JONAH 2:1-9

PSALM 29

ROMANS 9:1-5

MATTHEW 14:22-33

Sermon – August 7, 2005

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The ancient Israelites were never seagoing people. Their neighbors, the Philistines and Phoenicians, were among the great navigators of the ancient world, but the Israelites never went “down to the sea in ships.” Even though in Jesus’ time, one of the greatest ports of the Roman Empire, Caesarea Maritima, was located on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, the people of Israel did not become sailors. The most seafaring adventurers in Israel were the fishermen on the large lake called the Sea of Galilee.

For the Israelites, the sea held terror. An adventure on the sea was likely to end in a disaster like Jonah’s or Paul’s shipwreck. It represented a threat to all that they cherished. The sea was unpredictable. It embodied chaos. It was a source of despair. Genesis says “the earth was formless and void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2 NRSV). The great triumph of God in creation was not to control or tame the sea but to set boundaries for it and to contain it.

If God the creator limited the sea and subdued it, God, as Israel’s redeemer, triumphed over it by blowing back its waters to allow the people to cross safely when it blocked their escape from bondage. God’s final triumph over Egypt was in allowing the waters to roll back over its army, drowning it. Egypt’s great military power was not just defeated. It was obliterated, washed away in chaos.

In Psalm 69, the Psalmist sings: “Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. I am sinking in deep mire, and there is no firm ground for my feet. I have come into deep waters, and the torrent washes over me” (Psalm 69:1-3 BCP). In Psalm 66, the Psalmist sings: “Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people. He turned the sea into dry land, so that they went through the water on foot, and there we rejoiced in him” (Psalm 66: 4-6 BCP).

By the way, it is no accident that for early Palestinian Christians, part of the great power of Baptism came from the symbolism of being drowned in the sea and raised up to new life by the grace of God – not unlike Jonah in today’s lesson.

So here are Jesus’ disciples rowing alone on a threatening and wind-blown sea, a sea that for them was at its best a sign of unpredicatableness, terror and destruction. Jesus has sent them off by themselves to get back to other side of the sea as best they can while he goes off to pray. On a calm day, it would not have been too bad a trip, but it was night and the wind and waves were making for slow, rough going. I am sure that the disciples were less than happy about being wet and cold on the rough sea that night. I think that we can assume that the “power of positive thinking” was probably not dominant that night.

And then, over those dark, threatening, waters, they see something coming towards them. What is it? What does it want? What will it do to them? Is this it? Is this how it is all going to end? Even if they survive, what are they going to say when they get to shore? Are they going to tell everybody that they saw a ghost? Well maybe they had better embellish it a bit. Maybe they can find a way to make themselves look like heroes of some kind rather than scared men who have seen a ghost coming at them across a big lake. But their fear gets the most of them, and they cry out. Just then Jesus calls to them: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27 NRSV).

Then there is Peter! Has anyone ever figured him out? Any sane person knows that what should have happened next was that the group in the boat immediately demanded that Jesus get in the boat. But no, Peter sees Jesus walking on the water and says “Can I come? Jesus, can I?” Jesus says: “Come.” Peter does, realizes what he is doing, gets scared, starts to sink, and cries out to Jesus to save him. Jesus does.

What a nut case! You would know that he would do a thing like that. But wait; do not dismiss Peter so quickly. Let us run through that story again and see what it is saying to us.

1. The Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard nicknamed Jesus “the Inviter.” He said that wherever we see Jesus, he is inviting people to faith, to reach beyond where they would normally go. When Peter decides to do something crazy and asks Jesus if he can come to him on water, Jesus does not call him crazy or say that Peter is trying to be equal to him. In no way does he put Peter down nor discourage him. Jesus invites him to come. Jesus invites Peter to go beyond himself and rely on God. He invites him to do what some part of Peter must be saying is impossible. He invites him to leave the comparative safety of the boat and through faith to walk on the very essence of danger and terror.

He does not make it. Matthew makes it very clear that Peter fails this faith test. Jesus says to Peter “You of little faith” as compared to the “Great is your faith” that he says to the Canaanite woman in the next chapter. But when Jesus said come, Peter got out of the boat. Everyone else stayed in it. Maybe there is a reason that Jesus called Peter a rock. Maybe he did not get it right the first time. Maybe he was stung when Jesus said he had little faith. Maybe he was ribbed when they all got back to shore. But Peter got out of the boat. He reached out and practiced acting from faith. Jesus calls us to act on faith, not relying on ourselves but on God. We only get there by practicing.

2. We want to look good – all of the time. Not being cool, screwing up, failing, getting it wrong – these are all things that we are taught to avoid and with good reason. Any of these things are embarrassing at the least and can be even more costly in many situations. Peter, in leaving the boat, risked failure, even death. He risked having the story of his failure read thousands of times a year for at least two thousand years. He still has not lived down that try at walking on water that ended with his starting to sink and crying out for help. There is good reason to read the story of Peter walking on water (and he did for short distance), and it is not to make fun of him because he failed. He teaches us that unless we are willing to risk failure, we will never live into and from the power of God. If we act only when we are sure of the outcome, we will live dull, lifeless lives. Riskless Christianity is stale, stagnant and safe. It stays in the boat. It looks good. It is seen as being responsible. To most it probably seems right. But it leaves us and the world unchanged. If Jesus had always been concerned with looking good and being responsible and not taking risks, he would not have ended up on a cross.

3. Finally, the one who invited Peter to come and risk was there to grab his hand when he started to sink. Peter may have failed. Jesus did not. If we as Christians hear Christ call “come” and leave the boat in faith, God does not fail us. If we look carefully at the story, it is not about Peter’s failure. The main point is that Jesus did not fail Peter.

Like Peter, God invites us to step out into the deep, into the storm, the swirling waters. We are called to risk being overwhelmed by the chaos and confusion. Our instinct is to play it safe, to stick to the familiar, to hang on for dear life. Jesus calls us to “come,” to get out of the boat, to risk. Like Peter, we will probably fail. And as he was for Peter, God will be there for us.

For us as Christians, for the church and for our world today, this story has a particularly important message. We live in a world where seemingly everything that we know and hold dear is being swept away by the winds and swirling waters. Chaos seems to be overtaking everything. The spiritual, economic, social, political and cultural landmarks that made everything familiar and easy to navigate are either gone or are quickly disappearing. We want to hold on to the past. We want to keep the familiar. We want to stay in the boat. But God calls us to venture forth, to have faith, to risk. If we risk in faith for the kingdom, God will not let us be swept away even if all around us should change.

(The Rev.) William O. Breedlove

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church