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19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Prayer for Illumination: O God of all our fears and doubts, bring your word to us this day fresh. Let us hear with new ears, let us think with new thoughts, let our hearts be transformed new….all by the miracle of your word. Amen. Faith in God is less apt to proceed from miracles than miracles from faith in God. (Frederick Buechner) The miracles beg us to examine them, try to scientifically quantify them, try to understand, or rationalize the possibilities, allow for differences in space and matter, re-evaluation the translations, or throw up our hands in dis-belief! Impossible! How many bad religious jokes have been told about Jesus walking on water….?
Joey
had heard a family rumor that his father, his grand-father and even his
great-grandfather, all "walked on water" on their 21st birthday. Well today
was his 21st birthday and if they could do it, so could he. That’s just one joke, but if you google jokes about walking on water, there are over 2 million hits. We almost always joke about things we don’t understand, or things that seem ludicrous or preposterous! That’s the comedy world…..But if you google just walking on water? 5 million hits. Five million references to someone trying to figure this out. Wow! That’s a lot of time…..way too much time, if you ask me. I wonder about our treatment of the miracles…..we would never approach the parables this way. When Jesus teaches with parables, we make an assumption that there is a deeper meaning, a metaphor for learning. When Jesus teaches with miracles, we want to try and make them factually true! And though it is interesting to speculate….we might do better to just cut to the punch line and start looking for what the miracle is pointing to…..because invariably the road headed to trying to “figure it out literally” is just going to be a dead end…..but the road that the miracle story is pointing to?….usually has some good truth embedded there. That’s the road I want to take this morning. As we start, here’s another Buechner quip that helps us put this in perspective. He writes : Magic is saying Abracadabra and pulling the rabbit out of the hat, is a dashboard Jesus to prevent smash-ups. Magic is going to church so you will get to Heaven. Magic is using Listerine so everybody will love you. Magic is the technique of controlling unseen powers and will always work if you do it by the book. Magic is manipulation and says….my will be done. Religion is propitiation and says, Thy will be done. If security’s what you’re after, try magic. If adventure is what you’re after, try religion. The line between them is notoriously fuzzy. (wishfulthinking, p. 67) Faith in God precedes miracles. That seems a good place to start. The disciples got into the boat having just witnessed the feeding of the 5000. I don’t know about you, but right after I’ve fed 5000 people, I don’t usually opt for a ride in a boat across open water in the middle of the storm in the middle of the night, but that’s what they did. And they didn’t really choose it because the text says: Jesus made the disciples get into the boat… Did you know that ancient Jewish mariners carried in their boats a magical club engraved with “I AM” to shake at the storm threatening their safety (harper Collins Study Bible)….The disciples were familiar with storms….they were even armed to defend themselves against these kinds of water……so what were they really afraid of? Did you know that the boat has long been a symbol for the church? And that the word “nave” (which is the section of the sanctuary where people sit in worship) is from the Latin word for boat? And so the boat being battered by waves and headed against the wind also indicates where the church of Matthew’s community was also headed. Did you know that Matthew often compares Jesus to Moses, so that a water miracle, right after a trip up the mountainside to pray….sure gives Jesus the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from the orthodox’s in Matthew’s community. Did you know that this is the first time in Matthew’s gospel that the disciples are sent off on their own? And this is the first time in the gospel that Jesus prays. ….or shows any dependence on God……this isn’t a mountain top experience for Jesus to receive commandments, it’s a mountain top experience for Jesus to commune with God. Did you know that the sea itself is often depicted in our Scripture as the place of chaos, of unknown depths and danger. And that the sea can only be tamed or held at bay by God…..remember the waters at creation, and God’s ability to bring forth from that water order and beauty and life! Did you know that in Jesus’ time, even in extra-Biblical literature, that only the gods could walk on water…..making Jesus’ walk all the more consistent with establishing who he is…..and that is further extended when he identifies himself with “I AM” language, the same language on the stick of the ancient mariners, the same language that has always been the Hebrew language for Yahweh! So where our scientific minds in this age would try to understand how Jesus could have possibly , physically walked on water, the Biblical mind thinks of the one who overcomes the power of chaos. (NIB, p. 328) Did you know that the words exchanged between Peter and Jesus even have some symbolic import? Peter calls Jesus Lord…..identifies him correctly even as the others have speculated that Jesus might be a ghost. Peter knows who it is and steps out in front of the church with confidence and only fails when he sees the approaching storm….and even then he relies on formula language: Lord, save me. Psalm 69, a psalm that these early Christians knew by heart, starts: Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Did you know that the Greek word here for doubt is defined as vacillation, not skepticism…..making Jesus’ rebuke more about naming his fear than chastising him for un-belief. Jesus rebuke becomes an affirmation that faith is a mixture of courage and anxiety, and trust and doubt. (NIB, p. 328) Did you know that the only other reference to Jesus being worshiped by his disciples is at the end of Matthew’s gospel is when the disciples encounter Jesus after his resurrection? In Matthew 28:17, it reads: When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Same Greek word here for doubt meaning vacillation….. Faith in God precedes miracles. Not enough faith. That’s not what this is about. But the context of faith. The disciples are on their own as the key leaders in the church. They are being battered and abused for their beliefs and their notions of gospel. Even when they are in waters up to their neck, they are not really alone…..and in the context of this kind of faith…..which allows for some vacillation from time to time…..miracles can happen. One scholar writes: faith is not being able to walk on the water---only God can do that---but daring to believe in the face of all the evidence, that God is with us in the boat, made real in the community of faith as it makes its way through the storm battered by the waves. (Eugene Boring, NIB, 331) Impossible. For a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage! In the context of the timeless Cinderella fairy tale---anything is possible…..In the context of our community of faith, anything is possible, because God is in the boat with us….or at least walking right beside it! If adventure is what you’re looking for…try religion. So, let’s ask a couple more questions and be done with this. What do you know about courage and anxiety? It takes courage to come to church. Courage because there are a lot of people who are over on Halsted just hanging out and having fun this morning. Courage because there’s always going to be something that is more enticing to do with your Sunday morning? The Cubs are going to play the cardinals again today, right? Even though you could technically make it to both, you could be down hanging with the fans right now, working yourself up into a spirited frenzy over our team! There’s a book group meeting at Barnes and Noble and a marathon happening this morning and a brunch that is soooo good and a lazy morning with the Sunday paper and coffee…it takes courage to come to church and it takes courage to come to this church! It may be 180 degrees apart from the church of your childhood. It may be causing a family ruckus to justify why this is your choice. It may mean apologizing to all those friends who are so “over” church. Courage and anxiety are part and parcel of the life of faith. What do you know about trust and doubt? Trust in the economy? In the bank? In the value of the dollar? In the future of oil? In relationships? In our ability to recover from a storm? Last week one of the storms took out several of our computers and a server and some modems. It has taken Paul more than a week to get everything back to normal and it’s not finished yet. It brought into quick focus how dependent we are on technology to be there and behave as we want it to? But can we trust it? Always? I was thinking about trust and water when reading this week and thought about what it takes to actually learn to trust the water….and to see it as a place for fun. We lost a young boy on the south side this week to undertows in the lake took his body all the way to Michigan. But water can also be a place of fun. But not without trust. When a child learns to trust the water, it’s connected to a fierce trust in the adult who is helping them learn. Have you ever watched or helped a child learn to jump into water in a pool. That look of pure terror when they first try is heart-wrenching. You can do it. You can jump in the water and it will be fun! At first, you put your hands around their little bodies and bring them in with full contact. They always know you are near. They go under water, come up sputtering, and then that look of delight (usually) comes over their face. And in my experience anyway, the next words out of the toddler’s mouth is usually----Again….Next time, your hands have a lighter touch….. terror, jump, delight. Again. Next time, you say---you jump, I’ll catch you. Don’t worry. They edge up to the side of the pool, look down, look at you, watch for your nod of support and…. Terror, Jump. wild thrashing of arms…..and then delight. Again . Because they have overcome the terror and are basking in the delight! That kind of trust is so amazing. A little life is literally in your hands. And you have the power to make that experience either one of trust or doubt…..terror or delight! The disciples have the life of the church in their hands. And they have the power to make the experience of the people one of trust or doubt….terror or delight. And Jesus helps them make the right choice. We have this one life—our own--- in our hands. In or out of the boat, we have the power to choose trust or doubt, terror or delight…..the rewards that come with the choice for trust is a life of delight. It doesn’t mean we never vacillate. It just means we can make the choice for life with confidence, because there is always, always someone in the water to catch us. Faith precedes miracles. Every day. Choose the adventure. Every day. Choose the impossible! Choose trust. Choose delight . Again. Amen. |
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