When Your Ship is Sinking, Try Walking on Water

Sermon text for August 17, 2008:
Matthew 14:22-33
Genesis Presbyterian Church, Littleton, Colorado

When I read this passage of Jesus walking on the water, I hear Marcus Borg screaming at me, “Metaphor! Metaphor! Can’t you tell this is metaphor?” I wonder how many of you can still hear Borg’s assertion that stories like this that defy reason must be metaphor.

Regardless of what some scholars think, the story of Jesus walking on the water is one of the better known stories in the New Testament. We teach it to our children almost as soon as they can understand, and when we get older we remember the story fondly.

There is a group in Israel trying to make a profit from this story. When I was last in Jerusalem I saw an article in the Jerusalem Post about a group that wanted to build a board walk just inches below the surface of the Sea of Galilee. Then for a small fee tourists could have someone take a photograph showing that like Jesus, they also can walk on water.

What do you make of this story? Is it only a quaint tale that causes us to smile, or is there something in the story that can help us broaden and deepen our faith?

As the story begins, John the Baptizer has just been beheaded and news of his death sent shock waves throughout the Jordan River valley. Jesus and the disciples were deeply saddened by the news of John’s death.

They took a boat and sailed it to an isolated place away from the crowds so they could have some alone time. But the plan didn’t work. When they reached their destination the crowd was already there waiting for them. The Bible tells us that Jesus spent the day ministering to the needs of the crowd. And when it was evening Jesus dismissed the crowd and sent the disciples away.

That is the context of our story. An exhausted Jesus went up the mountain for renewal while the disciples were in mortal danger on the Sea of Galilee. We can imagine this scene. The disciples’ little boat is being tossed by the wind and the waves. They are rowing and bailing, and praying, yet they were not able to get to land. Suddenly they saw Jesus coming toward them walking on the waves. Since it is impossible for someone to walk on water they did not believe their own eyes. They decided that they must be seeing a ghost and they were terrified and rowed a little faster. But as Jesus came near to the boat he calmed them saying, “Do not fear, it is I.” Do not fear!

Ever the skeptic, Peter devised a test to prove if the vision was real. He said, “If it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And Jesus said, ‘Come’. So Peter got out of the boat, and started walking on the water toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Save me’. And immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him saying, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt’?”

We can interpret Peter’s actions a couple of different ways. First, Peter failed. His faith was not strong enough and Jesus had to reach out and save him. If we interpret the story this way, Peter failed. But if we look again we might see that what Peter did was absolutely critical for his spiritual growth, for the spiritual growth of the other disciples, and even for us.

Think about it. When Peter saw Jesus walking toward them, he didn’t need to do anything at all. All he had to do was stay put until Jesus joined them in the boat. If Peter chose this option he would have remained safe and unchanged. But by responding to the call of Christ and stepping out to do the impossible, Peter learned that he could trust the Lord. He got a little wet, but he learned to risk and trust and that is why he is a model for us. Faith without risk is virtually impossible. The Bible says, “Faith without works is dead.” And I say faith without risk is not faith at all.

Many people have said to me, “If I only had more faith I would …” (fill in the blank). “If I only had more faith.” Yes, if only. I know that the people are sincere when they share their wish with me, but my inner response, which I almost never say out loud is, “What are you doing right now that requires more faith?” Peter didn’t need more faith to sit in the boat. But he needed a lot of faith to get out of the boat and walk toward Jesus. We usually don’t need much faith for our daily living, when we aren’t risking very much. But we need a lot of faith to follow Jesus out into the storm when he calls.

Our faith grows when we risk something. We grow when we accept challenges that are beyond our comfort level, or when we do something that frightens us. Jesus might be calling you to follow him into the unknown, or into some place where you really do not want to go. And that is true of congregations as well as individuals. So imagine this scene: Jesus is standing right there just beyond your comfort level, saying “Come to me. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid, it is I.”

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock

The Great 2008 Amphyctiony

Sermon text for August 3, 2008:
Joshua 24, Hebrews 12
Eagle River Presbyterian Church, Avon, Colorado

Very early in Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land the people experienced many successes and on the surface things looked good. Under Joshua’s leadership, the people successfully occupied the Land of Canaan. They started farms, built homes, and occupied Canaanite cities and towns. Compared to providing slave labor in Egypt just forty years before, most of the people were prosperous. They had enough to pay their tithe and still support their families. But there was a problem. While the people were thriving economically, they were decaying internally and their spiritual compass was broken. Religious practices that were foreign to traditional Hebrew spirituality had become commonplace in community life. Some people reasoned that if they were prosperous following Yahweh, they might be twice as prosperous worshipping both Yahweh and Baal or Yahweh and one of the Egyptian gods.

So it was that Joshua issued a call to the great General Assembly of 1200 or 1300 B.C. He sent out word to all of the twelve tribes that they should send their elders to a meeting to discuss the religious life of the community. It was Joshua’s “amphyctiony”. During this General Assembly the elders debated whether they would follow Yahweh exclusively, or allow for the worship of multiple gods like their neighbors. They pondered the imponderable God and spoke of what they believed. It was during this Assembly that Joshua uttered his famous challenge, one that still rings in believer’s ears today. You decide whom you will serve, he said, but “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” And the elders present at this General Assembly voted with one voice, “We will serve the Lord.”

This is the way God’s people have always made decisions about our common life and faith. Trusted elders gather together to discuss, decide, and recommend. These elders are known for their faith in God and fidelity to the Community of Faith and we entrust them with the responsibility of setting the direction for the Church to follow. From time to time these elders might make a very bad decision, or they might make a decision that the rest of the church is not ready to accept and follow. But it is a maxim of our faith that when faithful people gather together, in the name of Jesus, to do God’s will, the Holy Spirit will direct us. Sometimes it takes a while for the elders to hear God’s voice, but over time, the Spirit overcomes our human resistance.

Since the first General Assembly, Joshua’s amphyctiony, believers have participated in a continuing conversation about matters of faith and life. These formal assemblies, are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” who have helped the Church decide essential questions like who is Jesus? What is the nature of God? What are the sacraments? What is the nature of ordination and who may be ordained? Not surprisingly some of the most essential questions took the longest to decide. It took the Church about three hundred years to decide on the divinity of Jesus and to proclaim that Jesus and God are of one substance with one another. So when we try to analyze the Church’s conversations around issues that we judge to be essential we must always take the long view. Eventually God breaks into our individual and communal realities and sets us on the right path. The problem is that often God does not do things in a time line that is pleasing to us.

The writer of the book of Hebrews understood the need to look at the whole sweep of human history in order to see how God intercedes with people of faith. In Hebrews chapter 11 he begins his analysis by going all the way back to Cain and Abel, and moves progressively through people like Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Joseph, and Moses. He tells of Gideon, David, Samson, and Samuel. He doesn’t tell their stories because they are particularly good people, but because they kept plodding along until eventually they got something right. Gideon was a coward whom God made into a general, Abraham and Sarah didn’t believe that God could deliver on the promise for a son and took matters into their own hands. David was a terrorist, an adulterer, and a murderer. But each of these people’s stories gives us courage when our lives are turning upside down. They are a part of the “Cloud of Witnesses” whose life stories’ inform our lives. They didn’t necessarily get things right the first, second, or even the tenth time, but they doggedly continued to trust in God no matter what. Their stories help us to believe that we’ll be okay when we struggle because we share common human fallibility with these people who have persevered. We might even become a little cocky when we read some of these stories. Almost anyone of us might say something like, “You know if Moses or Gideon can make it, I know I can too.”

Their stories also encourage us because each one of them is a microcosm of the life of the Church itself. Like the Church, these individuals are a mixture of faithfulness and fear, understanding and misunderstanding, energy and exhaustion.

The good news is that God does not leave us alone to fend for ourselves in matters of faith. We may struggle and fight and even try to run away, but God matches us struggle for struggle, and literally never lets us go.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) has just finished the “Great 2008 Amphyctiony”. Some of us will applaud certain decisions while others of us will be saddened. But each of us can be encouraged because the Church will continue to hold councils and meetings and we will continue to send faithful elders to reflect on important issues. And by the grace of God the Church will be that group of people who, perhaps because of our struggle to be faithful, will always be known as children of God.

Copyright © 2008 by Dwight R. Blackstock