Eyes Off Christ: Peter, the Algorithm, and the Distractions of the Modern World

Welcome to Hill Country Homilies. Weekly homilies from Holy Anunciation

Orthodox Church in Liberty Hill, Texas. Holy Annunciation is an

old calendar Orthodox church sharing the faith of the Apostles

and the love of Christ with all who seek His truth. Now,

let's listen to this week's homily, the.

Name of the Father and Son the Holy Spirit. Glory

to Jesus Christ. Please be seated if you wish, my

dear brothers and sisters in Christ. If there's one thing

that I am terribly and continually guilty of each and

every year, it's that claiming that any of about a

dozen of the Gospel readings that we hear happen to

be my favorite reading that particular week. I do it

over and over. I'll claim it twelve times this year.

This is my favorite Gospel reading. And indeed, it amazes

me that there are people who attack the lectionary of

the church because we read the same Gospel messages over

and over every single year. We read the same Gospel

passages on the same Sunday of Pentecost. We see, we

have a little variation for the feasts and the Lenten season,

but those are the same readings as well, year after year.

And as you settle into life in the church, you

come to realize that the Church appoints these same readings

for the same Sundays because they're really, really important. They're

the key to our spiritual progress. And most of all,

they're timeless. They're not relics of the past which are

dug up for display as a history lesson or some

sort of pie into a lost time. Rather, they are

spiritual wisdom that means as much to us today as

when it happened two thousand years ago. And for me

that creates a special kind of comfort, because as I've

gotten older, I've discovered that my attention span is not

quite what it used to be. The other day, I

sat down to work on my homeway, and half an

hour later I realized that I was looking up sites

to visit in cities that I had no intention to

travel to whatsoever. In the meantime, it also researched a

tool that I don't need, but it looked really cool.

And I'd seen the highlights of a Pan Pacific Surfing championship,

which I'd never heard of before and which was being

contested by athletes whose name I have no idea who

they were, and I had no idea thirty minutes later

how I got there. I think they call it the algorithm,

but you know the internet as that's normal. But today's

Gospel sort of says, well, that's Peter, because in today's

gospel reading, Peter starts with his eyes fixed on Christ,

and then he notices the wind and the waves and

the danger, and then as his attention leaves the Savior down,

he goes. And maybe maybe more in this age than

ever before, Today's Gospel is vital for us to hear

because what happened to Peter on the Sea of Galileean

in this storm happens to us every single day. The

world is extremely good at getting our attention on the

things that wants us to put attention on. We're an

income stream to people around us. We're being monetized by

others or drawn into some quest for attention for ourselves,

and thus we end up completely lost because the algorithm

is not going to take us back to where we

need to go. Our challenge is exactly the same challenge

Peter faced keeping our attention on Christ. And let's be clear,

Peter's failure was not that he lacked courage. Most of

us would never have stepped out of that boat in

the first place, but Peter did. And nor was his

failure that he lacked love for Christ, because Saint John

Christian notes that Peter was not excited merely to walk

on the water. He was eager to come to Christ.

It wasn't the water that interested him. It was being

coming unto Christ. Bid me that I come unto you.

That was his goal, and for a time he achieved it.

He was doing the impossible because his eyes were fixed

upon the Lord. But then came the distraction. Then came

the fear, Then came the sinking. And Chris Astin makes

a fascinating observation. The sea was the greater danger, the

wind was the lesser danger. And Peter had already conquered

the sea through Christ's power. But yet what frightened him

the wind? And how often is that exactly what happens

to us. Christ has conquered sin and death and hell itself.

The greatest battle that we'll ever face has been won,

But we find ourselves constantly overwhelmed by things that are

infinitely smaller. We may begin our day dutifully focused on Christ.

We've said our morning prayers, maybe we've read the scripture

for the day or the life of the Saint, Glory

to God. I mean, each day we can make a

new start, But then what happens. We lose our peace

over a news headline, become anxious about the stock market

or the price of gas. We have to correct somebody's

misguided political views. We worry about our jobs, our reputation,

our children's future, the next election, the next bill that's

going to come to the door of the next doctor visit.

We have to make none of those things are by

themselves unimportant. The wind was real, the waves were real,

but none of them were greater than Christ standing directly

before Peter, And the same is true for us. The

greatest danger facing Christians today may not be outright unbelief,

but rather the distraction our attention has become the most

valuable commodity in the world. Billion dollar industries compete every

moment for our eyes, our ears, our thoughts, and not

even the fullness of it, but a second of it.

You know, watch this video for eight seconds. You know,

spread this three other people. Every notification, every advertisement, every

social media platform, every streaming service, every political movement is

saying the same thing. Look here, look here, don't look there,

look here, Give me your attention, and the tragic reality

is that whatever has our attention eventually captures our heart.

People can mouth faith in Christ, but in front of

their faces, they're gazing at posters of celebrities or reels

from internet influencers, mindless entertainment that plays in the background

soundtrack of our lives. And this is why so many

people theay are informed about everything, but at peace about nothing.

We know every controversy, every scandal, every rumor, every outrage,

every prediction of doom that awaits us, but many struggle

to spend even ten uninterrupted minutes in prayer. We can

scroll endlessly through bad news from across the globe, but

we find it difficult to focus on the Gospel for

a single chapter. Peter didn't sink because Christ abandoned him.

Peter sank because he became more interested in the storm

than he did in his savior, And if we are honest,

we often do the same. We can begin our day

intending to prayer, but we get consumed by something else.

We come to church determined to worship, but our minds

become occupied by the thing we have to do after

even good things it can become distractions if they push

Christ out of our minds into the margins of our lives.

The lesson of today's Gospel is not that the storms

will disappear. Christ never promised us a storm free life. Ever,

the lesson is that faith means keeping our eyes on

Christ even in the middle of the storm. The seed

didn't become calm until after Peter was rescued. Keep that

in mind. He was rescued in the midst of the storm,

not after Christ calmed it. He uttered one single prayer,

Lord Save me. And this is why Peter remains, even

in his distraction, a source of such great hope for us,

because when he began to sink, he didn't formulate some

theological treatise about his salvation. He didn't rely on his

own strength. All he did was cry out, Lord save me,

and immediately Christ stretched forth his hand. And that same

hand stretches out to us every single day whenever we

find ourselves distracted, anxious, consumed by the cares of life.

The answer is the same as it was for Peter.

You can even say those same words. We should probably

be saying them every day, many times a day, Lord

save me. We can't overcome the sea, the wind, or

the waves on our own. But we can call upon Christ.

We can reach out our hands so that He can

pull us out of that storm, and we can turn

our eyes back to Christ. We can return to prayer,

to the scriptures, and to the services, and we can

return through those to the one who has always already

conquered every storm that we will ever face. For when

our attention is fixed on Christ, the winds may still blow,

the waves may still rise, but they no longer have

the power to sink us. Each and every day, each

and every one of us is that same Peter, And

never forget this. Don't lose this as we reflect on

the distractions of our day. Don't lose this as the

winds try to sink us to get Today's gospel is

not ultimately about Peter. It's about Christ saving us. The

moment that Peter cries out, Lord, save me, Christ is

already reaching for him. The Lord doesn't wait for Peter

to swim back to the boat. He doesn't demand that

Peter fixed the problem himself. Be responsible for yourself. He

stretches out his hand and he pulls him out. And

this should be a great consolation for us, because we

will get distracted, we will lose focus. We will sometimes

find ourselves overwhelmed by those waves of life threatening to

drown us, the noise of the world threatening to drown us.

But every time we turn back to Christ, every time

we cry out to Him and faith, we discover that

His hand is already there for us. So don't allow

the winds of this age to carry us away our attention.

Don't allow the noise of the world to drown out

the voice of God. But return to prayer, return to scripture,

return to the divine services, and call out, Lord, save me.

The algorithm wants our attention, The advertisers want our attention,

the politicians want our attention, and the entertainers certainly want

our attention. But Christ wants our heart. And if we

keep our eyes fixed on Him, no wind and no wave,

no storm in this life will ever be able to

separate us from Him. To He who condescends to save

us from our own inattention and inconstancy, be all glory

on and worship together with this all Holy Father and Life,

great Spirit, now and ever to the ages of ages.

But at the family you will have notten not to

you before fort converting the time person continue to find

and don't not no con and you don't not do no.

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