Reading: Matthew 14: 22-33
Preached at Beckley
Presbyterian Church on August 7th 2005
Most of us at some time in our life have walked
on the water. That it happened to be water that was frozen into ice is merely
a scientific detail. That we first ensured that the thickness of the ice was of a consistency to support our weight is testimony
to our own common sense. Yet I can still say, with full assurance of conviction,
that we do - under certain circumstances - possess water-walking faith.
Now if that's all there was to our lives, rational
generalizations that led to confident overcoming faith, life would be a breeze. Things
are not that simple. There are other forces at work. There is fear as well as faith. Our bible story today shows
how fear and faith can often get mixed up together.
One thing that the Hebrew people were really afraid
of was the sea. For the Hebrews the sea was an image of chaos. It was a place where unpredictable things took place. Nobody
knew what scary monsters lived in its depths. In the book of Revelation, heaven
is described as a place without sea. That's how much the Hebrews disliked the
sea! We still use the expression when life gets a little crazy of being 'all
at sea'. Images of shipwrecks, like that of the so called unsinkable Titanic,
remind us that the oceans are a dangerous place where people lose their lives.
Matthew's gospel gives us the story of the disciples
being all at sea, all alone, when a great storm blows up. A big storm and a little
boat meant one thing - big trouble. They are doing everything they can to take
control of the situation. Some of them were seasoned fishermen and had a degree
of expertise in this area. But it's getting worse!
You can almost picture the scene. Matthew the tax collector, white as a sheet, huddled in a corner saying his prayers. Judas, in charge of the moneybag, huddling it close to himself, so that if they did go down he'd take the
money with him. Peter running around shouting orders at everybody - "James, pull
that sail in… Andrew, start bailing that water out the back... John, you're looking a bit green there… uh oh,
stay out of John's way a minute...Philip, steer into the waves or this thing will go over...”
Peter had a lot of faith. He had faith in his fellow crew mates. He had faith that they
hadn't left everything behind to follow Jesus to end their days; as the song in Bedknobs and Broomsticks says, "bobbing along
on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea." If the storm wasn't enough, then things
start to get really scary.
In the midst of the wind and waves, the disciples
start to point and stare! "Looks like somebody’s walking this way. How
can that be? We're nowhere near the land! What's
going on? I don't like this!" Hear
how Matthew describes the disciple’s reaction.
"When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the
sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.
(Matthew 14:26-27).
The first reaction of the disciples to Jesus coming
to them is not faith, but fear. And fear causes us to do the stupidest things. Fear causes us to make the wrong decisions.
Fear blocks out the voice of reason. Peter was very afraid. He hated not to be the one in control.
So there's Jesus, on His way to be with the disciples,
telling them not to be afraid, in control of things. Is Peter content to listen
to what Jesus was saying? "Don't be afraid." The
rest of the disciples seem content to do so. Not Peter. He has to put things to the test. Peter answered him, "Lord,
if it is you, command me to come to you on the water."
The story of Peter reaching out to Jesus and taking
a few steps on the water has traditionally been seen as an example of what you can do if only you have enough faith. I tend to think of it a different way. If
Peter had really been faithful he would never have gotten out of the boat! If
Peter really had faith, he would have stayed where he was.
Getting out of a little boat in the middle of a
big storm when help was immanently arriving strikes me as stupid. If Peter had
been coming from a position of faith, he would have accepted the assurance of Christ, to ‘be not afraid’,
and waited in the boat till Jesus was on board. There's a children's chorus that
says, "With Jesus in the boat we can smile at the storm, smile at the storm, smile at the storm." It's not so easy to smile at the storm when you've just jumped out of the boat.
God, in God's mercy, is incredibly indulgent. If, by allowing us to do something stupid, God can teach us something important about
our faith, God takes that opportunity. When Peter challenges Jesus to prove Himself
by giving Peter the power to be a water-walker, Peter is taught an important lesson.
Rather than playing god and taking matters into his own hands, he had to learn to wait for God's promises to take effect.
There's some background to this. In the mythology of other religious traditions and in that of the Hebrews, only one had power over the
wind and waves; only one could triumph over the power of the deep... and that One was God. Such a miracle was a sign of Divine
Presence. Only God could part the Red
Sea, hold back its waters for the Israelites to pass safely through. Only God had the power.
By asking to walk on the water for himself, Peter,
from his position of fear, was saying, "The only way out of this bad situation is if you let me play god for a while, let
me walk on the water.... then I will believe." Jesus actually calls Peter to
get out of the boat and play god. And for a few steps it looks like a miracle. But as soon as Peter realizes his foolishness…glug, glug, glug, glug!
The question this passage poses isn't, "Do we have
enough faith to walk on water?" The challenge is, "Do we have enough faith to
stay in the boat, knowing that Jesus is coming to help, trusting in His voice that promises us peace, believing that those
who wait upon the Lord shall be saved?"
If our faith were measured by our ability to do
such things as walk on the water, turn water into wine, and raise the dead, then we would be in deep trouble. Faith is not a quantity but a quality. Faith is about the quality
of the relationship we have with God. Faith is holding onto the belief that,
despite the chaotic circumstances surrounding our lives, God’s word is living and active and heading in our direction.
Get the wrong idea about faith and it can land
you in deep water. Ask Peter. Making
like we are gods and we can solve all our problems for ourselves is not going to carry us through. Pretty soon the chaos will have us submerged back into our fears.
We must allow Jesus time to come walking into our
storms. He has promised to be with us. Believe
that promise. "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." Take the time for Him
to walk into your storm. Take the time to let him sit in your boat. The prophet Isaiah says, "Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up
with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Our passage finishes by telling us what happened
once Jesus and the now much humbled and rather wet Peter were back on board. “When
they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him,
saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." (14:32-33)
The restoring of calm led to a sense of worship
and an affirmation of faith. Faith generates faith. Every situation that we work through with God prepares us for the next situation that comes our way. On the other hand, fear commits us to inappropriate actions, blocks out the comforting
words of Christ, and fools us into believing we can save ourselves.
We can be so foolish. Like Peter we think we can play god. Like Peter we so often
neither hear nor believe the promises of Jesus Christ. The storms we are going
through and the fears we wrestle with block out the words. So we get over the
side, take a few steps, and then find ourselves sinking - out of our depth and worse off than we were before.
It was then that Jesus held out His hand to Peter. And Peter grasped the hand of Jesus and was saved.
Maybe our situation isn’t that of Peter. But we are all capable
of being knocked hopelessly out of depth by the storms life brings our way.
Don’t be fearful, be faithful.
Jesus
is reaching out to us.
Let us take His hand and get
back in the boat.
Let us learn from our own and
other’s mistakes.
Let us not be people motivated
by fear, but those who walk by faith.
Remember the ice.
In the right situation we can
all walk on water!
Rev.
Adrian J. Pratt
