Christ in the Boat

Gospel Reflection for July 24th, 2024

Icon of theHoly Church

Today’s Gospel records the parable of the Sower who goes out to seed and we are told the fate of the seed that is scattered. Back in January, we heard St. Mark’s account of this same parable. I wrote on the three outcomes of the seed, and you can read that here. Today though, I want to look at how St. Matthew begins his account of the parable, keeping in mind that everything within Scripture is there for a reason. The details matter when reading the Word of God. St. Matthew writes:

“On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore.” Matthew 13:1-2.

There are two specific details from these verses that I want to concentrate on for today’s reflection. The first is that Christ “went out of the house and sat by the sea” and the second is that “He got into a boat and sat down” with the people standing “along the shore.” It is very easy to read over these details in the Gospels and skip to where Our Lord speaks and forget about the surrounding text. But if we look back at the great scriptural commentators, they all find significance in the smallest detail. Today’s Gospel is no different.

In his commentary on Matthew, St. Thomas Aquinas comments on what is called the Mystical or the Spiritual sense of the scripture passage. For St. Thomas, this is always based on the literal sense first. Of course, here, we are told that Jesus left the house that He was staying in and went to sit by the sea. According to St. Thomas, the mystical sense to be understood from this is two-fold. In the first place:

“Mystically, by the house is understood Judea, from whom He went out due to infidelity and came to the sea, namely to the gentiles, who were disturbed by infidelity; below, behold, your house will be left to you, desolate (Matthew 23:38).”¹

St. Thomas compares the house to the Israelite people who were unfaithful to God. Because of this, the Messiah goes out to the gentile people and brings them into the fold as well. The Gentiles are represented by the vast and open sea.

In the second place, St. Thomas writes:

“Or in another way, by the house is understood the interior mind; when I go into my house, I will repose myself with her (Wis 8:16). Hence sometimes He goes out from the hidden place of contemplation to the public place of teaching.”²

I want to focus on this second interpretation. There is great significance to the fact that Christ moves from the interior to the exterior. Interiorly, Our Blessed Lord’s human soul is gazing upon the Word and is beatified through that experience. His interior life is one of immense Glory, contemplating the Godhead. This Glory is then communicated to the people who have come to hear Him. Thus, there is a movement of sorts from the interior life of Christ to a revelation through the exterior life. Christ shows us the interior Glory that He is contemplating and gives us a share in it. It is here that we find the connection to the next detail of Our Lord sitting in the boat and the people gathering on the shore.

St. Thomas writes:

“Another reason is a mystical one, that the boat signifies the Church gathered from the gentiles, where He sits through faith, and teaches those who stand on the shore, namely, the catechumens, who are prepared for the faith.”³

Christ gathers the people, both Jew and Gentile to His church. He teaches them the truth which He has contemplated Himself and desires to reveal to us for our salvation. For millennia, the Church has been represented by a boat or a ship. Christ calls us to board that ship and embrace the faith which He offers for our salvation. We, who stand on the shore, are given the choice to embrace the faith or not. Christ has come to reveal to us the Glory of His interior life. He desires to give us a share in that life of Glory so that we may gaze upon the Father just as He does. In order to do this, we must hear what He has to say and embrace the faith He offers. In short, we must get in the boat with Him for it is through that boat, the Church, that we are to be saved.

1. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Matthew, C. 13, L.1, 1079.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 1081.