Faith in Action: Navigating Life's Storms Together

Listen to what the Spirit is saying to the people of God from the 14th chapter of Matthew's Gospel.

Immediately after Jesus fed five thousand families, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and cross to the other side of the lake. He sent the people home, and after sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone.

Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, "It's a ghost!"

But Jesus spoke to them at once. "Don't be afraid," he said. "Take courage; I am here."

Then Peter called to him, "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water."

"Yes, come," Jesus said.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. "Save me, Lord!" he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. "You have so little faith," Jesus said. "Why did you doubt me?"

When they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped. Then the disciples worshiped him, saying, "You really are the Son of God!"

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I don't know if I've shared this story with you before or not. If I have, then you have the pleasure of hearing it once again.

I'm sure it was only three or four years ago that I was in college and seminary, and I worked in the summers for New England Fish Company up in Bristol Bay, Alaska. The last three years, I worked on a salmon tender, a ship that was used to transport the fish from the fishing boats into the cannery.

Now, there were two kinds of ships that did this. One was what they called a dry scowl, which meant that the fish were put on the deck and then had to be transported to the cannery and processed within 24 hours. Well, I worked on a wet scowl, which had three large tanks built into it. These were maybe 10 feet high, 15 feet wide, and possibly 50 feet long. They were filled with salt water, which was chilled down to around 29 degrees, and this allowed the fish to be kept in them for a long time before they had to be processed.

It's my understanding that under a previous owner, the wheelhouse of this ship had caught fire and was destroyed. So the owner told the shipyard to rebuild it using steel so this time it could never burn. It was said that the metal used was scrap steel that came from some military vessels, which meant that it was quite thick. The hull was wood, and since it was used in Bristol Bay, which is shallow with the low tide mark being some four or five miles out towards the ocean, the ship had a flat bottom so that it could safely sit in the mud when tied to the dock at low tide.

This meant that in stormy waters, with a flat wood hull and a metal superstructure, it tended to roll back and forth quite a bit. The skipper and mate told me that when they brought it up from Seattle, it was not unusual for them to get sick to the stomach. If that happened to seasoned mariners, you can imagine what it did to a seasoned land lover like me.

When we traveled long distances from one cannery to another, the main deckhand would have the 12 to 6 shift. He would be in the wheelhouse, and my responsibility was to go down to the engine room and check everything at least once an hour. If the seas were rough, I could be found lying in my bunk bed eating saltine crackers. Then I would go down to check the engines and make sure that the bilge pump was still operating. I would then throw up in the bilge and make my way back up to my bunk once again to eat more crackers.

Now, the point of bringing all this up is to say that I can relate to the disciples in that boat in our Gospel for today. I imagine that I can really relate to Matthew, who was a tax collector, a land lover like me. Most of the other disciples were experienced fishermen who were used to being out on the Sea of Galilee in bad weather that you would often find out there.

According to our Gospel reading, Jesus has finished with the feeding of the five thousand, as we heard last week, and he told the disciples to go by boat to the other side. He was going to go up onto a mountain and spend time in prayer with his Father as he mourned the death of his cousin, John the Baptizer.

Well, during the night, a storm blew up, as often happened there. Strong winds came down out of the hills and across the Sea of Galilee, and before long, fierce waves were rolling across the water. I rather imagine that my landlubber friend Matthew could be found lying down, eating crackers, and periodically bailing water out of that boat.

Apparently, even the seasoned fishermen were having trouble with their boat in this strong storm. And then it happened. Someone glanced out across the rolling waves in those early morning hours between 3 and 6 A.M.

"Saul, Saul!" Someone was walking toward them on top of the water, coming closer and closer. Now, these were rational men. They knew that things like this just don't happen. As if things weren't bad enough with this storm on those chaotic waters, what else could this be but a ghost coming to just finish them off? All their lives were now filled with dread.

And then this ghost called out to them, saying, "Don't be afraid. Take courage; I am here." They would have recognized that voice, and they would have known that this was none other than Jesus himself.

What we have translated here as "I am here" in the original language that Jesus spoke was really "I am." And where was that phrase first used? Well, when Moses met God in the burning bush in the desert and asked him what he was to be called, God responded with "I am" or "I am who I am." This was the Holy Name of God himself, a name that was so sacred to the people of Israel that they would never use it for fear that they might misspeak and use it in the wrong way.

So Jesus is telling them here that he is God himself who has come to them in their stress. Now, I'm sure that Peter was frightened, but I would like to think that some other thoughts may have rapidly run through his mind. He knew that Jesus had healed his mother-in-law when she was sick. He'd seen many people who were healed by Jesus of their illnesses, and he was there that day when over 5,000 people were fed by Jesus with just five cheap little loaves of bread and a few fish.

In fact, when they were finished, there was so much food left over that it filled 12 baskets, enough for each of the disciples to take to that ministry on their own. And now Peter sees Jesus walking toward them on the water. Who could this be but God himself, who can heal, who has power over the chaos of the deep waters, who can even walk upon the water which he himself, God, had created?

Peter knew all of this, and now he hears Jesus using the name of God for himself. There was nothing more that Peter wanted at that moment than to be close to his friend Jesus. So Peter called out to Jesus, "Lord, if it really is you, tell me to come to you walking on the water as you are doing."

And Jesus says to him simply, "Come."

Peter steps out of the boat and begins to walk toward Jesus. He has faith in Jesus, and he has faith in himself that he can be a disciple of his Lord. But then it happens. A strong gush of wind pushes him to the side, and water splashes over his body. Peter loses faith in himself and his own ability to walk on the water. "What in the world am I doing?" he thinks, and immediately he begins to sink.

But he still has faith in Jesus, to whom he cries out, "Save me, Lord!" Jesus reaches out, takes his hand, and together they climb into the boat. Once they got into the boat, the waves stopped bashing against it, and the wind ceased. It was then that everyone in the boat said to Jesus, "Surely you are the Son of God."

Now, it seems what Peter lacked was confidence. When you break that word "confidence" down, you see that it begins with a Latin "con," meaning "with," and "fides," meaning "faith." Peter had confidence in Jesus and what he was able to do, but he certainly did not have confidence in himself and his ability to stay above the wild, buffeting waves that were throwing him around.

When it comes right down to it, faith isn't something that occurs in our brains as much as it happens in our hearts, in that it pumps blood out to our feet and our hands and our mouths. In other words, faith is about doing. A faithful person finally gets to the point where they can say, "I don't know where you're going, but I know for sure that wherever it is, I really want to go ahead and drown with you," instead of living for myself.

Faith starts with action on our part. We have to take a step; we have to be willing to take a risk. The best of intentions don't do much without action, and who knows? You're likely to meet God on the way, especially if it is in a roiling, boiling sea that looks like it might doom us all.

One of the most common symbols for the early church was a boat on the water, and very often that water was not pictured as a calm sea but as violent waters. In fact, the word "nave," which is what this part of our sanctuary is called, comes from the Latin word "navis," meaning "ship." Our nave is really a ship that has been turned upside down, with the keel up there and the sidewalls being the sides of a ship.

We are in our nave, our ship, and Jesus is usually in here with us. But there are times when we are not in calm waters, where we have waves that we really do have to face. They can be relatively calm, just a little bit of chop, like they were when I got onto my ship anchored in a river in Alaska on the second year that I was up there on board ship. But I remembered then how rough it had been the year before, so I had to go to my room and take a seasick pill because this mighty land lover wasn't feeling all that well at that moment when he was back on his ship.

And it seems to me that our ship here is facing some waves now. It's not really bad, but it could blow up into a strong storm. The world is different now than it was some 50 years ago. Many people out there feel that they can fend for themselves, that they can face the waves of the world on their own. They don't feel that they have a strong need for religion, for God, or for the helping hand of Jesus.

And this affects not only them but us as well, for our calling is to help others to know of the saving love of our God. Our church is different now than it even was five years ago, as there are now people worshiping and studying with us online. There are bound to be other changes of which we are not even yet aware that will come our way, and we as a congregation have to be ready to accept them.

We do it for the good of those out there. Jesus is coming to us and to others in new ways. We might look and think that he is a ghost, but if we look really closely, we can see our God working with us to share our life and our love with those who are outside of our ship.

So may we have the confidence to step outside this ship and discover what it's like to share our faith in Jesus with others who are living in the ever rougher seas that we find all around us. Amen.

Thank you.