August 10, 2014
St.
Peter’s Episcopal Church, Oxford, MS
Year A, Season
after Pentecost, Proper 14, Matthew 14:22-33
Just a few
days ago my newest niece was born down in Vicksburg and as I watched her lying
there in the nursery, sleeping very contentedly with her tiny little pink stomach
moving up and down as she breathed, I thought of how scary this world is. There
is of course much to fear these days—from gun violence to natural disasters,
from endless warring around the world to outbreaks of deadly disease. And then
there’s all the scariness of just opening our hearts to other human beings. Recently,
I have marveled at our capacity to hurt the people we love as I read the email
of a friend who is sitting out her last year of seminary because of a nasty
divorce.
Ostensibly,
the world is a very scary place. But, of course, we as Christians, we who
follow and proclaim the risen Christ, have nothing to fear. Right? That’s what
our gospel lesson, says, after all. We just have to have a little faith. Peter,
desiring to step out of the wind-tossed boat, and walk on top of water to
Jesus, is actually able to do that and only sinks when he notices the wind,
when he becomes afraid, when he loses faith, when he takes his eyes off Jesus. If
only Peter could have kept his eyes on Jesus, if only he had not feared, if
only he had a little more faith. Imagine what he could have done.
And yet,
I’m not sure that what Peter does, or does not manage to do, in our gospel
lesson is really all that important here. Peter is afraid and sinks, and Peter
will later be afraid and deny Jesus of course, and yet Peter is the rock upon
whom Christ builds his church. So what Peter does is not nearly as important as
what Jesus does. And what Jesus does is of course shows us who God is.
On the
shallow sea of Galilee in the middle of the night, the disciples are being
battered by the wind in their boat. Jesus has sent them on ahead to the other
side of the lake, desiring to be alone so that he can pray. Grieving for John
the Baptist, whom Herod has beheaded, and just having spent the afternoon and
evening with a crowd of thousands healing and then feeding them with just a
couple loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus prays through the night and then
goes to the disciples early in the morning as their boat is being cast about by
the wind. The disciples believe they are in trouble and Jesus goes to them. And
even though they do not recognize him, even though they think he is some evil
phantasm, Jesus is with them, there in the chaos of the wind and the water. He
is there walking beside them, with them before they think to call out to him,
and immediately responding, telling them not to be afraid when they finally do
call out to him.
This of
course is just like Jesus in our own lives, just like the presence of God in
our own lives. Even though we’ve been sent ahead to do the work of Christ in
the world, even though the wind and the waters, and the waves and everything
around us seems to be working against us doing this work, even though the chaos
of life appears always to be against us, Jesus is there with us as we travel.
God is with us in whatever chaos we face, whatever scares of this life there
are. God is there. We have only to call out.
Peter,
impetuous and full of zeal is representative of the other disciples in
Matthew’s gospel, and here longs to be with Jesus, longs to jump out of the
boat and walk with him in roiling water. And this is a noble and good thing, I
think. As the other disciples wait afraid in the boat, Peter takes a leap of
faith, walking out to Jesus, following his Lord into the midst of the chaos.
But again, what Peter does, is not so important as what Jesus does, for what
Jesus in fact is. Peter has gotten a lot of flack over the centuries for his
hubris in jumping out of the boat and for then sinking in his fear, for taking
his eyes off Jesus. But again, despite Peter’s wavering faith, Jesus does not
let him go. Jesus is there before Peter, not about to let him sink. Peter calls
out and Jesus immediately is there, getting him back into the boat and calming
the raging sea.
This is
like God in our lives. Always there. Always reaching out to us in mercy, always
offering a hand for us when we think we are drowning. We are not drowning. We
will not drown in this chaos. The world looks scary and there is no doubt bad
stuff going on all the time. But God is there. God is with us and God is
constantly reaching out to us in love, walking toward us on the stormy sea,
reaching toward us and picking us up when we leap out in faith to follow Christ
into the chaos.
This is
true, and the entirety of scripture tells us that God is with us, that God
loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. We need only call out, and
God is there. Jesus shows us this.
Of course
all that is much, much easier said than actually believed. How can we trust
this? How can we know that God is with us in whatever we face and that not only
that, but that we have been empowered to follow Christ into the chaos to
minister to a hurting world? How can we believe? How can we trust? As Pope
Francis asked in a sermon last year, how is your faith going?[1]
How is your faith this morning, that Jesus really is with us? That God is with
us in the chaos of this life?
Again, I
think that what we see Jesus do in our gospel lesson is really, really
important. Let’s rewind to the beginning of the story. John has been beheaded,
Jesus is grieving, Jesus is facing his own chaos as the powers of his world are
closing in on him, and he desires to be alone with God and pray. But he is
followed by a huge crowd, a crowd of five thousand men and thousands more women
and children. And so it’s a while before he can actually do this, but he
doesn’t give up on spending time with God. He finally is able to send the
disciples on ahead and to dismiss the crowd and to spend some time alone with
God. And he prays through the night until very early in the morning. What does
he ask for? What does he say?
I’m not
sure his words matter so much as the fact that he does pray, that he
intentionally spends time with God. Jesus is able to do what he does in the
world because he is in close relationship with the Father, just we are called
to be in close relationship with the fullness of the Trinity. Jesus spends time
with God in prayer.
Now, if you
are perhaps like me, you spend a lot of time thinking maybe it would perhaps be
a good idea to pray and maybe you’ll do that later after all the other stuff
you have to do. And maybe you, like me, get by on offering a few thank-yous and
some intercessions throughout the day, but maybe you, like me, also let the day
slip away from you lots of times without actually spending any dedicated time
with God. And we can take solace in the fact that God is there and God is with
us whether we pray or not. God is. But when I don’t pray, when I don’t set
aside time for this God who loves me and desires only to show me that love,
it’s hard for me to actually believe that is true. It’s hard for me to believe
that Jesus is there walking beside me, ready to grab me when I call out. When I
don’t spend some dedicated time with God, it is so much easier for me to believe
that the chaos will surely sink me, that I will be taken under into the deep.
Richard
Rohr, the Franciscan brother and priest, says that the answer to all prayer is
an influx of the Holy Spirit.[2] It
is of course not wrong to ask God for the deepest desires of our hearts, since
God knows those anyway, but what we come to find through spending time with God
in prayer, what we come to find when we work on the relationship with God, when
we regularly set aside time to be with God, is that God is indeed with us and
that no matter what happens to us in this life, all really is well. No matter
how hard the wind how high the waves, God really is with us.
All is
well. “Take heart,” Jesus tells the disciples. “Do not be afraid,” he says. “It
is I.” Literally, I am, he says, recalling the divine name of God in the Old
Testament. I am. God is. God is all around us and we have nothing to fear. Even
when we jump out of the boat, especially perhaps, when we jump out of the boat
into the midst of the chaos, there is nothing to fear. God is all around us all
that time, ready and waiting to grab us when we call out. This is not only what
Jesus shows us in the gospel lesson this morning but of course what he shows us
through the entirety of his ministry and through his death and resurrection.
God loves us. God is with us, and we have nothing at all to fear.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.