Published weekly on our web site,
the Weekly Sermon is provided for you
to reflect upon and read at your leisure.

If you were unable to attend church,
you'll find this helpful.  An archive
of past sermons is also available.

(printer-friendly version)

Click here for sermon audio

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

"Come," he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God.""

We have been mostly on dry land for the past several weeks in our worship. We have looked at good soil/bad soil, good seed/bad seed, good plants/weeds among the good, and last week we saw Jesus have the disciples feed the five thousand. He did this just after hearing that his cousin John had been murdered by the king. After feeding these folks, Jesus sends his disciples out in a boat and told them to meet him on the other side of the lake. Jesus then goes up to a quiet place on the side of a hill to think and pray.

This is a critical time in the life of Jesus and his disciples. He has become extremely popular and great crowds have come to him thinking that he has come to do away with the Romans and their own leaders who have gone along with the Romans. Where they are at the northern end of the sea of Galilee there is a lot of activity by rebel groups working to run the Romans out of their land. At night, signal fires from the rebels could be seen from the west and the east.

So it is important that Jesus make it clear to his people that he has not come as political saviour, the conquering knight here to run out the bad guys. But that kind of notion seems to be building up among the people who come with all these groups to be healed and to be fed.

So, Jesus goes up to this lonely place for his own needed time and place. And during this time the disciples have run into a storm on the sea and are struggling with the elements and their own fear. Matthew picks up the story: (Read Matthew 14:22-33)

“As soon as the meal was finished, he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night….4o’clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. “A ghost!”…Courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
Peter makes his response here and says, “Master, if it really you, let me come to you.”
Jesus: Come on in.
So, Peter scrambles over the edge and starts to Jesus. Just at that moment, he wakes up and it hits him—What am I doing in the water with the waves up so high? And he sinks. Then Jesus helps him up and comments on his having such little faith.

We don’t know what to do with this story other than chalk up another miracle of Jesus---walking on water and calming the storm. And yes, we use Peter as an example of failed discipleship: “He took his eyes off Jesus and he sunk into the water.”

If you would like to experience what these disciples went through, you can go out on the Tennessee River to a place called South Saute. It is surrounded on three sides by steep hills and the water can go from relatively calm to high winds and waves in a moment of time. I have had the dubious honor of being caught on that water twice. It was scary both times. The disciples were physically and mentally exhausted struggling against the storm for much of the night. Anything out of the ordinary would be a frightening thing.

So, here are the disciples dealing with the storm and now their fear. Peter jumps up and asks Jesus if it is o.k. for him to come out on the water to meet him. Jesus tells him to come on. Before he takes that step, however, he turns to the rest of the disciples and says, “What do you think I should do---stay in the boat or try walking to Jesus on the water?”

Can you imagine what their response would be? “Are you crazy? You can’t walk on water, and besides, how do you know that is Jesus. You could be seeing a mirage.” And so Peter turns to Jesus and says, “My focus group has come to the concensus that it would not be advisable for me to attempt such a venture. I guess we will just wait for you to come to us.” But, of course, that is not what happens---Peter gets out of the boat to get his feet wet and begins his walk to Jesus.

In Bible studies we often quickly lift this story as an example of another of Simon Peter’s failures. Simon is always the first one to move when something new comes along. He is out front, he is always ready to do what needs to be done, whatever that is, and sometimes he doesn’t know what it is. He just knows that something needs to be done and he is willing even if it turns out to be the wrong thing, which, for Peter, it often is the wrong thing.

As most of his escapades, he doesn’t wait to know what the perfect thing to do really is. He leads with his heart, his intuition, his sense of dealing with something that is greater than himself.

Let’s be clear about this. Simon Peter did not make a mistake. If you asked him why he got out of the boat in the midst of a raging storm and thought he could walk on the water, he would not be able to explain with a perfectly crafted reason. Analytical perfection would not have allowed him to take even the first step. “ Hmm: The molecular density of the human body will not permit a person to walk on water given the molecular density of water. Therefore it does not make sense for me to take this step.”

It didn’t work that way. Jesus called out to them that he was coming to them and for them to not be afraid. Simon Peter’s energy and intense devotion to Jesus took over for him and he asked permission to try it out. Jesus told him to give it a shot.

Simon Peter represents all of us who have ever been walking around somewhere between faith and doubt, all of us who dare to believe that Jesus is our Lord and take those first steps, just enough to get our feet wet. And then, respond to wet feet instead of what sent us off toward Jesus in the first place.

We see the need to take a stand for a cause or for something we know is morally right and we start out with the sense that this is where our faith in Christ is leading us. Then, we look around us and see that we are out there by ourselves. Our friends didn’t come with us. And we have that sinking feeling where we begin to question our own motives and wonder if we are doing the right thing.

Simon Peter had that experience---excited, adrenalin pumping with the storm and here comes Jesus and tells him to come on out the water is fine. And there he is, just Simon and Jesus in the midst of a storm.

And that can be scary---just you and Jesus taking a step to make something right that has been wrong; to help that person who needs help but who is not exactly the kind of person you usually hang around with; to speak the truth to power even though power doesn’t want to hear it---just you and Jesus out there in the storm. It’s enough to test anyone’s faith—to test whether you have faith or not.

Some biblical scholars have sought to make the point that Simon Peter is here the voice of the demonic and he is out to put Jesus to the test. “If you really are the Son of God you will let me walk on water just like you.” I am not sure about this demonic angle. I think Simon Peter is just being himself, a person who is so devoted to Jesus that he has confidence that he can do anything that Jesus has for him. The Message paraphrase of the N.T. has Jesus say to Peter,”Faintheart, what got into you?” What got into him was his humanity---“Yikes look at those waves!” We’ve all been in those situations where we start asking ourselves, “What am I doing here?” We start out to do something and have a pretty good idea of what to do and how to do it and sometimes the circumstances change and run into something unexpected and even a bit scary and it just pops into our heads that we ask ourselves, “What am I doing here? This is not what I signed up for.”

Summer before last a friend of mine asked me to go with him to the Great Smokies for three days to do some hiking. He had already scouted out several good hikes for us so I agreed to do it. We had two days of good hiking and on the third day we were going to make a longer hike. Because it rained that night before our hike we had to watch the trail carefully so we did not make a misstep. I was about ten yards in front of Walt when I stopped suddenly and looked at some fresh tracks on the trail. These were bear tracks where bear had just come along that trail---heading in our direction. But the tracks stopped just a few feet in front of me. I called Walt to come look. He was not all that excited and said, “Oh the bear was coming our way and when he saw us he just went off up in the woods. It’s o.k. let’s just keep going and he won’t bother us.” That’s when those words cropped up in my mind, “What am I doing here?” And then when Walt insisted that we just go on, another thought came into my head, “O.k., we’ll go on, but now I know that I don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun Walt.”

WHAT AM I DOING HERE?
What am I doing here. What are we doing here? Coming to a worship service, singing songs about the Christian faith, songs about believing in Jesus Christ, in the goodness of God, in the need to be a disciple of Jesus. What are we doing here: taking time to read the Scripture about a man named Jesus who lived for a while on earth as God who has come to be amongst us? What are we doing here? Praying for ourselves and for each other thinking that it will do somebody good to get prayed for? What are we doing here? Recognizing that there are things that God can do that we cannot because God is God and we are who we are. What are we doing here? Recognizing that that is the way God planned it: God is God and we are to be God’s partners in discipleship living up to our humanity in that relationship and thanking God that we have a role to live to be fully human trusting God to use our feeble efforts to make our world worthwhile for our fellow human beings.

What are we doing here? That’s our role as disciples of Jesus: to find out what we are doing here and how to go about our lives of faith; which is always a work in progress, not a finished product. The moment we think we have reached a “mission accomplished” in our faith, that’s when we turn to Jesus and say, as Peter did, “Lord, save me.”