“Take Heart”
Rev. Emily Wilmarth, First Presbyterian Church of Highlands, NC
Sunday, August 13, 2017
Matthew 14:22-33
It’s not all that often that Jesus performs miracles like the ones in today’s story. The miracle of healing? Yes. He does a lot of healing. But he doesn’t perform gravity defying miracles in great numbers in scripture.
Usually when Jesus does perform miracles, it’s for the benefit of others. For the guests at the wedding in Cana, he turned water into wine. For the hungry crowd that had gathered to hear him teach, he multiplied five loaves and two fish so everyone could have plenty to eat. As his friends Martha and Mary grieved, he raised their brother Lazarus from the dead.
But what use to others is walking on water? To be fair, it does seem like a helpful convenience for Jesus. The disciples were a few miles out to sea, and he needed to catch up with them. I suppose he could have found a boat, launched it, and set sail for the disciples, but there was a storm raging. It makes sense to me that if you can walk on water, the easier route would be to just get moving.
But, really, what does this miracle story mean? We can see the lessons in Jesus’ other miracles, but as one commentator writes, on the surface this one seems superfluous.[i]
Here are the disciples, living through a harrowing night at sea. Waves swirl all around, knocking the boat about. The threat of rocks lurks under the water. Wind blows from every direction, tossing the boat here and there, pushing it ever farther from its destination. There’s a total lack of control; the boat is at the mercy of the storm.
We’re not so different, living this life. There are storms all around us. Storms we can’t control. Winds that blow us off the course we planned or prepared for. The storms may be deeply personal, they may affect our loved ones, or they might be bigger than that. We are all familiar with the perils of life that come our way. Even absent strong winds or large waves, our lives can often feel like we are at sea. It can feel like we are at the mercy of the elements, bobbing along and hoping, praying, that something doesn’t come and sink our ship.
But then there’s Jesus, walking out there on the water. At first sight, the disciples are scared. It’s a natural reaction. People don’t walk on water. It must be a ghost, they decide.
We’re not so different from the disciples. We rationalize the miraculous impossible. There’s a cartoon of two folks standing on the shore, watching Jesus walking on water. One leans over to the other and scoffs, “You just have to know where the rocks are.” Sometimes the miracle exists before our eyes, but we just can’t believe it. Instead, we convince ourselves that the goodness of God in our very midst is merely a ghost, an illusion, a figment of our imagination. Or we explain it away, skeptical of anything that might seem miraculous. Our rational minds look for more reasonable explanations.
Jesus speaks words of comfort to the disciples. “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Translators use, “It is I,” but the Greek really states, “I am.” These are the same words God uses to identify Godself to Moses at the burning bush. It’s a divine declaration Jesus makes. Take heart. God is with you. There’s no need to fear.
Just to be sure, Peter calls out. Maybe he wants Jesus to prove himself. Or maybe he’s so relieved it’s Jesus he just wants to get out of the boat to be with his friend, his savior.
And so, for a second, Peter participates in the miracle. He walks on water.
But, then, he notices the wind. He notices the danger. Every threat the storm brings becomes real to him. He feels fear, and he begins to sink. It’s Peter’s fear that breaks the spell; fear cuts the miraculous moment short.
We’re also not so different from Peter. We catch the vision, we get inspired to step out in faith and in hope, to follow the call of Jesus, but then something distracts us. The things that cause us fear come storming in and we lose our footing. Fear that we’ll fail. Fear that we’ll make fools of ourselves. Fear that none of this is real, or none of it matters. Fear that following Jesus means we’ll have to change – our minds, our situations, our comfortable or convenient lives, for the sake of someone else. When we let fear rule our hearts, our actions, our choices, we begin to sink away from the call of discipleship.
It can be hard not to let fear rule our behavior. In some ways it happens subconsciously, or before we even think about it. Naming and confronting our fears can be painful. It requires taking a good hard look at ourselves, and sometimes what we find can be terribly embarrassing. So often our fears are more about us – and protecting ourselves over and against anything else – than the thing we’re actually afraid of. And so often our fears are not based on logic or reason. I’m deathly afraid of cockroaches. It’s irrational. I’m thousands of times bigger than those awful creatures. But, they terrify me. When I see a cockroach, I tremble, and I run and hide. I can’t kill a cockroach, and not because I want to save its life. I just can’t be physically near it.
Motherhood has also brought on a whole new set of fears. There seem to be a million “what ifs” to this new job of parenting. What if Clara doesn’t gain enough weight? What if she develops difficult food allergies? What if she doesn’t walk soon enough? I’ve come to realize how my fears take up so much head space that they can quickly drown out my heart space. The truth is, whether she eats or walks or gets good grades, her father and I, and most definitely God, will always love her beyond words.
Our fears can be unfounded, but they can grow so powerful that they take over our every thought, our every deed. When we let fear lead our choices and actions, love rarely wins.
But here’s the good news. As Peter starts to go down, he calls out, “Lord, save me!” There’s still faith in Peter’s heart. There’s still hope in Jesus. And Jesus reaches out his hand and grabs him.
I believe Jesus reaches out for us again and again. When we’re sinking, when we find ourselves facing down our fears, we can call out to Jesus. He will be there. Don’t mistake him for a ghost.
Yesterday, we had a memorial service for Pud Brogan. In his homily, Curtis reminded us that at the heart of who we are as Christians, we are people of faith and trust. We don’t have hard proof. There is no YouTube video of Jesus walking on water, calling Peter out of the boat, reaching out to grab him and pull him to safety. Maybe it’s just a story. But, if we have faith that this impossible thing happened to Peter, we can have faith that the impossible can happen to us, too.
With God all things are possible. Jesus shows us how. That must mean that in our lives, all things are possible, too.
I think about those disciples out on the boat, battling the storm. Maybe they were praying to God for help. Maybe they were praying for a miracle. I doubt they were expecting to see Jesus walk up to the boat. But that’s what they got. And it was the perfect solution.
Having faith is like that. It means believing, trusting, hoping that Jesus will enter our lives and calm our storms. Maybe Jesus will come just how we ask him to. It’s more likely that when we need a miracle most, Jesus will show up in ways we least expect him. Jesus certainly won’t be limited by our expectations; instead, we can open our minds and hearts to really see him at work. God will give us the answers we need, not necessarily the answers we want.
I’m grateful for these miracle stories. Because of these miracles, I believe we can live in faith and hope that Jesus will work in our lives and in the world to achieve what seems impossible. And, boy, do we need him to.
When we look at the world, and maybe even when we look at our own lives, we see how far we have to go. We have so far to go before God’s promised reign looks real on this earth. We have so far to go…
before people won’t die of hunger,
before violence will cease,
before forgiveness, not anger, will be our first choice,
before the color of one’s skin, or one’s country of origin, or the religion one practices won’t be a cause for hate,
before peace between tribes and nations will be a reality,
before people won’t be judged by their age or ability, by their gender or sexuality,
before children won’t die of curable diseases,
before swords will be beaten down into plowshares,
before the lion and the lamb will lie down and take a long afternoon nap together.
The reign of God we long to see and know feels impossibly far away. And so, I believe the point of a miracle story like this one where Jesus walks on water is to remind us that the impossible is within our grasp. We have a savior who not only walks on water. He also walks to the cross. And he walks out of the tomb three days later. And if he can get Peter to walk on water, just think what he can do with our lives.
Take heart, Jesus says. There is no storm he hasn’t weathered.
Take heart. We’re not beyond Jesus’ reach.
Take heart. He will get in the boat with us, to face these storms, to calm the winds, to get us to the other side.
Have hope and faith in this one who calls us out of the boat. There’s work to do on his behalf. It will take courage, for sure, to overcome our fears. But, don’t worry. He knows where the rocks are.
[i] http://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.ca/