Walking Toward Us: Reflections On Matthew 14:22-33

"Like" the Patheos Progressive Christian Page on Facebook to receive today's best commentary on Progressive Christian issues. Lectionary Reflections Proper 14, Eighth Sunday after Pentecost Matthew 14:22-33 August 7, 2011

My friend Gary gave me permission to tell you this story. Gary is a computer analyst in his mid 40s. He has been married and divorced three times. After a year of dating a woman named Anne who was also divorced with a 7-year-old daughter, he and Anne came to me and asked me if I would marry them. Our counseling and wedding planning was going alone fine until, about a month in, Gary began to develop a case of very cold feet. When he shared this with Anne, she suggested he get away for a day to clear his head. So he started driving with no particular destination in mind, and ended up at Lake Texoma. He got out of his car and began to walk, to soothe his jangled nerves. He came to a bench that looked out over the lake. He sat down and tried to breathe more deeply to unravel the knots in his stomach.

As he stared out at the lake, it was like looking into a soul mirror and things started to come clear. He saw that there were three knots in his stomach and each had a name. One was his fear that the odds were against him, that he would just keep repeating the same relationship patterns. The second was his fear of stresses coming at the fragile new family from outside—custody stress, job stress, and extended family pressures. The third was the hardest, knottiest fear of all; it was the fear that he was just not worthy of another human being's love, not worthy of God's love.

He had the right idea—taking time to find a quiet place to sit and name the knots in his stomach. We need to name our own knots, to focus our own fears.

Jesus Surrenders to God Twenty centuries earlier, another man looks out over another lake from the mountaintop to which he has retreated to pray. He is not a superhero who has retreated to his bat cave. He is not a ghost out to haunt the already terrified. He is a man. Fully God, fully human. He is the Son of God, though those around him don't yet recognize him. His ship of faith is being battered by the rejection of his hometown folks and the beheading of his cousin John the Baptist by Herod. He knows his time is coming. Crowds of needy people press in on him constantly.

At last he has sent the crowds away and convinced his disciples to get in a boat and cross over ahead of him. Finally he has found time to pray. He is praying, perhaps lifting up each of his fears to God and exchanging them for faith, allowing the comfort and healing and power of God to fill his inner life, his heart, mind, emotions, will. This is what the Old Testament tells us to do, to surrender all our lesser fears to our fear of the Lord, our reverence for God, for who God is and what God can do.

But prayer time never lasts long enough. I know a pastor who puts his cell phone in the next room when he goes into his study at home to pray. Except sometimes he forgets to turn the ringer off.

In our story, the disciples are in the next room, but the ringer is on and Jesus' prayer time is over. They are in distress. As Jesus squints at the horizon he sees the disciples' little boat bobbing side to side, back and forth, up and down.

Scripture tells us three things about their situation and leaves us to come to our own conclusion. We are told they are battered by the waves, far from shore, and that the wind was against them.

If it were just one out of three, the disciples might be able to get free. Battered by waves, but near the shore and no wind. Or far from shore, but no waves and no wind. Or wind, but close to shore and minimal waves.

If it were just two out of three even, maybe they could get free. Battered by waves and far from shore, but wind blowing you back to shore. Battered by waves and wind against you, but close to shore.

But three out of three signals that they're in a situation they can't get out of by themselves and they are out of reach of any human help. Pity the souls in such a situation.

Pity the woman who told me "Pastor, things are awful in my marriage. I really want to come with my husband and talk with you." "Fine, let me know when." "Pastor, I'm sorry, I suggested it to my husband, but he said, 'Counseling—our problems are too deep for that.'" He's right. Pity the person who says "I can't overcome this addiction by myself." He's right . Pity the one who says, "I can't lose this weight and get my health and myself respect back by myself." She's right . I can't leave this relationship by myself. I can't move beyond my bereavement by myself. These people are all right. We can't, on our human strength alone.

Someone Walking Toward Us But early in the morning, here comes someone walking toward the battered boat, as it is being blown farther and farther from shore. Here comes someone walking toward them who could have chosen to be somewhere else right now.

Here comes someone who could be standing on the shore watching them (us) suffer thinking, "What a shame."

Here comes someone who could be living in a gated mansion in peace, rather than amid needy people, who all want a piece of him, hemmed in by the hungry, his personal space transgressed by the sick.

Here comes someone who could have daily spa treatments and a personal masseuse, rather than live continually pestered by the pestilent.

Here comes someone who could be reclining at a banquet table at a four-star restaurant, rather than kneeling in the dust and multiplying grimy loaves and gritty fish.

Here comes someone walking toward them (us)—why? Because he chooses to do so.

Paul tells us, reflecting on the life of Jesus as conveyed to us in the gospels, that "Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in human form, he was obedient, even unto death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6ff).

Walking On the Water But that's only half the sentence. "He comes walking toward us on the water ."

In the mid 300s Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, a brilliant thinker of the early church, clarified how we think about Jesus over against a) those who taught that Jesus was an apparition who only seemed to be human—the Apparition Jesus (taught by the Docetists), and b) those who taught that Jesus was a human being who only seemed to have miraculous powers—the Magician Jesus (taught by the Ebionites).

Athanasius concluded that Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine. If he were not fully human he would not have the compassion to save us. If he were not fully divine he would not have the power to save us.

Who is it that comes walking toward your boat on the water—someone who has the power to come to the place where you can't help yourself, where you are beyond all human help, and reach out a hand?

He comes walking toward people in places many church people might hesitate to go. The disciples, after all, in the feeding of the 5,000 wanted to send the hungry people away so they could be alone with Jesus.

He won't have it. If someone is beyond human help, he takes us straight to them.

"It's a Ghost!" The disciples had been following Jesus for some time now. They had seen him feed thousands of people, heal people, and, back in chapter 8, they had been in another boat with him and seen him calm a storm at sea. They had seen his authority over demons, illness, and chaos. But they are slow learners. Jesus in Matthew has a pet name for them: "little faith ones." They still haven't learned to call on him in times of trial, in situations of distress. They still haven't learned that he is ready and able to be present with them. And when they see a figure doing what no human could do, coming where no human can come, walking on the water, they act like bad extras in a horror movie "It's a ghost!" they cry out in fear (Mt. 14:26).

What if we tried acting like disciples instead? Our lines would be different. We would say, "No, this is no ghost. This is Emmanuel." Or as the angel of the Lord told Mary: "God is with us" (Mt. 1:23). This is the one whose mission is to "bring light to people who sat in darkness" (Mt. 4:16).

Someone Is Coming Toward Your Battered Boat Someone is coming toward your boat walking on the sea. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called that divine perambulation "prevenient Grace," the Grace that "goes before." So every time we call on Jesus it is because he is already coming toward us. Every time we invite Jesus, we are actually RSVPing to his prior invitation.

There is an African American saying that we are always either going into a storm, in a storm, or coming out of a storm. Disciples are those who are learning to call on Jesus the Son of God, in all three conditions. When our boat is battered by waves, we can call on Jesus. When our boat is far from land, we can call on Jesus. When our boat has the wind against it, we can call on Jesus. He knows our sufferings. He is approaching. He is present and able to offer assistance. He has been here all along. The question is, how are we going to respond to that knowledge? Are we going to keep focusing on the wind and the waves, or on the outstretched hand of our Lord?

We left poor Gary sitting on the park bench in a situation in which he feared he was beyond forgiveness, beyond a new future, his boat battered by waves, the odds against him. He says that, as he sat there mediating, he felt rather than heard the words, "Let them go. You don't need them anymore. Let them go."

He opened his eyes and as he gazed out at the calm waters, three geese toddled up to him, prodding aggressively at his legs with their beaks. Finally, seeing that he had nothing for them, they made for the lake, and, one by one, took flight out over the water and up into the distance, like squawking blue angels in formation. He sat and stared at them until they were specks on the horizon. Then he got up and walked to his car, filled with a sense of peace.

That would make a great ending for a sermon, wouldn't it?

But let's be real. Our fears don't really fly off like that and never return. They circle back from time to time, honking and flapping their wings, sometimes landing in our souls and nudging around to see if we have food for them this time. A morsel of misery? A crust of criticism? A nugget of negativity?

They don't stay as long if our heart is already occupied by someone else. Someone who never stands on the shore watching us suffer, but is always walking toward us on the sea, stretching out a hand to us—with forgiveness, with love. Reaching out a hand to us that is both very human, and the very hand of God.

Walking Toward Us: Reflections on Matthew 14:22-33