it’s built right in to the very structure of how this gospel story is written, but even Jesus needed to take the time to reflect.
Notice that Matthew is very intentional in setting the scene, starting with the essential and having everything else flowing from there. Three times it mentions Jesus dismissing people in order to spend time “up the mountain by himself to pray.” Matthew reiterates that “he was there alone” and it was for an extended period, indicated by the reference to the boat, “but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.” Jesus has been there all night long.
Since we’re talking about time, let’s remember that Western thought is shaped by the Classical Greek philosopher named Plato. He lived about 400 years before Jesus, teaching that the word for man, or human, Anthropos, means upward gazer, and that by looking up people are made spiritual, which puts us above other animals. For Plato, what elevates us is sight, seeing through out eyes is a high virtue. At the same time, physical touch brings us down to our lower virtue, puts us right back on the level of animals. In other words, for centuries before Jesus, people assumed that humanity is separate and superior from all other things, and to be physical is to drag us down.
Aristotle, another Classical Greek philosopher who was taught by Plato 400 years before Jesus, rejected some of Plato’s theories. Touch, for example, physicality, was not a low virtue, but a very high virtue for Aristotle, in fact touch is the most philosophical of the senses. This is because touch involves the experience of double sensation: “when we sense, we are also sensed, when we touch, we are also tangible” [1]. The toucher and the touched come together.
Professor Richard Kearney shares this amazing dilemma in a conversation with a monk named Simon Sleeman from Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. In 2017 I visited this abbey as part of a Sabbatical, so I was thankful to find The Mindful Monk as a podcast. You can imagine that their conversation on touch is especially helpful for us during the struggles of a pandemic, when touch is suppressed and we’re supposed to remain physically distant to stay safe.
Professor Kearney reminds us that touch has proximity and intimacy. He says, “It’s what makes us most fragile and vulnerable and therefore, according to Aristotle, most sensitive and therefore most likely to think because you only reflect on things when you’re struck by them, when you’re exposed to them.” And when things are forbidden, like touch during a pandemic, proximity told to remain distant; that’s when you miss them and notice they’re missing. Touch is important to who we are and how we’re wired as human beings.
But remember, that’s Aristotle; it’s Plato who won the day, it’s Plato’s theories that shape Western culture; theories that say seeing is more valuable than feeling, that eyes are dominant over touch. Sight and surveillance leads to weapons that kill from a distance because when you can see everything, you can dominate it. That’s why we have drones that are controlled by a computer and an operator watching a monitor. Even Jesus on the mountain, high above the sea, watching over the disciples, who are dealing storms in the water.
Notice that you can fear what your eyes are seeing. The disciples see something on the water, and “they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear.” In that stormy darkness in the first, dim light of the morning, their eyes, supposedly the highest virtue in Plato’s Greek thinking, which is the thinking we’ve inherited; their eyes fail them, deceive them, and do not help them perceive the Ultimate Reality in which they are living.
How do we perceive this larger Reality? How do we examine the very philosophies that have shaped our culture, especially when we’re basically taught to ignore philosophy and get a real job?
“Immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” This holds a key to experiential faith: contemplative living that is open to and trusts experience in God’s Presence, perceived through the heart. In the heart-space, fear falls away because the heart involves our higher nature, the divine signature of life, which is the soul.
As Matthew is writing this gospel, he’s moving us beyond the limitations of the mind and into this relational interaction with the Living God. This is important for Matthew, for fear is ruling the day for the early Christian church. Jesus has been gone for decades, the Romans have destroyed Jerusalem, the Temple is reduced to rubble and their lives as followers of Christ are analogous to that image of being in a small boat on a very large, stormy sea; their vision obscured, strength spent, feelings of isolation and limitations continually buffeting. Then comes Jesus, as the Christ, showing us a power that Greek thinking can’t get its mind wrapped around. This power is the gift of faith, to see with the eyes of the heart, to trust, even through the buffering storms, to welcome a Living Presence sharing unitive experience of God.
Because today’s message is online, as video or in printed form; even the live recording event is still a virtual message that depends on optic nerve to function. Watching me on a screen or reading the words from the page involves the age of computers, Facebook Live, Zoom, or smartphones. From a distance, we engage in snap chatting, Insta-gramming, or texting, reinforcing the optical structure that has replaced touch. Offices are ‘going virtual’ and getting rid of physical locations. People are working ‘remotely’ and can be connected 24/7 without actually touching anyone.
We notice the lack of touch during things like this pandemic when even handshakes now become elbow bumps or air-fives and even hugs are mimicked from a distance. This doesn’t work for Jesus.
Contemplation always leads to action. Unitive Consciousness finds expression. In this story as Jesus invites Peter onto the water but Peter starts sinking, Matthew says, “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him….” One person’s hand catching another. Did he grab the scruff of his collar, pull on his tunic, or yank him by the arm? Whatever the technique, the connection is made.
Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century mystic living in what we call Germany, also makes the connection of Divine Presence and the physical world. Like Peter being confused on the boat, not knowing what he’s looking at and fearing the wind that blows, Hildegard says, “You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you.” [2]
Jesus and Peter linked by the hand is pivotal because it involves the centrality of touch, which is to experience connection, not separation. Hildegard reminds us that this “Creator-to-created connection translates into inner energy that is the soul and seed of every thing, an inner voice calling us ‘to become who you are; become all that you are.’”
Peter doesn’t use what is within, doesn’t understand what is outside, leading to fear. It’s ‘inside’ the boat that they worship, that they make the connection that Christ is in all things and all things are in Christ. This loving touch, the signature of our soul, casts out fear and the winds no longer frighten.
In the days ahead, find something tangible to help you meditate on God’s Loving Presence in your life. Maybe it’s an onion, or a cup, or some bread, or some other thing that you can feel. Allow awareness of the vitality involved as that other thing feels you in the double sensation touch allows. Honor the connection that mirrors a deep, spiritual reality that all things are connected, in Christ. Ask God to remove the blinding lenses that filter your experience so you can dive deeper into the great Love that holds you. And as we celebrate the inner energy of our soul united with Christ, may the humble, vulnerable, intimate love of God touch our heart, renew our mind, and transform our spirit both NOW, and forever. Amen.
[1] Simon Sleeman, mindful monk podcast on YouTube, Glenstal Abbey, Ireland, Mindful Monk Touch – a conversation with Professor Richard Kearney, July 31, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF8rq--4N3I&feature=youtu.be
[2] Richard Rohr daily devotional, The Rhineland Mystics, Veriditas: The Greening of Things, Monday, August 3, 2020, https://cac.org/viriditas-the-greening-of-things-2020-08-03/