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.”
May I propose that the boat in this story isn’t just a boat? The central space of a cathedral is called a “nave” from the Latin navis which means “ship.” Classic style cathedrals and churches are built so that if you stand in the nave, the middle of the church, and look up at the ceiling, it looks like the interior of an upturned ship. That’s because the early church used the metaphor of a boat to describe the church. So the disciples’ boat is the church itself, and the disciples are all believers.
The disciples are together in a boat on the uncontrolled sea, making little headway against high winds, a good image for the early church Matthew preached to. Christians were a tiny minority. The Jews were not always very tolerant of the first Christians. The Romans had begun local persecutions by the time Matthew was written. So to tell a story of the disciples, tempest tossed on the unfriendly sea, alone in a boat, must have struck home to Matthew’s readers.
For Jesus was not with the disciples in the boat. Jesus had required them to get in the boat and go to sea without him. “What kind of mess has Jesus got us into?” they must have wondered. They weren’t getting anywhere because “the wind was against them.”
What are the winds blowing through the lives of churches that seem to impede our journey? Unlike the early church, American Christians aren’t persecuted for their faith. But anything that pushes us away from the direction Christ wants us to go are stormy winds that defeat our faith.
Bob Dylan had a song, “The times, they are a-changing.” We have an expression about “the winds of change.” It isn’t difficult to imagine the boat of the church being blown backward by the winds of change. Times are changing, whether we like it or not. Issues arise in church life that we have never had to cope with before. Sometimes changes come almost too fast to adjust to, so there is a tendency just to stop rowing and relax awhile or give up and stop even trying to make headway. Of course, when we do that, we drift aimlessly.
That’s what happened on the boat on the sea of Galilee. The Gospel says that Jesus could see the boat far from shore at evening time. The disciples must have stacked oars or furled the sails, because they were still there when Jesus came to them the next morning.
Jesus walked on the water to get to the boat. In the Old Testament, walking on the sea is something only God can do, according to Job, Psalms, and Isaiah, among others. Matthew’s point is not that Jesus can defy the law of gravity, so to think of Jesus’ feat as just another miracle misses the point. “It was a commonplace of ancient thought that no human being could perform this feat. … In biblical thought, only God walks on the sea” (NIB). Jesus walking on the sea is Matthew’s dramatic way of making a proclamation. Who is Jesus? The One who walks on the water, deity in the flesh. The boat, the church, is tossed and battered by the angry waves, but these do not impede the Christ, the Son of God.
When the disciples saw Christ coming to them, they became afraid. There is no hint in the story that the disciples were afraid before then, but when they saw Jesus walking on the sea, “they were terrified.” Terrified! They know that only the deity can walk on the sea because they are good Jews who know their Bible, but instead of recognizing right away who Jesus is, they cry out, “It’s a ghost!” They have been so overcome by their cares, worries, pressures and concerns that their journey has come to a standstill, and now they don’t even recognize who it is who comes to them, even though Jesus comes to them in a way that unmistakably identifies him as divine reality, not superstitious apparition.
“Take heart,” Jesus says, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” The literal translation of Jesus’ words is, “Be courageous. I am. Don’t fear.” I am are the same words God used to identify himself to Moses. “Who shall I say sent me?” Moses asked. “Tell them, ‘I Am’ has sent you,” God replies (Ex. 3:14). To have Christ present is to have God present, and there is no reason for the church to fear. In the storm and winds and waves, we are admonished to be courageous.
“Lord,” Peter says, “if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” In Matthew, only believers call Christ Lord, so Peter knows who he is talking to. But Jesus still doesn’t seem very substantial, so Peter wants a little more proof.
After all, the last time Peter saw Jesus, he was back on the mountainside. And we know that Jesus lived two thousand years ago. So Peter and we have the same problem: if Jesus is back there, how could he possibly be here? The evidence of the here-and-now presence of Christ seems pretty good, but we ask for a little more proof, please. We’re not quite sure yet that Jesus really is with us, come what may.
“If you are the son of God,” is how Satan began tempting Jesus. It’s how Peter starts off in the boat and it’s exactly how we often start our conversations with Christ. We are rarely really satisfied that we have already experienced Christ’s presence, because if we were, we would act differently. We would treat each other differently. We would manage our money differently. We would take better care of God’s world. We would pray more, use less, and give more – if, if, if . . . Jesus really is the son of God. But we love our excuses too much, we love ourselves too much, and we refuse to acknowledge that everything we have is a gift from God to be used for God’s purposes, down to our very lives. But we would believe it, wouldn’t we, with just a little more proof? So we say, “It’s a good trick for you to walk on the water, but tell ya what, Lord, how ‘bout making me walk on water, too! If it really is you, that is.”
And Jesus just flings our challenge back in our face. “Come!” he commands. And now we’re stuck, aren’t we? We tested the Lord, but now the Lord is testing us! What to do, what to do? We have some faith, but we’re afraid.
The story is told of a farmer who went to the store where the shop keeper asked him, “How’s your cotton coming along?”
“Didn’t plant cotton, scared of the boll weevil,” the farmer replied.
“Oh,” says the clerk. “Well, what about your corn?”
“Didn’t plant corn, scared of the drought.”
“Potatoes?” asked the clerk.
“Scared of the tater bug, so I didn’t plant potatoes,” said the farmer.
“Did you plant anything?” asked the clerk.
“Nope,” said the farmer, “I just played it safe.”
There we are, challenging Jesus to give us a little more proof, and Jesus trumps us, and we’re stuck. Do we swing our legs over the side of the boat, or do we just stand still and play it safe?
Peter is stuck between fear and faith. But even in such a tough situation, trust wins. Peter takes a chance on Jesus. It’s all the way: he bets his life that Jesus really is who Jesus appears to be. He goes over the side. Barbara Brown Taylor described what that moment might have been like:
“Peter swung his legs over the side of the boat and, while all the other disciples watched with their hearts beating in their mouths, he placed his feet on the surface of the water—the waves crashing against the side of the boat, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes—he put his feet flat on top of the water, took a huge, trembling breath, and stood up. Then he took a few hesitant steps toward Jesus across the heaving surface, like the first steps he ever took in his life, and he was doing fine until a gust of wind almost toppled him, and he got scared and felt his feet sinking into the black waves below and he went down like a stone.”
Peter was doing fine until two things happened. First, he left the boat. We are all in the same boat together, and none of us has the privilege of striking off on our own, just doing whatever makes us feel better. We are one body. For members of Christ’s church, the words “me” and “mine” are vanquished by the words “we” and “ours.” Even faith is no reason to try to go it alone on the Christian journey.
Second, he took his eyes off Jesus. He was doing pretty well until he “noticed the strong wind” and became frightened. Then he sank. So what was he looking at? He could have walked in faith, but he looked at the wrong thing and so he sank in fear. When we notice things in our faith-walk that make us take our eyes off the Christ, we sink. Like Peter, we vacillate between faith and fear. In faith we stand, but in fear, we sink.
What is in control – fear or faith? Peter, God bless him, had faith enough to know that faith isn’t just believing beliefs, faith is doing beliefs. Faith in Christ is betting your life that Christ really is Lord. That is what Peter did. He bet his life that Jesus Christ would enable him to walk on the water. Faith is doing what we don’t think we can do. Faith is beliefs in action.
But we are deceived to think that if we had enough faith, we could overcome all our problems miraculously. We should not ask God to make exceptions just for us in the ordinary ebb and flow of daily life because we want a miracle to help us serve God. But we do fantasize that God will miraculously heal our infirmities, make us rich, keep us safe from harm, because after all, isn’t our heart in the right place?
Thinking that faith is for miracles is wrong. We are not given faith so we can be spectacular, but to believe that Jesus is with us in our boat, and to act accordingly. Our faith is not just something we affirm; it is how we act and what we do, and how we live and what we give! We sin, sin even in faith, if we just ask for miracles rather than use what God has already given us to row the boat.
So, what are we looking at, the winds which push us or the Christ who is with us? Paul wrote, “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). The reality of Christ is discerned with faith’s eyes, says Paul: “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18 ).
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus,” says the old hymn. “Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of the earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”
