13th Sunday After Pentecost
August 10, 2008

Turbulent Waters
Matthew 14:22-33

Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

As I’ve thought about this gospel story of walking on water and the baptisms and new members received today, a poem has been in the back of my mind. It is titled “The True Love” by David Whyte.

There's a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness and what we feel we are worthy of in this world. Years ago in the Hebrides, I remember an old man who would walk every morning on the gray stones to the shore of baying seals, who would press his hat to his chest in the blustering salt wind and say his prayers to the turbulent Jesus hidden in the waters.

And I think of the story of the storm and the people waking and seeing the distant, yet familiar figure, far across the water calling to them. And how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking and that calling and that moment when we have to say yes!

Except it will not come so grandly, so biblically, but more subtly, and intimately in the face of the one you know you have to love.

So that when we finally step out of the boat toward them we find, everything holds us, and everything confirms our courage.

And if you wanted to drown, you could, But you don't, because finally, after all this struggle and all these years, you don't want to anymore.

You've simply had enough of drowning and you want to live, and you want to love. And you'll walk across any territory, and any darkness, however fluid, and however dangerous to take the one hand you know belongs in yours.

We started our service this morning with water and God’s Word in the baptisms of Amelie and Jill.  Baptism is a symbolic dying and rising with Christ to new life. We are set apart in our baptisms to be people who let others know of God’s grace and love. . I’m imagining what it was like for Jill and Craig the first time they held the hand of little Amelie. They knew it belonged in theirs. 

We received additional new members through affirmation of their faith. We joined hands as a community of believers who share baptism and are Christ’s living body on earth.

Our gospel lesson also brings us water and Word. This time the water is swirling turbulently in the Sea of Galilee. The Word from Jesus is “Come.” And that word brought about Peter’s affirmation that Jesus is Lord, the one who saves us.

Peter has the courage to step out of the boat. He demonstrates how we’d like to be as followers of Jesus: bold, daring, and very connected to Christ no matter what dangers swirl around us. We know whose hand we need to take, the hand of our Savior.

And like Peter, we come face to face with our fears. We see ourselves in Peter’s inability to trust God completely. Like Peter, we also feel vulnerable to the swirling forces of chaos that threaten to drown us at times. And like Peter in such a time, we are invited to take the hand of Jesus.

When we hear about Jesus walking on water, our modern minds think of defying the law of gravity and the nature of water. But the people of biblical times would have thought of the one who overcomes the power of chaos, which could only be God. Jesus does what only God can do in this story.

The message of this story is not "If Peter had had enough faith, he could have walked out and joined Jesus on the water." And the message to us is not "If we had enough faith, we could overcome all our problems in spectacular ways." That’s not how it is.  

Faith is God’s gift to us. We can do our best to follow God in Christ. But we are not perfect. The label of “little faith” probably fits every human being. We are, as Martin Luther put it: simultaneously saint and sinner, “simul justus et peccatur” in the Latin.

We cannot save ourselves by our own doing. Even if we think we can have “enough faith” on our own, things fall apart for us when we face the realities of accidents, disease, aging, and other circumstances when we feel ourselves sinking.

How many people today feel battered by the waves of unemployment, rising prices on everything from gasoline to food, home foreclosures, depression, illness, war, and more? We feel alone in the boat, caught up in the swirling turbulence of chaos. If we want to make it to the other side of difficulties, we need to keep our focus on Jesus.

Faith is not being able to walk on the water. Only God can do that. Faith is daring to believe in the face of every difficulty, that God is with us in the boat.  Faith is belief that the loving hands of God reach out to us no matter what. And in response the community of faith reaches out hands to hold in the swirling chaos. 

Peter listened to Jesus say simply, “Come.” Then Peter got out of the boat in a response that defies logic. What is the boat in your life that you are afraid to get out of? What is the boat in your life that prevents you from following God’s call to come?

Peter could not walk on that water for one reason: fear. He felt the wind and the reality of the storm. The turbulent waters got to him. The situation was incomprehensible. It was crazily absurd. Fear overwhelmed Peter. He began to sink. And then Peter did what we must all do. Peter cried out, “Lord, save me!”

We must believe in our hearts that it is Christ Jesus who gives us life, no matter what chaos we are facing. When we get to that point, we will indeed “cross any territory, no matter how dangerous, or how fluid, to take the one hand we know belongs in ours,” the hand of Christ.

Even in the midst of danger and fear, there is peace in the presence of Christ. In Christ Jesus we are promised that the swirling waters will subside.

Lord, save me. Lord, save us all. Amen.


Resources: The Rev. Dr. Marilyn Salmon, Professor of New Testament, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, and a neighborhood member of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church’s Call Committee. She wrote reflections on today’s gospel text on Luther Seminary’s Working Preacher website.

The Rev. Sister Judith Schenck is a retired priest and a Franciscan Poor Clare solitary in the Episcopal Diocese of Montana.

The Rev. Brian Stoffregen, Faith Lutheran Church, Yuma, AZ; Crossmarks.com