Sunday, August 13, 2023
/The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10: 5-15; Matthew 14: 22-33
The Rev. James M.L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN
Water is a paradox. We cannot live without it, but too much of it is harmful for all of us. Estimates of flood-related damage in Norway just last week came in at over 100 million dollars.[1] The week before last, flooding in the Hebei (huh-bay) province of China displaced over one million people from their homes.[2] Water, necessary for life, can be dangerous, chaotic, and wildly unpredictable.
The authors of the Bible understood this, and in many places in the Bible, water was used symbolically to represent the impulsive forces of chaos and death. In the reading from Matthew’s Gospel we hear a story which expands this idea of the watery chaos, and the fear it may have provoked in people.
After feeding the five thousand, Jesus sends the disciples in a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee, while he withdrew to the top of a mountain to pray. While the disciples are in the boat, winds pick up and waves form and start beating against the boat, and the disciples are afraid. They see Jesus walking toward them above the chaotic waters, and Jesus is not afraid. One of the disciples, Peter, unsure if it is actually Jesus, says “Lord if it is really you, command me to step out of the boat and walk to you on the water.” Jesus says, “Peter, it’s really me. Step out.” And Peter does, and what happens? He begins to sink. Jesus reaches his hand out to save him, to pull him from the drowning water. Jesus and Peter get into the boat, and the wind, and the waves stop.
Many ways to understand this story – I will offer two interpretations. The first interpretation of the story is to see the boat which carried the disciples as the church. Not a far stretch by the way, considering that the part of the church where the congregation sits is called what? It is called the nave, which comes from the Latin word navis, which means “boat” or “ship.” It is where the word “Navy” derives from. If you look above us at the architecture of the roof, it purposefully is intended to represent a boat or ship.
In the Gospel story today, the ship carrying the disciples, is battered by the chaos of the sea. The disciples are afraid. Like the boat, the church is battered by many things – Covid, poor leadership, arrogance, and entitlement by its clergy, disaffected parishioners, the list goes on and on. The Gospel offers a stark, yet necessary lesson for the church: the reason the disciples were afraid was because Jesus was not in the boat with them. When the church forgets Jesus, it will fret, it will become nervous, self-centered, narcistic, entitled, and only worried about its own survival. And the church that does not have Jesus in the boat, will not, and should not, survive.
The second interpretation I offer is this: like Peter, Jesus calls us to step out into the watery chaos. Like it or not, pain us the admission price we all must pay for a life of deeper spiritual connection with God.
To grow spiritually, we must become powerless, so that we learn that God is truly powerful. Like Peter, we are called to step out of the boat that protects us from the chaos of life, and to sink into it. Only by first sinking do we find the outstretched arm of Christ to pull us out.
I close with words spoken by St. Augustine, many years ago, who said this: “Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” AMEN.