Matthew 14:22-33
August 13, 2017
I.
After feeding well over 5000 people on the hillside, Jesus sends the crowds home. He puts his disciples in a boat and sends them ahead across the lake. He is finally alone, and he may fulfill his original intention, which is to pray. He trudges up the mountain.
We are supposed to remember how Moses goes up Mt. Sinai, leaving the people on their own. In Moses’ case, things down below quickly spun out of control. And a similar thing happens to the disciples. Without Jesus, they soon face violent turbulence on the water.
The people of God are sent into the world. Jesus sends his disciples, among whom are we. Jesus sends us. He promises he will be with us even to the end of the age… but that is often hard to maintain. Often it feels like, lacking Jesus’ physical presence, we are on our own. And things get confused, wonky, chaotic, and difficult.
One could say that the situation of the disciples in that boat, proceeding across the lake against the wind, with Jesus left behind on the mountain, is like our own. For we are not all that different from 12 well-meaning but essentially clueless men, trying to navigate a vessel across stormy seas, with nothing to go on but memories of Jesus.
Why does Jesus do this? Why does he send them across the lake while he engages in meditation on the mountain? Maybe he is doing his mother-bird thing and kicking the chicks out of the nest to fly on their own. Maybe he is beginning to get them accustomed to figuring things out without his being with them physically. Maybe he is teaching them how to manage, what to look for, how to find his presence with and within them, even after he has been resurrected and gone on to his Father’s throne.
I think we can all relate to the disciples here. We live in a time of turbulence and risk in which our context, our environment, our whole world, seems to be hostile and/or indifferent to us. We experience instability and change. Our boat, which is to say the church, seems to be in danger of being swamped or capsized. That relates to our denomination as well as to many if not most particular churches.
Matthew’s use of the term that gets translated as “battered” would have reminded his contemporaries of Roman abuses of power. I remind you that Caesar claimed all such bodies of water, and the fish in them, for himself.
The powerful waves rocking the boat foreshadow the wrath of the violent and corrupt system the disciples would face. And even today we share the same metaphorical meaning for going “against the wind”. It means riding in opposition to the general trends and movement in society and culture.
The powers and principalities were against them. Jesus has, in effect, thrown his disciples into the deep end, perhaps trying to teach them by the “sink or swim” method. They should not get the false idea that this mission is going to be easy, or that people will receive them with open arms, or that they can count on the government or business or any part of the establishment to assist them. Indeed, the mission of Jesus Christ will almost always be one of going against the wind and battered by high waves. Get used to it.
II.
This goes on all night. I imagine the disciples are tired, seasick, frustrated, angry, disappointed, disgusted, and afraid. I don’t know about you, but I find I am describing my own life in some of those terms a lot lately. (Not seasick, though; so there is that anyway.) I know a lot of people express these kinds of emotions when talking about the church. We’re just trying to keep it afloat, for heaven’s sake; we don’t have energy for a whole lot of innovation or exciting initiatives. We’re basically hanging on for dear life.
It is a stressful situation, and I imagine that the 12 disciples exhibit at least 12 different ways of dealing with it. Which creates inevitable conflict. Maybe someone thinks it best to try and sail with the wind; another might think no we’ve got to face into it. Four of these men had fished in boats on this lake for a living, remember. Even with such professional experience, the project is at risk. They can’t seem to get any closer to the safety of dry land.
On top of it all, they see some strange apparition in the grey light of early dawn that they interpret as a ghost. So not only is the weather bad but now they are under attack my supernatural beings! And they all cry out in fear because they are clearly doomed.
Just as they are about to dissolve in hysterical panic, the figure coming at them on the water speaks. “Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid!” And they recognize the voice of Jesus. He is apparently walking on or over the water.
Now, I have yet to find a good translation of this. They all have Jesus saying either the formal “It is I!” or, more colloquially, “It’s me!” which my English-major self still cannot stand, by the way. But what Jesus actually says, according to Matthew, is “I am!” And “I am,” of course, is the Hebrew name for God, as delivered to Moses in Exodus 3.
So Jesus basically says 3 things here: first, he tells them to have courage, take heart, buck up, get a grip, snap out of it, or, as some would say today, “chill!” Second, he simply says, I am, which means I am God. And finally he tells them not to be afraid.
In other words, they have to lose their mindless, terrified panic and show some backbone. They have to realize that in Jesus God is coming to them, the God who is the ground of all things and Lord even of weather. And they are not to be afraid. Fear is toxic and corrosive. They are, in short, to trust him.
The situation may look like it’s a disaster, but in reality God has everything under control. And the fact that the person saying this is walking on stormy water lends a certain credibility and legitimacy to his words. The same words said my someone while puking over the side of the boat would not have the same effect.
III.
Peter calls out to the figure. “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Which is certainly an interesting response. I would have said something like, “So could you do something about the weather?” Is Peter testing to see if it really is Jesus? I mean, the word for “if” could also mean “since.” Maybe he wants to see if Jesus’ I am power is transferable. Is this walking-on-the-water thing just something Jesus alone can do for himself? Or is it something the Lord extends to all disciples? Can Peter do it too?
This is an important question. If we’re going to be disciples, if we’re going to be followers of Jesus, it at least implies being able to do what Jesus does. Jesus himself says elsewhere that his disciples will do even greater things than they see him doing. It’s not about fancy supernatural tricks like literally walking on water; we need to start with basic discipleship. Such things do happen figuratively and metaphorically for us when we follow the Lord.
When Jesus says to Peter that he should indeed come to him on the water, it means that we do not get to claim exemption from real discipleship. We do not get to say that loving enemies, or giving up all our possessions, or not committing adultery in our hearts, or healing people of diseases, or welcoming the outcast, or any of the other things Jesus commands are really just for him, not for us as well. We don’t get to say that Jesus keeps these difficult commandments for us, since they really are impossible for us sinful mortals. He commands us to do them ourselves.
Because here is one of those sinful mortals, Peter, who steps out of the violently rocking boat and starts walking on the turbulent water to Jesus. He starts doing it. He’s walking on the water. Jesus tells him to “come;” and as long as he keeps his eyes on Jesus and moves in his direction, he stays above and passes through the turbulence.
This is the key to the Christian life right here. We focus our attention on Jesus and come to him. We respond with wholehearted trust to his call. For when we keep the Lord and his commandments at the center of our consciousness, we are accessing in and through him our own true selves, and in doing so finding our own union with God and everyone. For in Jesus Christ true humanity is revealed once for all, the humanity we share with him but have not realized.
Peter has to let go of his ego-centric, fearful, ignorant self, which he does for a few seconds when he steps out of the boat with his eyes on Jesus. He has to lose all conventional safety and enter the storm. Unfortunately, he can’t sustain it, and he gets distracted by the heavy wind, which brings back his fear, which snuffs his trust, and he starts to sink. We have to leave the relative safety of the boat and walk into the turbulence. But if we allow ourselves to focus on the turbulence instead of on the One who calls us in and through it, it will drag us under.
IV.
So what, or who, are we going to focus on? Are we going to do the rational, logical thing and stay hunkered down in the boat of convention, tradition, habit, and convenience? Are we going to fret about the storm, worry about the wind, and get anxious about the waves? In other words are we going to focus on our own fear first of all?
Or are we going to do the irrational, insane things that Jesus calls us to do? Are we going to get out of the boat at his behest, and imagine we can ride through and above the turbulence, holding only to him and his words, and his example of grace, peace, and welcome?
Are we going to get out of the boat by accepting and forgiving people, even those who are not like us or who we don’t really like much? Are we going to get out of the boat by refusing to resort to violence, hatred, threats, fear-mongering, or retribution? Are we going to get out of the boat by standing with oppressed, excluded, sick, and suffering people as their accomplices when they are battered by the exploitation of the wealthy and powerful?
In the end, Jesus gets in the boat and brings the wind down to a calm. He makes the boat a safe place again. And the disciples worship him as “the Son of God.” Jesus doesn’t ask for their worship. He asks them to follow him.
That’s always what he asks of us. To follow him. To come to him amid and through the turbulence of our existence. To keep him at the center of our consciousness, and so to find our true selves.
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