1/21/24 - When We Cannot Walk on Water - Matthew 14:22-33; January 21, 2024

When We Cannot Walk on Water  

Matthew 14:22-33

January 21, 2024

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

 Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5VwNzHmQE

Image:  Lorenzo Veneziano, Christ Rescuing Peter from Drowning. 1370 Staatliche Museen, Berlin

There are so many ways to read this old familiar story. First, we might jump in as twenty-first century people.   If we do that, our default may be to call into question whether this really happened.  Everyone knows that you can’t walk on water, unless it is frozen, and if it were frozen, then the disciples could not have been sailing a boat across it.  So, some contemporary people read this story and immediately dismiss it as un-factual and therefore untrue.

But some contemporary readers are not bothered by those details.  They understand that a story can be true on another level. So when they read it, they comprehend that the story is about storms.  Storms might be weather-related with thunder and lighting and rain and wind as in this story.  Or storms might be a metaphor for difficult times in life.  Whatever this story means, maybe it can be applied to something like a health crisis or a relationship challenge or a job loss or grief or any other time when circumstances have rocked your boat and knocked you down and the waves of fear and uncertainty keep rolling over you.

Not caring whether Jesus really walked on water, these readers focus on the message which they think is about having  faith in the midst of a storm. Often, their take-away is that Peter just didn’t have quite enough faith. He jumped out of the boat full of confidence, but then then he noticed the wind and became afraid and started to sink. “But if he would have stuck with it”, they say, “he would have walked on the water all the way to Jesus.”  When the story is read this way, it too easily becomes a guilt-trip for ourselves or for other people.

Sometimes, the message sounds like this:  Peter could have walked on water if he had only believed. So if you just have enough faith, then your marriage will be happy.  Or if you just believe hard enough, you will be healed. . . or your children will be safe. . . or you will overcome whatever storm is currently about to knock you off your feet.

You could read it that way. Many a sermon has been preached around that premise.

Nadia Bolz-Weber has a great response to that.  She says, “this approach . . means that a) the chaos of my life is still terrifying and b) now I also have to feel bad for not being able to transcend it through a sufficient amount of faith and self-esteem.”[1]

If we are currently afraid and doubting in the midst of a storm, then that reading may do more harm than good. 

Another approach – you might read from the perspective of someone who understands the Sea of Galilee.  Local tour guides apparently will tell you that wind storms spring up suddenly and frequently.  This is a typical part of the region’s weather. [2] 

As experienced fishermen, the disciples would surely have been used to this. This is a strong storm, battering the boat as they row into the wind, but it is not the storm that scares them. They only become afraid when Jesus comes towards them.  They are afraid because they don’t recognize him.  They think he is a ghost.  This is Jesus, their friend, their amazing teacher.  They spend the better part of every day with him – why don’t they recognize him? 

To be fair, the disciples have had quite a day. First, they had received news that John the Baptist had been executed. John who had baptized Jesus not so long ago.  John, whose disciples had brought word to Jesus when John was in prison.  The news that John had been beheaded would have been terrifying and grievous.   But they hadn’t been given any time to mourn or process, because there was a crowd of needy people and Jesus spent the day teaching and healing them.  And then, when they finally thought they might get to call it a day, Jesus had insisted on feeding everyone.  They had been pressed into picnic set up and clean up for a few thousand people.  Pushing down their grief and terror about John – now we call that compartmentalization – they must have been completely astonished to find themselves playing a role in this miraculous feeding. 

And again, they find themselves with questions and thoughts that need to be explored with their community and with Jesus.

But, do they get that opportunity now?  Absolutely not, because Jesus makes them get into a boat without him.  He commands them to go to the other side of the lake.   The way their day has gone, maybe they are not surprised when the winds start up and the whitecaps form.  They have been rowing hard into the wind and are still far from shore.  When Jesus comes walking toward them on the water, they are physically and emotionally spent.   It’s not really that surprising that they don’t recognize him.

What is it that keeps any of us from recognizing God’s presence among us?  Could it be anxiety or confusion?  Are we emotionally overloaded, pre-occupied with worry or distress or grief?   Are we physically spent from living life too fast – the to-do list, maintaining home life and church life in ways that deplete rather than sustain.  Are we overwhelmed with responsibility and caring for others, like the disciples who had to put the needs of 5,000 people ahead of their own?  Have we pushed out all sense of wonder and possibility so that when God shows up, we don’t recognize them and we are afraid? 

Where does fear lead us?

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, when I am afraid, I do something stupid– like getting out of the boat in the middle of the lake.  Author and minister Debi Thomas says “Nowhere in the Gospels are we called to prove our faith (or test God’s character) by taking pointless risks that threaten our lives.  Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus teach that bad things happen to us because we’re too chicken to earn God’s protective care.”[3]

Sometimes, in our fear, we call out to God for help.  Jesus helps Peter do what Peter asks – to walk on the water to him. “Jesus does not demand that Peter get out of the boat, but he seems as interested as anyone else to see how the venture will end.”[4]  Even when Peter fails, he doesn’t drown, because Jesus rescues him.   Perhaps this is how our faith develops, how we start to recognize God’s presence, in the tension between doubt and trust, between we know and what we don’t, between sinking and swimming. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew all about the real dangers of courageous faith.  In The Cost of Discipleship, he wrote  “Peter had to leave the ship and risk his life on the sea in order to know both his own weakness and the almighty power of his Lord.  If Peter had not taken the risk, he would never have learned the meaning of faith.”[5]

There is a third way we might read this story. We could see it through the eyes of Matthew’s post Easter community.  If the storm is the metaphor that 21st century people recognize, the first century Christians would have immediately understood the symbolism of the boat.  For Matthew’s first readers, the boat, on the water with the disciples inside it, is an image of the church on mission in the world.  Matthew says that Jesus made the disciples get in the boat and go without him to the other side.  “This, then, is a story about the community of faith commanded by Jesus to sail off without his physical presence.  It is a story about the church in every age.

We’re all together in the same boat, and finding it hard going. We’ve been rowing all night, but the wind is against us, the waves are battering and the shore is still a long ways off.  We have less and less hope, and more and more doubt about ever really getting there. 

In this story, Jesus is not in the boat with the disciples.  And is this true also of us, more than we realize?  Are we, like them, a lot of the time just sailing by our own wits and wiles?  Relying on our skill sets and past experience to get us through.  Doing over and over what got us through storms in the past ?” [6]  

What takes Peter out of the boat?  Is it his fear or his courage?  That’s the question for me.  If the boat as symbol of the church, is Peter abandoning ship because the external forces against it are too strong?  Is he leaving because the chaos and hostility are just too much?  Or is he leaving the boat to be closer to Jesus?  Is he stepping out on faith in order to be more like Jesus?

I agree with Debi Thomas.  We are not called to prove our faith with pointless risks.  But sometimes we are called to leave the safety of our tribe, our church, our comfort zone to go where Jesus is.  We remember that when Jesus said “take up your cross and follow me,” that was not a call to a safe and convenient life.

One final thing I notice is that Jesus neither praises nor scolds the disciples who stay in the boat.  We have not explored this story from their point of view. Matthew doesn’t really offer it to us.  But I’m sure they have opinions about what Peter did.  Maybe some of them wanted to join him.  Maybe some thought he was a total fool or even disobedient because Jesus had put them into the boat in the first place.   Maybe they were angry at him for abandoning his post and endangering them all further. 

Even when we are in the same boat, we are not in the same place on our spiritual journeys.  For some of us, the most faithful thing to do is to stay inside the boat. Others needs to test the waters, to see what happens when they test the waters. But what Jesus says to all of us. What Jesus says to everyone in the boat or out of the boat or about to go over the side,  is this  “Take heart, it is I.  Do not be afraid.” 

Take heart, friends. Trust that God who brought us this far will be with us all the way to the far shore, even when we can’t see them or don’t recognize them.  Take heart –reach for deep for the courage that comes from leading and living and loving with your heart.  Trust and doubt and trust again, even in the storm, even thought we have been rowing all night.  Trust and doubt and trust again even when we are foolish or afraid.  Even when the sea is so great and our boat is so small, take heart, all the way to the far shore.

[1] https://thecorners.substack.com/p/the-case-against-wwjd-bracelets

[2] Karoline Lewis, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/when-we-cant-walk-on-water

[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2709-out-on-the-water

[4] Lance Pape, in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Volume 3 Joel Green, Thomas Long, Luke Powery, Cynthia Rigby, Carolyn Sharp Editors, (Louisville:  Westminster/John Knox Press, 2020), p. 225.

[5] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship,  rev. ed,  trans. R.H. Fuller (New York:  Macmillan, 1959), p. 53.

[6] I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Brian Donst, for this sermonic angle and his succinct phrasing.  http://food4fifty.blogspot.com/2023/08/welcoming-jesus-as-he-is-not-as-we.html

1/7/24 - Those Who Dream Will Not Keep Silent - Luke 2:22-40

Those Who Dream Will Not Keep Silent

Luke 2:22-40

January 7, 2024

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU-Adtgb5nI

Anna and Simeon are doubters.  They have to be. Luke tells us about one particular day when they seem full of faith and confidence, but that’s just one day.  I have to believe that they had other days, different days.  We don’t know Simeon’s age,  but he is always pictured as old.  At some earlier point, he received a word from God that he would not die until he saw the Messiah.  He might have received that word at 20 and now be in his 30’s.  But, on this day, he says “I can die now because I have seen God’s salvation.” And that suggests he is old enough to be close to death. But think about it. If you had become convinced that you were going to see the Messiah in your lifetime, could you really sustain that belief every day?  Wouldn’t there be times of doubt?  Especially when you witness, as Simeon did, the violence being visited on his country, the religious and political factions among his people.  Perhaps he has lost a beloved spouse or been alienated from his children.  Maybe he deals with chronic pain. We don’t know any of the details that make up his life, but I expect that he has the same kinds of worries and hardships that all people face. And that’s why I say he has to have his doubts. 

Anna has been a widow for most of her eighty-four years. Widows are dependent on other people’s charity.  They are often poor and treated unjustly. Anna knows suffering. She is from the university of life, the school of hard knocks. She’s among the company of those who suffer in this world and among those who create space in their hearts to pray. I do not know any praying person who does not also sometimes doubt. 

Fred Buechner said  “Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.”[1]

I’m belaboring this point because sometimes we separate ourselves from people in the Bible. Sometimes we think that we could never be like them, never speak or act as boldly as they did, because we see them as totally confident and faithful and we know that we are not. So I want to remind us that what we see is one extraordinary day which has probably been a long time in coming.   Anna and Simeon are able to speak and act as they do because they have lived through the cycles of doubt and trust many, many times. 

When Simeon and Anna became aware of Jesus’ presence in the temple, they could not keep silent. They were compelled to speak up. God’s dreams were not for them alone.  Like them, we should not keep silent, but keep speaking and acting to share God’s dream.

Doug Pagitt was the founding pastor of a church in Minneapolis called Solomon’s Porch. That church went out of existence last year at age 23.  Doug was also a leader in the Emerging Church Movement.  That movement and the example of Solomon’s Porch were formative for thousands of Christians and church leaders of my generation. 

Before Doug got involved in that movement, he was considered a highly successful pastor. He served as youth minister at nationally known church running a very large youth ministry. And then he worked for a private foundation where his job was to find the next generation of church leaders and his funding for that was virtually unlimited.  But there came a day when he realized that a voice inside him was saying that there was a different kind of church world he wanted to see happen.  Some might call that a dream. So he left his fully-funded job and set off to plant a church without any money and little support. In a recent interview, he said “you know one of the things that happens when you do something like this and that other people consider to be brave or heroic, often in the moment it doesn't feel that way.  It’s not a self-narrative of I'm being brave. It’s normally a sense of “I don't have another choice right now.”   I was serious enough about my Christian spirituality and my vocation to say “there is not a future for me that I see as preferable inside this [church] world.” [2] He was compelled to speak and to act, to share God’s dream as he understood it with people who were not receiving it.

This week, I had the incredible privilege to be part of an interfaith group, Christians, Muslims and Jews together, who were lobbying for a ceasefire in Gaza.  I was in the presence of some extraordinary people who were compelled to speak up.  There was an Israeli woman whose grandparents and other family members were killed by Nazis in Poland during the Holocaust.  Her father narrowly survived at age 11.   She recognizes genocide when she sees it.  She had her 9-month-old baby with her. She said that she cannot look at her own child without seeing the images of Palestinian children being killed and she cannot keep silent. She was articulate and persistent and kept speaking even when her voice shook with emotion.

I heard the testimony of a woman from Gaza who has lived here for decades.  On October 21, sixteen members of her immediate family in Gaza were killed by an airstrike.  Sixteen people. All at once, she lost her mother, her brother, her sister-in-law, two nephews, the losses go on and on.   There are some members of the family still alive, she thinks, but she doesn’t know where they are and can’t contact them. She weeps every day.  Her husband has also lost family members. They say that they have to speak up, to plead for the bombs and the killing to stop,  for the sake of those who are still alive. 

I heard from first generation Palestinian- Americans, US citizens who believe that they do no matter, that no one who looks like them is valued in this country, which is their homeland.  Even so, they cannot keep silent.  This was not their first meeting with this elected official.  They keep raising their voices, even though they often think no one cares, no one is listening.

I wonder how many people heard Anna and Simeon in the temple that day?  It probably would have been easy to dismiss them.  They were strangers, old people, probably talking nonsense.    I wonder how it was that Simeon got to hold baby Jesus. Most new parents don’t hand over their newborns to strangers in crowded public places.  Did he just grab the baby from Mary’s arms?  Or did Mary recognize something important was happening?  I don’t know.   But someone listened. Someone was paying attention or else we wouldn’t know the story. 

The Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie said, “Stories matter. [Multiple] stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”[3]

God’s dream of shalom, of intense pervasive well-being for all creation, is not for us alone.   We must share it.  We must tell our stories about Jesus, about ourselves, about the world we live in.   There is a time to speak and also a time to keep silent so that we can listen to others. When we lobbied earlier this week, the meeting scheduled for 30 minutes lasted 45 minutes.  And in all of that time, I spoke for less than a minute, just to introduce myself.  My default, you might have noticed, is to talk, but what I might have said did not compare to the stories and voices that needed to be heard.

Friends, we live in a time of great change, a time when one world is dying and another is struggling to be born.  That may make us fearful.  It may increase our doubts.  But we cannot lose hope.  We must keep dreaming.  On the threshold of this new year, this is my prayer for myself and for all of us – that we will speak up when necessary, for ourselves and on behalf of others to share God’s dream,  and that we will also be silent to hear the stories of strangers and friends who “dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.”

May it be so for me and for you. Amen.

[1] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, (New York:  HarperCollins, 1973), p 20.

[2] https://trippfuller.com/2023/12/18/doug-pagitt-the-emerging-church-the-end-of-solomons-porch/

[3] TED Talk:  The Danger of a Single Story, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en