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8. Sunday after Pentecost, 08/07/2011
Sermon on Matthew 14:22-33, by Paula Murray
22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." 28 Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
Dazzling white flashes light up the sky and almost immediately thunder rocks the ground beneath my feet. Rain lashes down, and the wind shrieks around the chimney of the house. Thunderstorms are a guilty pleasure, guilty because they can do enormous damage, pleasure because I love everything about them from the light show to the raucous noise. This one is different, though, for I am late with my writing assignment and while I don't fear the physical violence of the storm (foolish me), I fear that the electricity, flickering on and off several times over the last few minutes, will go out for hours and I will be later still.
That's a trivial fear, though a real one for someone who has agreed to undertake a commitment to produce a sermon by a certain time. There are far more frightening fears with which to contend than mine. We buried a twenty-two year old parishioner Saturday, a victim of some unknown malady, robbed of life in the strength of his youth. His loving parents grieve hard, though they do not despair, for they are faithful Christians, the way of the Lord is indeed engraved upon their hearts. But they mourn, oh how they mourn, as do I and the rest of the parish and the local community.
They grieve with the family for the family, but, as the week unfolds, they become increasingly fearful for themselves. Every mother and father sees the face of their own beloved son or daughter in the face in the casket. They imagine drowning in their own tears should such an unlooked for disaster befall them. Those without children have nightmares of falling over dead in the bread aisle at the local grocery store or having a seizure behind the wheel while traveling north on the freeway. "How did he die?" they ask, looking for an answer that will put an end to fear and uncertainty, hoping for a restoration of the comfortable predictability of the world before this unsettling death.
Fear grew among the onlookers, even as the parents of the newly deceased were brought to an early, and as of yet fragile, peace. If it seems odd that those who suffered most the loss of that young and vibrant life should come first to peace, than consider this line from Eugene Peterson, "A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace."1 It is when we are gasping with a pain like unto death itself, that we let go of grasping after the false illusions of control and safety. Then the words of grace repeated Sunday after Sunday become the lifelines they are, God's reaching out for our salvation in the face of sin and death.
Those Gospel lifelines do not erase the uncertainties or sufferings of life. We Lutherans speak of faith as trust in Christ our Lord rather than some sort of assent to proposition or tenet. Even the most dogmatic among us, will, in the end, admit our absolute dependence upon him for what we cannot achieve for ourselves. The peace achieved with trust in the person and benefits of Jesus Christ comes simply from accepting and acknowledging that in his time God will restore all that is broken and evil. The day will come, when, "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other." In the meantime, our task is simply to get on with the work at hand, as God gives it.
This seems at least God's implicit criticism of Elijah in the Old Testament reading of the day. He has for reason of fear and despair forsaken his calling. Both this morning's Old Testament reading and the Gospel text from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew were clearly picked to work with one another. Both Jesus and Elijah face a forty day challenge. Both men find refuge on a mountain. Elijah retreats across the wilderness to Mount Horeb following a battle which he won with King Ahab's and Queen Jezebel's idolatrous prophets. In an epic battle written with an eye to sarcasm and the absurdities perpetrated by a power mad humanity, Elijah humiliates Jezebel's powerless minions and then obliterates them from the face of the earth in a display of prophetic pyrotechnics. Ahab's and Jezebel's responses are to seek him out and murder him. So Elijah, a broken man even in the face of his triumph, grieving the deaths of his fellow prophets of YHWH, escapes through the wilderness. Nurtured by an angel Elijah seeks out the familiar and heads for Mt. Horeb, Mt. Sinai to us. Taking refuge in a cave, Elijah sits down to die, either of abuse and heartache if not by murder at the hands of his king.
At the face of the cave in which he takes refuge, Elijah hears God ask him what he is doing. Elijah responds, giving a generally heroic version of his achievements against the prophets of the idol Baal and his king and queen. At the end, he trails off, leaving no mention of his fear, despair, and longing for death. The Lord tells Elijah to stand at the face of the cave, as he, the Lord, is about to pass by. Elijah stands where directed, and thunder crashes around the peaks, and following the thunderstorm an earthquake sways the earth beneath the mountain. Unlike the telling of God's story with Moses, neither the thunderstorm nor the earthquake, powerful though they are, convey God's voice and his will to Elijah. That happens in the silence of the tired prophet's mind after the God driven violence of nature has quieted. In that place where Elijah feels most helpless and alone, there God is present, making what is weak, strong. Again God asks Elijah what he is doing there, and again Elijah describes his exploits in heroic terms, terms which God ignores. God's response is in the substance of his new command. Elijah is sent back from whence he came, to anoint new kings for Judea and to Aram, a task fraught with peril. Worse yet, he is to anoint his own successor as prophet for YHWH, and there is no indication as of yet from God what is to happen to Elijah himself. Yet he goes, returns to the place of his triumph, facing an uncertain future, trusting in God to be his salvation.
In the Gospel reading, Jesus is quite literally Peter's salvation. This is the second of two miracle stories set in a boat on the waters of the Sea of Galilee in the Gospel of Matthew, and oddly enough this is the one without the storm providing the element of danger and uncertainty. Jesus goes to the mountain alone for rest and recuperation, and sends the disciples across the lake ahead of him. Over the course of the night, he catches up with them, by walking across the water. The disciples are terrified, thinking him a ghost. Jesus reassures them, "It is I; do not be afraid." His reassurance offers the comfort of a familiar and beloved presence; it's the same thing a friend might say if she spooks us by popping out from behind a bush alongside the driveway. Yet Jesus has just walked over the waves, and only God masters the waters, a fact emphasized by the variation on the "I am" statement Jesus used to reassure the first disciples. All in all, the circumstances are very unusual, and Peter's seemingly innocent request to try a new sport, water walking, betrays a wariness not usually seen in him. "Lord, if it is you," says Peter, language like that used by the serpent, who sought to dissuade Jesus from taking up his divine destiny. It is a dare to Jesus to prove himself, and while Jesus refused to satisfy this demand when the devil tempted him in the wilderness, yet now Jesus does just that, allowing Peter to walk across the water. It is only when Peter looks down that he remembers he is human and not divine, and he begins to sink. "Save me," cries Peter, and while the disciples still in the boat watch Jesus reaches out a hand and pulls Peter out of the water. then, as a chorus, they sing out, "Truly you are the son of God."
Neither Peter nor any other of the disciples knew what awaited them on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. They might be reviled or welcomed, sneered at or smiled at, when they came to the doors of people's homes or passed through their communities. Certainly by this time they were getting a sense of the growing hostility between Jesus and his detractors, a hostility that would lead to the cross. Elijah left for the home of his enemies not knowing if he would survive the experience or still have an active ministry.
While few of us will claim the spiritual stature of an Elijah or a Peter, we do acknowledge ourselves to be disciples, though puny ones. Discipleship is greatly weakened when, for reasons of fear, we determine to secure safety and control over our lives and the objects and events that touch upon them rather than responding to our Lord's call to serve. Trust in God's eternal goodness towards ourselves is the hardest lesson ever learned, and it is, even at its best, learned imperfectly. Yet its imperfection leads to a great and marvelous grace, when we turn to our Lord and say, "Save me!"