1Kings:19:1-5, 8-15a

Matthew 14:22-33 

“And he came to them, walking on the sea.”  So says Matthew in our Gospel lesson of the morning.  Some here may remember that from time to time in the past, I have remarked that there are certain Biblical tales, certain stories or accounts that that have, as I like to put it, “escaped” from the Bible.  They have become part of our culture.  They are known to people who have never opened a Bible - people who have never set foot in a church.  The story of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the apple. Moses and the parting of the Red Sea and again, Moses and the Ten Commandments,  Noah and the ark, David and Goliath, the birth of Jesus, and I’m sure there are others that could be added to the list.  But the one I would hold up for consideration this morning is Jesus walking on the water.  When someone seems to be so blessed that he or she seems to be immune to the consequences of his or her actions, it’s not uncommon to hear someone say of that individual that they “walk on water.” 

 Jesus waking on the water is a rather strange story in many ways.  You can find it in Mark’s gospel in Chapter 6 and in the Gospel according to John, also in Chapter 6.  In each case, the setting was on the Sea of Galilee, shortly before dawn - the fourth watch of the night - and the weather was bad.  The disciples were struggling with the oars because the wind was against them and Jesus is described as coming to them walking on the water.  And in all three versions, the disciples were terrified.  But Matthew’s account has one additional feature and I think it’s a very important one as we delve into this episode.  In Matthew, Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.”  In other words, Peter, the impetuous disciple, wants to give this water-walking a try and he seems sure if Jesus blesses his efforts, ”bid me come to you over the water”, that he will be able to do it.  But it doesn’t work so well for Peter and he begins to sink.  Let me say that again because I think it’s important - he doesn’t simply sink, he begins to sink.  Then Jesus reaches out his hand and rescues Peter and he says, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  And because of that admonishment from Jesus, the story of walking on the water is portrayed as an example of the power of faith. 

There is a story that I have enjoyed that is told dealing with a new Methodist minister whom the Bishop has assigned to a small-town church and when the local rabbi and the Catholic priest learn that the preacher like to fish, they invite him to join them because they also are fishermen.  So there they are, out in a boat on the local lake and in time the rabbi feels the well-known call of nature and so he casually steps out of the boat which is some little distance from shore and walks across to water to shore.  And the preacher is amazed.  He is dumbfounded but he doesn’t say anything.  New kid on the block, y’know - gotta be cool.  The rabbi returns and next the priest undertakes the same mission and again steps out of the boat and walks to shore.  Now of course the preacher knew about Jesus walking on the water and even though he saw himself as a man of faith, he had never tried actually walking on water himself.  Nevertheless, he drew a deep breath, said little prayer to bolster his faith, and stepped out of the boat.  Immediately he was bobbing up and down in the water.  Then the rabbi said to the Priest, “Did we forget to tell him where the shallow rocks are?”

 Of course it may be that the water-walking episode in Jesus life and interaction with the disciples is best taken as simply a faith story, an example of what can be done through faith.  In Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, he alludes to the mighty power of faith when he says, in chapter 13, “... though I have faith so as to move mountains...”   And yet, for all the wonders that be accomplished by having faith, walking on water does not seem to me to rank very high in importance or significance.  It’s certainly not very practical.  Not too useful.  Oh, I suppose you could amaze and delight your friends.  Go visit them and walk across their swimming pool.  I’m sure they’d be impressed and you might even win a few converts to the church with such a demonstration of the power of faith but beyond that, walking on water takes on some of the aspects of a parlor trick - something Harry Houdini might have done as part of his magic act. Impressive but, as I said, not very useful.  Although it is said that in the days of the American Civil War, an inventor came to President Lincoln and tried to interest him in backing his new invention, floating shoes that he claimed would allow the Union Army to simply walk across rivers and streams as they marched to battle.  Lincoln, we are told, politely declined to be interested.  Nor does it seem in character for Jesus to do this just to show off to the disciples what powers God has granted him.  Remember when Satan invited Jesus to show off his powers as the Son of God by casting himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and Jesus rebuked the devil saying, “Do not tempt - that is do not challenge - the Lord your God.”

But why, then, would three of the four Gospels include this story if not to showcase the power of faith in God?

 We know that when Jesus had a lesson to teach, he frequently spoke in parables.  That is, he set up a sort of fable that captured or illustrated the point he wished to make.  But the story of Jesus walking on the water is certainly not one of Jesus’ parables because it is not Jesus who is telling the story nor is it being told to either the people of Jesus’ time nor to the disciples.  The story is a narrative by the Gospel writer addressed to the reader but I will propose that this story, if not a parable, is at least an allegory.  With apologies to those who chose to believe, as I know some do, that every word in the Bible comes from God and is to be taken literally, I believe that this story is symbolic and that within the symbolism lies an important message for all of us living here in the 21st century.  It reminds me of a trick that I learned as a child from a book, long since out of print and forgotten called, “Fun for Boys”.  The trick involves sending a secret message by writing with lemon juice on a piece of paper that may have some other message on it.  When the paper is held over a strong heat source, the hidden massage appears.  And so this morning, I want to try to be the heat source that reveals the hidden message.

 And so this morning I would suggest to you that the story of Jesus walking on the water does not deal with the physical act of walking on liquid water.  Rather, I believe that this account invokes the same symbolism that Pastor Victor introduced us to a few weeks ago when he preached John 21, in which Jesus told the disciples who had fished all night without success to put out their nets again where he told them to.  They followed Jesus’ instructions and to their amazement, they reaped a huge harvest of fish.  And the symbolism suggested there was that the sea is an allegory, a symbol, representing the world, the fish, the people of the world, and the disciples in the boat are the church.  So when they cast their net, they were symbolically bringing souls into the church.  Remember when Jesus said, “I will make you fishers of men.”?  And so I say it is also in this story.  I would suggest that once again, the sea is a symbol representing the world and the boat, the church.  And when Jesus walks on the water, what the writer is telling us is that Jesus can be in the world but not be consumed by it.  But what happens when Peter tries it?  Peter begins to sink.  I think that one of the clues is the fact that the gospel writer says that Peter was beginning to sink, as if it were some sort of a slow process.   Now you and I know that if we step out of a boat, we don’t slowly sink.  We don’t have time for a discourse.  We’re going to go under.  But I take this to mean that Peter tried, like Jesus, to take the word of God into the world but that Peter became distracted by the ways of the world with its diversions and its temptations. This, after all, is the same Peter who when pressed about his relationship to this Jesus who had just been arrested, three times denied even knowing Jesus.  And in that way, symbolically, Peter is none other than us.  In the church, we are secure and faithful to the teachings of the scriptures, to the precepts of the faith, to the commandments of our Lord.  We can recite the Apostle’s Creed.  We can pray the Lord’s prayer.  We can feel ourselves filled with the Holy Spirit.  But what happens when we step out of the boat?  When we step outside the church?  As the hymn says, “I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to be like Jesus.”  But outside our safe little boat, it’s a different matter and like Peter, we begin to slowly sink. 

 All this adds up to a simple fact - trying to live the faith, trying to be like Jesus, trying be God-like in the real world is a challenge that we as Christians face every day and that people who fear God have faced since time out of mind.

Consider Elijah in our Old Testament lesson this morning.  Elijah had demonstrated that the pagan god Baal was a false god and he had slain the prophets of Baal.  This aroused the ire of Queen Jezebel and, to put it in modern language, she took out a contract on Elijah so that he feared for his life and he went into hiding - he went into exile - living in a cave.  And God found him hiding in the cave and God spoke to Eijah and he called him forth and he basically ordered back into the world. God told Eljah to be on his way to Damascus, where there was work to be done.  And so first of all, the scripture teaches us that as believers, we cannot hide from our duties to bring the word of God into the world and to translate that word into action.  In Samuel Taylor Colridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, his hero-protagonist wails out the lament that I have borrowed as the title for this message, “Water, water, everywhere...” and given our understanding of the significance of water in this context, we say that indeed the world is all around us just as water was all around the ancient mariner.  We are in the world and short of death itself, we cannot escape the world and so as Christians and children of God, we must deal with the world.

 Secondly, consider Paul’s letter to the Romans.  Turn if you will to Romans, 12 verse 2 where Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”.   The word “prove” here is used in an old sense meaning that we are to test, to test in the sense of to ascertain or determine, through the renewal of our mind, newly awakened in Christ, what is the will of God.  And so Paul here reminds us that we are to resist those aspects of the world that are anathema, that are offensive, that are of that fallen angel we call Satan, and we are to cling like a limpet to that which is righteous, to that which is holy, to that which is God-like.

 And thirdly, in the time of trial, we are not alone.  It is not us by ourselves against the world.  We have recourse; we are not in this alone.  Coming back to our metaphor, remember that when Peter stepped out of the boat, he did not sink.  He only began to sink but when he felt himself sinking he cried out to Jesus and he said, “Lord, save me!”  And in verse 31, the Gospel writer says “Jesus immediately - immediately - reached out his hand and caught him and I think that in these two actions lie the crux of the story.  It is the crux of the story, the very heart of the tale, because without this, there would be no message for us; no help for those disciples among us who like Peter, earnestly desire to bring the message of Christ into the world and yet falter and come up short.  Without Peter and his failure, without this part of the story, Jesus would walk on the water that would be the end of it.  But like Peter, when the world consumes us, when slowly we begin to sink, just as Peter did, we can cry out, “Lord Save me!” and, as the scripture says, the hand of Jesus is there for us to grasp.  Praise the Lord whose hand is there for us, lest we sink.

Amen

 I want to make a comment on the hymn I have selected as our closing hymn this morning - number 512, “Stand By Me” That hymn was written in 1906 by the Reverend Charles Albert Tindley, a black man, born in Maryland, the son of a slave father and a free black mother.  He was self-educated and through the dint of his own effort, he rose from church janitor to ordained Pastor of that same church in Philadelphia.  In addition to this hymn and others, he wrote the civil rights hymn, “We Shall Overcome”.  When we sing this as our closing hymn, I want you to listen to the words and think about the disciples on the water as we sing: “When the storms of life are raging, stand by me.  When the storms of life are raging, stand by me, when the world is tossing me like a ship upon the sea, thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me.”