A Sermon

by

The Rev. Jeffrey Long-Middleton

West Acton Baptist Church

November 13, 2011

“Jesus Lifts Us Above the Sinking Waves”

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

— Matthew 14:31[i]

Jesus has some nerve. “Why did you doubt?” He asks. Well, there were some pretty good reasons. Indeed, if we ask Jesus a few questions, we might begin to understand why they doubted. Let me list a few.

  • Why did Jesus send them off by themselves?
  • Why did Jesus come to them “over the water” and at night?

You might not know this, but here’s what one commentary has to say:

Jesus is initially mistaken for a ghost (bodies of water were viewed by Jews as the place where spirits and demons dwell)

Add nighttime to that! In the darkness, fear grows.

  • Why did they leave so late in the day?

I know what our text says: “And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.” But the Greek is far more ambiguous. In the Greek, Jesus comes to them during the “fourth watch of the night.” That’s between 3:00 and 6:00 in the morning. So it is far more likely that Jesus was seen coming out of the darkness. That would explain why they didn’t recognize Him.

Add all these questions up and it is little wonder that they doubted or that Peter began to sink. They were so frightened, so ready for disaster, that faith in Jesus was the last thing on their minds. Survival was their agenda. If we were to select some music for how they were feeling it would not be some melodic Mozart symphony but the theme music from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. There they were in a place where spirits were said to dwell, the sea raging and this figure coming towards them out of the dark  their fear is understandable. Their loss of a triumphant faith, is to be expected.

Yet I have an answer to every one of these questions, “I don’t know!” In the hands of a lesser preacher that might prove to be a problem! But I intend to look at it as an opportunity to think out loud and see where it gets us. Because, let’s face it, we have felt at some point in our lives like we were rowing against the wind.

One summer a few years back, our son, Matthew, and a few of his friends decided they would take our inflatable rafts and row from our home on Grand Isle, Vermont to Cumberland Head, New York where the ferries dock  a distance of slightly over two miles. That morning the wind had picked up but they were undeterred. They made it over all right, but by the time they landed in New York, the wind was blowing stiffly towards the north. On their way back our neighbor to the North came over and said he was concerned. The little boats were now far to the north and appeared to be having trouble making progress back to Vermont. I borrowed another neighbor’s dingy with an outboard motor and set out to find them. It turned out that even as strong as they were, they could not counter the force of the wind. They may have wanted to come south but they were a good mile and a half to the north. I threw them a line and towed the exhausted crew home. We have all known times when try as we might, we can’t get to where we want to go.

The fictitious character, Jeremy Stockton, was six feet three inches tall and a gifted high school athlete. Popular. Socially graced. Seemingly confident, he appeared to have a bright and promising future. But peer pressure is hard to resist and even though he had promised when he was younger that he would stay away from drugs, it is hard to be the “odd man out.” He did what the rest of his friends were doing. They, however, didn’t get caught. He did. Suspended from the high school basketball team for using illicit drugs, colleges missed seeing him play and he missed his chance at a scholarship. We have all found the wind pushing us where we didn’t want to go.

So did the disciples that night long ago. Pushing against their progress, they seemed trapped in the middle of a tempest. So why did Jesus send them off by themselves?

Perhaps it was to prepare them. You see, they had always had access to Jesus. Now they don’t and the truth of the matter is that they wont. How are they going to respond when they cannot see Jesus, when they cannot touch Jesus, when they cannot hear His voice or catch His smile? They had to learn to live like us. We don’t touch the physical Jesus  eat with Him, talk with Him, sit in silence with Him around a camp fire. Oh, we may sense Christ’s presence in our lives. We may say we know He is always with us. But our experience of Jesus is very different than the experience of having known the historical Jesus. They had access to the Second Person of the Trinity, and even if you they didn’t understand Him, they still had Him. They stuck it out and in the end, many of them were martyred for their loyalty. So it must have been so moving an encounter they not only left their livelihood to follow Him but every day decided to keep walking by His side. But Jesus is not in your life or my life in the same way. We have to cross the lake, face the wind, and on this night because Jesus sends them by themselves, they learn to be in the thick of it without the physical presence of Jesus.

A member of our church and I met this week with a multi-media consultant. The consultant was extremely helpful but we were not always on topic and I learned that he is very concerned about the “Mellenials.” According to Pew Charitable Trusts the Mellenials are comprised of young people who are entering adolescence, at one extreme, and approaching thirty at the other. He talked about how false the world has been portrayed to them. Which got me to thinking about the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley who recently asked a panel of “wise” Americans what needed to be done to fix the country. One of the panelists was Michelle Rhee, founder and CEO of Students First and former chancellor of the Washington DC Public Schools.

We’ve lost the American competitive spirit. If you look at how we’re raising our kids today and the culture we are creating, we are spending so much time trying to make children feel good about themselves that we’ve lost sight of putting the time in that it takes to actually make them good at something….I have two little girls. They play soccer. They suck at soccer, they really do. But if you were to go into their rooms today, you would see trophies and medals and ribbons and plaques. You would think just based on that I’m raising the next Mia Hamm. And I feel that part of that is actually not dong a good service to our children because we’re not teaching them that in order to be great at something you have to put the time in, you have to put the effort in. It’s about discipline. It’s about work ethic.

The consultant was asking what happens to children who have been told they are special no matter how they perform when they enter the world and get rejected because their performance is sub-par? They may well find themselves sinking with no hand to hold on to.

Maybe that’s why Jesus told them to go on without Him. There are times in our lives when we must traverse our own fears, take on our own storms and we will do so without the physical presence of Jesus. They needed to be made ready.

Why did He come to them over the water? Why not greet them when they got to the other side? Because they needed Him now. That’s the quick and easy answer. To have waited until the crisis was past or worse yet, to allow them to perish, is not reflective of God’s love. Jesus comes to them over the fearful deep because they needed Him now. Good news for all of us.

But there may be another reason. They feared the water, right? They thought that spirits and demons dwelled in the deep. And I know how they felt. Once while snorkeling in Hawaii I went just past the lip of the coral reef. Suddenly I was peering down a cliff face into clear water. I could see so far down that my vision was stopped not by the murkiness of the water but by the darkness. All I could imagine is some great beast coming at high speed up out of the depths with dinner on its mind! Now I have to confess, I didn’t think about Jesus even though I may have said His name! Rather, I panicked and found the lip of the coral reef as quickly as I could.

But here’s the thing: Jesus may have come to them over the water to prove even here where their fear is greatest, where it seems only demons dwell, there is Jesus. Ever feared what you knew was going to be a tough meeting or a difficult encounter. You could see nothing good coming of it, but you knew it had to come. Well, even there is Jesus.

Finally, why did they leave so late in the day? They were told to. I don’t know if they liked it. The text doesn’t say. But we usually don’t like taking orders. Most of us want to be in charge. We particularly don’t like taking orders when told to do something we would rather avoid. Could they have refused? Absolutely. But try to refuse God and see how that works for your relationship. They went because Jesus told them to go.

Perhaps this is our biggest challenge today  namely, to go where Jesus commands. The television news program, 60 Minutes, aired a program on poverty and hunger among children in America. Before the great recession of 2009, 14 million children were living in poverty, now the figure has grown to 16 million children  a growth rate of 2 million in two years: the fastest fall of the middle class since the government started keeping statistics 51 years ago. We not only need to feed them, we need to stop the madness. It is time to remember that God’s children deserve better and the world needs the witness of those who care. We need to go not only because we are told to, but because the witness of the church is in those places where the storm is raging.

Let us pray…..

“Jesus Lifts Us Above the Sinking Waves”

November 13, 2011

Page 1

[i]Matthew 14:22-33

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid." 28 Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."