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Sermon: The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 7th August 2011
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping 8:30 am
Readings: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22; Romans 10:4-15; Matthew 14:22-36
One of my favourite Bible verses is 1 Corinthians 1:21 - “ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.” It sums up for me exactly how I feel whenever I am asked to pray at some gathering away from church or when I have to preach at a funeral that I know will be attended by a good number of people who are non-believers. In those situations when I express my faith, I feel I can read their thoughts; that they are thinking about the foolishness of what I am saying, or to be more correct, they are regarding what I am saying as foolishness.
That verse from 1 Corinthians 1 lines up nicely with another verse from Paul from Romans 1 verse 16. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith.” Not that I feel the power of God, but rather, I have a heightened sense of shame whenever I share my faith. Those two feelings, shame and foolishness, are two emotions I struggle with when it comes to sharing my faith with strangers.
And I think its not surprising I should feel this way because we live in a world where there doesn’t seem much room for faith. When you go to the doctor, you are not so concerned with what the doctor believes, rather, its what the doctor knows that is important. So when you discover that lump you go to the doctor because you want some answers. You want to know what it is and whether it can harm you. I have a tumour on my brain. But the doctors know its not cancer, and its not dangerous or harmful. It did produce some symptoms once but they can be controlled. And it will never hurt me. But there is no place for faith in any of this.
And we can contrast all of this with today’s reading which is about faith from beginning to end. I don’t think there has been any miracle of Jesus that has had more jokes made about it than his walking on the water. There is the story of the three clergymen who were out for a day’s fishing – you probably know how it ends. There is even the line from Jesus Christ Superstar sung by Herod, “Prove to my that you’re no fool, walk across my swimming pool.”
No doubt many people have read this miracle in chapter 14 and have felt at that point, they couldn’t go on, the story of Jesus had become too farcical, too impossible, it has reduced itself to the level of the absurd. And it was these miracles that were attacked by theologians at the end of the nineteenth century. They believed if you removed the miracles you could arrive at the authentic story of Jesus – a much more believable, attractive story of Jesus. You could compare it to the story of St Alban himself. When you read his story the way Bede tell it, his death was accompanied by several miracles. But when you take those miracles out of the story and put them to one side, a more credible, a more powerful story emerges.
But it doesn’t work with Jesus. When you remove the miracles from the gospels, the story of Jesus falls apart. They no longer make any sense. The story is the miracles Rather than clarify the story – when you remove the miracles, the story, in fact disappears. And this story of Jesus walking on the water is a good example of that. The story is the miracle. What’s more, as with most miracle stories of Jesus, it contains a ring of truth.
Take for example, what we learn of Peter in this story. [Peter does not enjoy the same significance in the Anglican church that he does in the Catholic Church. And when I visit Rome and particularly the Vatican, the central importance of Peter is certainly made very clear. Rome is the seat of Peter.] Yet in spite of Peter’s significance, this passage reveals some uncomfortable truths about Peter. It reveals a lack of faith, not his depth of faith, even though he demonstrates more faith than any of the other disciples.
With St Alban, the miracles are there to underline Alban’s faithfulness as well as being a heavenly sign that he had received God’s approval. But with the walking on the water, Peter’s lack of faith is demonstrated. It is an inconvenient truth. But if this story was an invention of the early Church, Peter would never have been presented in such a poor light. Rather, you would expect stories that praised his faithfulness. Surely, the only reason why this story has survived is because it is factual, it really happened - even if it brings some embarrassment.
Notice too what we learn about Jesus. It was about the fourth watch which is roughly pre-dawn and Jesus walked on the water, though the storm was continuing. When the disciples saw Jesus they thought they were seeing a ghost. No doubt they saw this as a supernatural event. Peter wanted proof that it was really Jesus and so he set Jesus a test. He asked that he too could walk on the water. Jesus said, “Come”. Its an amazing description. Here we have two people, in the middle of a storm, walking on water in the middle of a lake.
But how do we understand it? If Jesus is truly God, if Jesus is truly the creator of the universe, if he is truly Lord of creation, then it makes sense that he could do such a thing. It all comes back to who do you believe Jesus is. If you believe he is God then surely he can act like God. This is the central question of our faith. Who is Jesus? If he is God, then he can defeat, death, he can rise from the tomb after three days. He can rise physically from death and show his wounds, the spear in the side, and the nails in the hands. If he is God then he can do the impossible. The stories about Jesus are a set of impossible stories but only impossible if he is not the Son of God. But if he is God then he is doing exactly what we would expect him to be able to do.
But then we have Peter. No doubt he believed Jesus was God. No doubt he believed Jesus could do the impossible. No doubt he believed in the miracles. And it was that faith in Jesus that propelled him over the side of that boat heading for the water. And as he looked to Jesus, he too walked as Jesus walked and headed towards Jesus. He knew what Jesus was capable of and after all, walking on water was nothing compared to what else Jesus could do.
But then Peter looked about him and saw the waves and he saw the wind and immediately he began to sink. And at that point notice what he did. (And well done to Peter for behaving this way.) He immediately called to Jesus to rescue him. Jesus caught him up, and placed him in the boat and the wind died down. And notice what the disciples said. They don’t turn on Peter and criticize him for his lack of faith. Rather they looked to Jesus and made the only logical conclusion, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”
The centurion at the foot of the cross came to the same conclusion. When he saw how Jesus died he declared, “Surely, this man was the Son of God.” And to make sure we didn’t miss the point Matthew tells us of Jesus mission at Gennesaret. People brought all their sick and begged Jesus to touch his cloak and all who touched it were healed. Jesus came to heal a sick world. He did it in Israel and his power spreads throughout the earth.
We are left with this image of the all-powerful Jesus coming to re-make this world into what it always should have been. By his powerful words creation responds in obedience to its true Lord. And in contrast to that wonderful image we have the story of Peter. And truly, Peter’s story is our story. His faith is like our faith. We have this wonderful hope in Christ, we have this treasure, we have this pearl of great price but so often our faith is weak. We have our good days where we look to Christ and we think we can conquer the world.
And then we have our bad days when the storms seem to overwhelm us and our faith seems to disappear. And so we need to be reminded of Peter. When our faith seems so frail we shouldn’t panic, we shouldn’t assume that something has gone wrong. This is what faith is like. If it can happen to Peter, it will certainly happen to us. But it doesn’t mean we are specially sinful or specially faithless. Rather it is simply a reminder to renew our focus. To take our eyes off the storm and the waves of problems that might crash in upon us and return our gaze to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith. We have a rich knowledge of Jesus and what he will do for us.
Contrast that to the people of Gennesaret. For some of them, they barely knew Jesus. They just clung to the hem of his garment. Knowing almost nothing they clung on to the little they had and yet all who touched him were healed. But we know so much more and our hope is so much stronger as we put our trust in the one who is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.