Presence

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 9, 2020

14 Proper A 

          My brother has spent a great deal of time working on our family tree.  He has used websites, cemeteries, books, and countless online sources to trace the family back well into the 1800’s and some lines even further.  On paper, the tree is a nicely organized piece of work.  Some lines are sparse and others are quite full.  But each line represents a story, most of which we don’t know, but some of which we do.  Some stories are romantic.  My mother’s parents eloped in 1928 because my grandmother was a home economics teacher and teachers were not allowed to be married then. So they eloped and told no one about their marriage for quite a while.  Some stories are hard-people who died too young, or couldn’t marry their true love because of race or religion, or lives interrupted by war.  And most of the lines are of people who simply worked hard, raised a family, and tried to do good in the world.  But behind every name on the family tree there is a story, known or unknown.

          For weeks now, we have been hearing about the family tree that God has chosen to be a blessing to the world.  Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, and now Joseph.  On paper, this family tree looks pretty well thought out and organized.  But scripture does not hide the stories behind the family tree.  Abraham nearly sacrifices his son Isaac, and the two never speak again.  Jacob, the younger son, tricked his father, Isaac, into giving Jacob the birthright of the eldest son Esau.  Then Jacob was tricked into marrying Rachel’s older sister, Leah, before he could also marry Rachel.  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 Joseph is a tattle tale and his brothers hate him.  In an act of extreme sibling rivalry, the 11 brothers plotted Joseph’s demise.  They threw Joseph into a pit, then sold him to some Midianite traders who took Joseph to Egypt.  If this sounds like a huge, hot mess to you, you are hearing correctly.  On paper, we have a nice lineage from Abraham and Sarah down to Joseph.  But the story behind the family tree has twists and turns that boggle the mind.

Jesus’ disciples are in a different sort of hot mess this morning.  After feeding 5000 men, plus women and children, Jesus had 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, Peter 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.  But 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 do the work of justice and peace Jesus calls us to do.  Jesus’ presence with us gives us the courage to withstand whatever storm we find ourselves in.  Jesus’ presence with us means we never face anything alone.  The promise of the gospel is that in good times, and especially in frightful and difficult times, Jesus is with us.  And Jesus’ presence matters!

                                                                             Amen.