I was not a particularly brave or adventurous kid. When I was five or six—some developmentally appropriate age for it—my parents bought me my first two-wheeler bicycle. Complete with the requisite training wheels. The idea behind the training wheels is they would offer a buffer as I was learning to balance until eventually I would just naturally learn to ride on two wheels. This was not what happened. What happened was I became incredibly adept at riding at a tilt, as I always kept one training wheel firmly on the ground. I didn’t even like the feeling of switching from one training wheel to another as the bike turned. So whichever side I chose for the day, I stuck with. I learned to turn my bike while keeping all of my weight on one side, actually quite the balance feat in itself. Especially considering we lived on a dead end, so my bike track was an oval. Like a NASCAR driver, I could make endless left turns, while simultaneously keeping all of my weight, and the tilt of the bike on the right training wheel.
My parents tried raising the height of the training wheels to coax me out of the habit, but to no avail. I just rode my bike at a sharper and sharper tilt. After, honestly, several years of this, my father recognized defeat. The training wheels were going to have to go if he was going to have any hope of sending his oldest child off to college with a training wheel free bicycle. Thus began the period of my father’s life where his exercise regiment consisted of jogging alongside me as I road up and down the street, holding the bike upright by a handle on the back of the seat that must have been designed for just this purpose. I was not a fan of this experience. After all, I could go a lot faster on training wheels then Dad could run. It was boring having to ride up and down the street with my father holding me back. But Dad, bless him, was persistent, and every day when he got home from work, there we were, running up and down the street in front of our house, me on my little pink bicycle and cantaloupe-shaped helmet with my exhausted father chasing along beside.
The truth was I was completely capable of riding a two-wheel bicycle. Years of riding at a tilt and carefully controlling the switch from one training wheel to the other had given me excellent spatial awareness and body control. To this day I can easily slow-ride a bicycle at comfortable walking speed. What I lacked was not skill, what I lacked was confidence. In these trips up and down the street, at some point Dad would eventually let go, either as part of the learning process or out of sheer exhaustion, and I would do just fine until the moment I realized he was no longer holding on to the seat. At which point I would immediately topple over into the bushes. More proof that this was a mental block on my part, I always toppled into the bushes, never the street where it might hurt. And, more specifically, it was always the ivy bushes, which were softer, never my neighbors’ prickly juniper. So I sympathize with Peter in our Gospel reading today. Who, while his attention was on Jesus and trying to figure out who he was, was totally capable of walking on the water. It was only when he was out of the boat and noticed the winds and the waves that he recognized the independence of what he was doing and began to falter.
But before we get to Peter, let’s take a look at the rest of the story. Remember, this summer we are reading scripture through a theological rather than a historical lens, to learn Jesus is teaching us about how to be disciples and to carry out his mission. That’s not to say that the history of what Jesus did is not important, it’s just that we have six months of the church year already dedicated to learning about the life of Jesus. So for these six months, we’re focusing not on the miracles themselves, but on the lessons we can take from these miracles about how Jesus wants us to live and work and be in the world. The question for us this morning is not, how in the world did Jesus walk on water? The question is what does this story of Jesus walking on water teach us about who Jesus is and how are we as his disciples respond to his call.
To get to this question, let’s take a look at some of the details in the story and what they would have meant to Matthew’s ancient near east audience. The story starts out with Jesus sending his disciples ahead of him in a boat across the sea, while he remained behind on the shore to pray. “The sea” in scripture is always both a geographical and a theological location. Anytime you hear “the sea” in the Bible, you should immediately think about chaos and lack of control, because that is what the sea represented in ancient near east imagination. It is why in the creation story, when the earth is a formless void, God’s voice moved over the waters. Or why the Psalmist cries for God to save him from the sea. Or in Revelation why God promised that the sea would be no more. It’s not because God has a thing against oceans, it’s because the sea is a metaphor for chaos and destruction. So when Jesus sent his disciples out ahead of him into the sea, yes, this is a geographical locator, the disciples were traveling across the Sea of Galilee from the Gentile side back to the Jewish side. But more importantly, this is a theological locator. Jesus was sending his disciples out ahead of him into a place of chaos and destruction. Much like how Jesus is sending the church, sending us, ahead of him into the world to bring about God’s kingdom.
So there the disciples were, out in the chaos of the sea, battered by the waves in their small boat in the dead of night. When suddenly, Jesus came walking across the waves to them. And again, I encourage you to think less about the miracle itself and more about the metaphor Matthew was weaving with this miracle story. Because since the Epic of Gilgamesh, written some two-thousand years before Jesus, walking on water had been a trait reserved only for deities. Gods and gods alone had the ability to walk across the waves. So Jesus walking on water is more than just a miraculous event, it is a statement about who Jesus is, about the divinity of Jesus as the Son of God.
And in case you missed the message in Jesus walking on water, this connection between God and Jesus is made even more clearly with Jesus’ words. The disciples saw Jesus and cried, “it is a ghost.” “But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, I AM; do not be afraid.” I AM, Jesus said, by way of introduction. I AM is the name God gave to Moses from the burning bush in Egypt. “I AM who I AM… Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” In the midst of the sea, in the middle of a storm, in the dark of the night, in the face of chaos and fear and certain death, Jesus spoke to his disciples, “take heart. I AM, the one whose voice calmed the waters at creation, who led your ancestors from slavery to freedom in Egypt, who gave courage to David and wisdom to Solomon, who spoke through the prophets, who I AM is the very presence of God with you; do not be afraid.”
Which brings us back to Peter. When Peter asked Jesus to command him out of the boat, this was not just asking Jesus to share with him a cool party trick. Peter asked Jesus to let him do something that only gods could do. And Jesus did it! It is no wonder that Peter, upon realizing the enormity of what he was doing, began to panic and falter.
But when this happened, Jesus caught him, saying “you of little faith, why did you doubt?” It’s easy to hear a note of criticism here, like, come on Peter, why are you so bad at being faithful. But the Greek doesn’t carry that tone. “Little faith” is a term Jesus often used toward his disciples in Matthew. It sounds derogatory, but think about the parable of the mustard seed or the yeast. In the kingdom of God a little faith is enough, a good place to start. And this word translated “doubt” is distazo, which is not skepticism, but wavering or indecision. The critique Jesus gave here was not a belittling, you have so little faith, how can you be skeptical? It was an uplifting, you who have this small, tenacious kernel of faith, do not let your attention be distracted from it. Peter’s weakness was not in his lack of faith in Jesus, a little faith is enough faith in the kingdom of heaven. Peter’s weakness was in his distraction and his lack of faith in himself. Jesus had given Peter Jesus’ own authority to walk across the waves, what Peter lacked was the confidence to receive it.
Dear friends in Christ, the message for us in this story is that we who are heirs of this same little faith of Peter, are too vested with Christ’s own authority. The ELCA’s tagline, God’s Work, Our Hands, is not just a tagline. It is a description of how Christ works in the world. Jesus has given us his own divine authority to be God’s hands and feet and heart and voice in the world. We don’t need to pray for a miracle, because we are the miracle. We are the tools God is using to bring about God’s kingdom. If I can build on the bicycle analogy from earlier, Jesus’ life and ministry on earth was like training wheels, the transitional period of the people of God from dependence under the law to freedom in Christ. It was comfortable and safe, a good time for learning, but God knew we were destined for more. And so with Jesus’ ascension, God the Father released the Almighty Hands from the handle on the back of the seat and let us ride on our own. To throw some fancy theological terms out there, this is the difference of justification and sanctification. Justification, letting go of the bike seat, is the work of God. It is the undeniable fact that we are saved by grace through faith, not our faith, but God’s faith in us, and it is a gift from God. We do not deserve it, we could never earn it, and we can never lose it. Justification is the thing Jesus did on the cross to set us free from sin and death and make us God’s children forever. Full stop. Sanctification is what follows. Unlike justification, which is totally on God, sanctification is our work. It is the practice of learning to live as God’s forgiven, loved, and saved people. It is the life-long practice of living, loving, and growing, nurturing that kernel of faith, and learning to ride the bike on our own. Because we are justified by God, because God has given us this gift, we then get to be about the holy and joyful work of learning to live into that gift. It is work, yes, but it is joyful work. Think about how freeing and fun it is to get to learn to be better at something we already know we can do.
And we can ride. Yes, we’re still going to fall in the bushes sometimes, a lot of the times, but that’s what confession and forgiveness is for. It’s why we start every worship by gathering around the font, reflecting on all the times we fell in the metaphorical bushes this week, and hearing again God’s promise that we are forgiven, that we can dust ourselves off, put our failures behind us, and try again. It’s why we end every worship by gathering around the table, hearing the promise that this is Christ’s body for us, by taking Christ’s own self into our very bodies, and finding fuel for the hard work of getting out there any trying again.
So let us go out, dear people of God, to be Christ’s hands and feet and heart and voice in the world. Let us be bold in our welcome and reckless in our invitation. Let us not be afraid to fail, for failing is a part of learning, but let us act boldly to bring about God’s kingdom. We, heirs of Peter, heirs of Christ, have been filled with Christ’s own authority. Take heart, we are God’s; do not be afraid. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment