Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?

 And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side.  Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go."  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."  But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.  And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves.  But He was asleep.  Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us!  We are perishing!"  But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"  Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"

- Matthew 8:18-27

In earlier readings, we've just finished chapters 5-7 in Matthew, otherwise known as the Sermon on the Mount.  Yesterday's reading, coming just after the Sermon on the Mount, was as follows:  When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him.  And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean."  Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed."  Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.  And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them."  Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented."  And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him."  The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof.  But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.  For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me.  And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."  When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!  And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.  But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness.  There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."  Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you."  And his servant was healed that same hour.  Now when Jesus had come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother lying sick with a fever.  So He touched her hand, and the fever left her.  And she arose and served them.  When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed.  And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:  "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."

  And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side.  Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, "Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go."  And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."  Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."  But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead."  My study bible tells us that the term Son of Man refers to the Messiah (see Daniel 7:13), expressing both His humanity and divinity.  Here, He's referring to His humanity -- but elsewhere, especially later in His ministry, Jesus uses this term to reveal His divinity (for example, 25:31-33 describes His authority as Judge).   It adds:  "Jesus is not negating the command to honor parents.  He means that nothing ought to be more urgent to us than the things of the Kingdom.  Those who ignore heavenly priority are spiritually dead."  Among monastics, these commands regarding attachment to possessions and even to blood family are taken particularly seriously.

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him.  And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves.  But He was asleep.  Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, "Lord, save us!  We are perishing!"  But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?"  Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  So the men marveled, saying, "Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?"  My study bible notes here:  "Jesus' mastery over creation is another powerful sign that He is the Messiah and is divine.  Commands to the sea and waves cannot be issued by a mere human being; but only by God.  Jesus was asleep because He was truly fatigued and needed the rest.  For in His Incarnation He assumed all the natural and blameless passions of humanity, of which sleep is one.  His inactivity intensified the disciples' fear, giving this miracle a greater impact.  The image of Christ and the disciples in a boat is traditionally used to depict the Lord and His Church.  God permits storms, and delivers us from them, so that we can see His blessings and protection more clearly.  Jesus, rebuking the storms, reminds us that He puts an end to the tempest of our souls."

Jesus puts His commands into action immediately following the Sermon on the Mount.  In yesterday's reading, He enacted several healings, depicting that He is God with us, who took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.  He is love in action.  In today's reading, we get a different profile of the fulfillment of commands from His teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.  Today, He shows His detachment -- not only His capacity for mastery over the wind and the waves, but mastery of His own very human side of His emotions, cares and concerns.  This isn't like some sort of crazy superman who never feels a thing.  Jesus, on the contrary, feels quite a bit as we do, and we know, for example, His sadness over Jerusalem and the destruction He knew was to come after His death, as well as His weeping with His friends as they mourned their brother Lazarus.  In these depictions of Jesus' emotion, we can perhaps understand them as yet more emphasis on His being "God with us" who shares our burdens and infirmities.  But He encourages us to great courage, despite our passions, emotions, attachments.  He encourages us to the discipleship which He embodies first in Himself.  He shows detachment from possessions; He has "nowhere to lay His head."  In His mission, and among those who would follow, He encourages the counsel of discernment over what is truly necessary and what has priority:  "Let the dead bury their own dead."  In crossing over the sea, it is clear the disciples are moving into "new" territory, out of familiar terrain and life.  Yet He encourages the antidote to the fears that come with storms in our lives:  faith.  All of this is in the cause of mission.  Once again, as we have noted earlier, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does not promise us a perfect life, free of storms and difficulties.  Rather He promises to us that He is with us in a life of faith, and that "following Him" is a way to be "like Him" through the storms of life.  We get yet another instruction very pertinent to monastic life, going back to the earliest desert monastics in the first centuries of Christianity, and that is the power of prayer to help us in our struggles and difficulties, particularly over our own stormy emotional states -- such as the kind of fear that hinders the courage of mission.  And this, I believe, is very important to take from today's reading.  We deal with many modern problems such as anxiety and depression, and these are widespread concerns in our world, but we seldom hear about the power of prayer -- Christ's presence with us -- to help us through times when we may feel particularly burdened by cares and even seemingly irrational fears, catastrophic thinking, that the difficulties of life may bring to us.  Life is uncertain.  Change is difficult to handle.  We are uncomfortable with uncertainties that overwhelm us.  But the power of prayer goes a surprisingly long way to help us combat these enemies of forward movement and true perspective in our lives.  This is what "prayer warfare" (as some would call it) is really for:  for the times when we feel overwhelmed, when our courage fails us, when fears amount to catastrophic freezing of our ability to move forward and look ahead.  Just as prayers and community help us through illness and infirmity, so we must encourage ourselves to pray and call upon those whom we trust to pray with us when we feel ourselves burdened by attachments that hold us back from God's future for us, that bind us to a past we may need to leave behind, and the fears and anxieties that paralyze our ability to move ahead, to look ahead, to find His perspective for us.  Prayer and faith are weapons against this type of oppression, that which is mental and emotional.  Remember His help and strength are with us through prayer and faith --  in all our struggles, internal and external.