Walking on Water

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

August 13, 2017

14 Proper  A

If we want to hear stories about perfect families, perhaps we should look somewhere other than the Bible.  This morning we hear a story of sibling rivalry that lets us know we are in good company if our family is not exactly or even close to perfect.  In our readings from the Old Testament this summer, we have heard the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac, and the apparent estrangement of Isaac and his father Abraham from that moment on.  Isaac’s son Jacob was tricked into marrying Laban’s first born daughter, Leah, before he could also marry Rachel, the love of Jacob’s life.  In his old age, Isaac was fooled by his wife Rebekah and his younger son Jacob into giving the birthright of his eldest son Esau to his younger son.  Today we hear about two additional wives of Jacob, Bilhah and Zilpah, handmaids of Rachel and Leah who Jacob also married, and the tension between the 12 sons of these various wives.  Joseph was the favorite son of Jacob because he was the first born son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife.  Now we hear that 17 year old Joseph has tattled on his brothers, who, we are told, already hate him.  In an act of extreme sibling rivalry, the 11 brothers plotted Joseph’s demise.  One brother, Rueben, convinced the other 10 to spare Joseph’s life, so they threw Joseph into a pit, then sold him to some Midianite traders who took Joseph to Egypt.  If this sounds like a huge, complicated mess to you, you are hearing correctly.  God had promised Abraham, Joseph’s great-grandfather, that Abraham would have descendants that number the stars in the sky, and that they would inhabit a great land.  With Jacob’s 12 sons, the family is moving in the right direction for ample descendants, but the move to Egypt takes them away from the promised land of God.  In short, the descendants of Abraham are now in a real mess.

While Jesus’ disciples are not in a generational mess this morning, they do find themselves in a frightful situation.  After feeding 5000 men, plus women and children, Jesus made the disciples get in a boat and head to the other side of the lake.  They are in the middle of the lake, with the wind against them, fighting their way to the other side, when they see what they believe to be a ghost.  Peter wants proof that this ghost is really Jesus so, at Jesus’ invitation, Peter climbs out of the boat and attempts to walk on the water to Jesus.  When he sees the strong wind, he becomes frightened and begins to sink.  Jesus saves him with a reprimand: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

This story leads us to believe that if Peter just had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.  If we are not careful, we quickly slide into thinking that if WE just had enough faith, WE could walk on water as well, defying the forces that threaten to drown us whether they be natural disaster, sickness or disease, worry about global instability, or our own family problems.

There are two problems with this line of thinking.  First, throughout scripture, control over the seas belongs to God, not humans.  God caused the great flood that wiped out all living things not on Noah’s ark, and God caused the rains to stop.  God parted the Red Sea, so that Moses could lead the Hebrew people across the water and away from the Egyptians.  In the book of Jonah, “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.”  The list goes on and on.  The ability to control the sea belongs to God, not humans.

Secondly, Peter’s problem when he begins to sink is identified as fear.  But when Jesus rescues Peter, he says “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  What Peter and the disciples doubted was the identity of Jesus.  First, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  And, at 3am in the pitch dark in the middle of the water in a boat being battered by waves, a ghost makes much more sense than thinking that Jesus has strolled out on the water to check on them.  Then Peter says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Peter is testing the identity of their visitor.  When Peter begins to sink and Jesus says “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” the only thing Peter has doubted is the identity of Jesus.  The point of the story is to prove that Jesus is God, not to make the disciples feel badly because they cannot walk on water.  And at the end of the story, the point has been made, as the disciples say “Truly you are the son of God.”

In the Hebrew Scriptures, God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In other words, God identifies himself as the God of the whole complicated mess of a story that we find in the book of Genesis.  God does not give up on the Hebrew people, no matter how much they doubt, how much trouble they get into, or how far they stray.  God is their God and they are God’s people for the long haul.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us.  By having power over the stormy seas, Jesus demonstrates that he is God.  By coming out to the disciples in the boat, Jesus demonstrates that he is with them.  The story about Jesus walking on the water is not a story designed to make us feel inadequate because we do not have the faith to walk on water.  We are humans.  We are not called to walk on water.  When times are fearful and our boat is being battered by waves and is far from land, or when we feel like we’ve been thrown in a pit and sold into bondage, whether we are in a self-made mess or one we have absolutely no control over, Jesus does not expect us to walk on water.  Jesus does expect us to believe that he can walk on water, that he is with us, and that his presence matters.  Jesus’ presence with us gives us the courage we need to be the people God has created and called us to be.  As followers of Jesus, the command of the gospel is, in the words of our Baptismal covenant, to resist evil, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, and to work for justice and peace.   The promise of the gospel is that in good times, and especially in frightful and difficult times, Jesus is with us.

        Amen.