Sermon – August 7, 2005

Based on Matthew 14:22-33

The Rev. Merrill Wade

 

Mountains and seas are the locations for our gospel texts today.  They are dangerous places for a person to be alone.

           

            Storms.

            Nocturnal animals on the hunt.

            Unrelenting sunlight and heat.

            Vicious cold.

            Sudden intense wind.

            Terrifying sounds…

 

We think of these, in our scientific understanding, as natural phenomena, as nature.

 

For us in our time, weather works in patterns and a little science explains how rain transitions to sunlight and wind blows through and ceases.  We may endure bad, even life-threatening weather – but we do not take it personally – it is just nature as it is.

 

Not so in the Mediterranean Basin in the time of Jesus.  Mountains and seas were not something called geological structures with natural ecology and weather patterns.  They were places shrouded in mystery and danger.  They certainly were not thought of as vacation spots!

 

The Sea of Galilee, well below sea level, is legendary for the storms that swoop down and across it.  In their social science survey of the Gospels, Rohrbaugh and Malina say this about the “sea” – ancients understood the sea to be a “being that can engulf people with its waves, swallow them in its deep, and support all sorts of living beings.  Given the structure of boats in the period, people who traveled over or worked on the sea literally put their lives in the hands of the spirit(s) or deity that revealed its moods in the varying movements of the sea, from stormy, to rough, to calm, and the like.”

 

Moods of the sea…

            Difficulty in rowing against the wind.

            Coming up empty in catching fish.

            Quickly developing violent storms.

 

With this background on the dangers of mountains and seas, we find Jesus alone on a mountain in what could be termed courageous prayer.  Courageous prayer.  Any 1st century listener to this gospel story being read aloud would shudder to hear that Jesus had gone up on the mountain by himself to pray.  By himself?  And Matthew emphasizes this point explicitly in our story, “when evening came he was there alone.”

 

Was Jesus mad? Or was he a truly “holy man” unafraid of the spirits of the wild places?

 

The story that follows gives an answer to those two questions.

 

The disciples are in the boat and cannot get home.  They are being impeded by a stiff wind.  What were they thinking?  Likely they felt, in the dark of the night, being pounded by wind and waves, that they were in the clutches of the “sea” – fickle sea powers exerting their will.

 

Perhaps this is why they were not comforted when they see Jesus approach them on the sea.  “It is a ghost!” – a visionary specter of impending doom.  Their time is short.

 

But Matthew tells us that it is not a ghost, it is Jesus. He is not insane, he is holy!  Unafraid of the mountains alone at night.  Unafraid of the raging sea.  Indeed, Jesus is the Lord over Primal Fear.

 

In our need for scientific explanation, many Christians simply mark this off as a “miracle” – a supernatural act – and say, “after all, Jesus was the Son of God.  Of course he could control weather.”

 

I have long ago given up on the idea that God makes daily decisions about the weather so my interest in this story is not on the supernatural control of nature.  My interest is in Jesus’ courage and trust in God.  My interest is in his Lordship over Fear.

 

I call Jesus the Lord over Fear because he is willing to go and be alone with God in scary places.  He apparently trusts the presence of God more than he fears the world and all it can muster.  The deeper truth of this story is that trust in God is not genetic but must be tested and nurtured.  Spiritual growth is difficult to measure yet it seems to me that the more courage we can exert in the face of primal fear, the more we are trusting God.

 

In other words, the more we trust God when we know we are losing control the more we are growing.

 

The reality of adulthood for me is to realize that there will always be something - sometimes new – sometimes old - that will scare me.  Something is always out of my control.  I am afraid.  We are afraid.

 

Usually these fears take the form of questions:

 

            What if I fail?

            What if I succeed – will they expect more and more of me?

            What if I get fired?

            What if she, what if he, leaves me?

            How will my children be safe?

            Will I be left alone?

            Am I going to get sick?

            Will we run out of money?

 

Life, even for us privileged Americans, is difficult and risky.  Life can be like that primordial sea, thrashing us about in its moods.  Don’t you, at times, feel like you are paddling against a mean spirited wind?

 

In the midst of our lives, out of our control, often when we least expect him, most often in the disguise of another human being, Jesus comes to us, walking on the sea.  The Lord over our most fundamental fears, saying to us what he has always said, “Take heart, it is I.  Do not be afraid.”

 

Notice that I am not talking about the Lord we would design for ourselves.  God under our control.  The Lord over Nature that would

 

automatically resolve all issues that worry us.

heal us and those we love of any and all illness.

            guarantee us that we would never get hurt in a relationship.

prevent tsunamis, hurricanes and tornados from killing people and devastating property all over the world.

           

We cannot expect God to manage all this for us when he didn’t manage all these for Jesus.  Jesus escaped none of the risky and difficult things we face in life.  He died with a bruised and battered body and a broken heart, betrayed in fear by those he had right to believe loved him the most.

 

No it is not the Lord over Nature that I long to know.  I long to know God as Jesus Christ reveals him, the Lord over Fear, the one who invites us to trust God for all things, even to death.

 

Truth be told, most of us dwell in a continuum of trust, feeling close to God and willing to give ourselves to him.  Feeling terribly isolating and trusting God for little or nothing.  We live our lives swinging back and forth in this continuum. 

 

Peter exemplifies this trust and fear in our story today.

 

            “Lord if it is you; command me to come to you on the water.”  Jesus said, “Come”.   So Peter got out of the water, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.  But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me.”  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “you of little faith, why did you doubt (cease trusting)?

 

Peter’s life of faith and trust is typical.  I find that encouraging.  We will not escape loss, tragedy or pain in this life, we are out of control.  We will be afraid.

 

And Jesus, the Lord over Fear, invites us to walk with him, to have courage in spite of our falls into swirling waters.  Spiritual growth is developing a patter of prayer and service that allows us to trust more and more in life, as difficult as that is.

 

Learning how to trust God is a process that works for us as it did for Jesus and as it does for every holy man or woman.   It requires a measure of courage to sit alone in God’s presence in silent prayer.  We are out of control and one answer to that is to practice trying NOT to exert control in the presence of God.  Twenty minutes, twice a day, in submissive silence before God in spite of, indeed in the face of our wandering minds and anxious spirits.

 

Think of it this way - prayer is the birthplace and daily bread for growing in trust of God. 

 

I will close with this devotional poem by Katherina von Schlegel – as encouragement for you and me today.

 

Be still, my soul:

Your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past.

Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake,

All now mysterious shall be clear at last.

 

Be still, my soul:

The tempests still obey his voice, who ruled them once on Galilee.

 

AMEN.