August 7, 2011

 Genesis 37:1-4 & 12-28; Psalm 105; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33.

It is not so hard to have faith in the love and care of God when all is going well.  When the sun is shining, the birds are singing, children are laughing and growing up strong; when relationships are calm and happy, work is meaningful and politics are stable and fair, then we feel that God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.  Praise comes from the lips even of those with little faith.

However, it is rarely the case that living in this world is so good, and even if it is momentarily, we start to worry that something is about to go wrong because it always does.  We are never free from storms – emotional, social, political and meteorological.

These last few months on the world stage we have had some massive and devastating storms.  As I contemplate the Matthew reading of Jesus walking on the water, or as some commentators refer to it, Jesus as ‘Lord of the sea’, I do so in the context of the terrible destruction of life and property wrought by natural disasters.  There were the floods, tornados and wild fires in this country – and the floods in Australia.  In all these cases there were many praying for rescue, for relief and safety.  Some were saved, some not.  Then came the earthquake in New Zealand, reminding us all that our feet on this earth stand on shaky ground.  Then there was the devastating earthquake in Japan, reinforcing the instability of this earth as a sure foundation: and when the tsunami followed, with all its destruction and loss of life, we were witnesses to a sea gone wild and breaking its boundaries with no sign of any ‘Lord’ to calm its waves and save lives.

So what are we to make of Jesus as ‘Lord of the sea” in the Matthew reading?  What kind of Lord and Savior is this in our present context? Let me make a few comments on this reading before looking more closely at the Lord who comes to us with an outstretched hand in the midst of the storm.

This reading from Matthew falls into two parts.  The first is an episode that follows on from Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand.  Before that, he had tried to withdraw ‘in a boat to a lonely place apart’.  After hearing of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus needed time alone with his God.  But the crowds had followed him, and even so, he had compassion on them and fed them.  Now he makes his disciples get into a boat to cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while he dismisses the crowd and makes time for himself to be alone and to pray.  These actions portray Jesus’ innate authority (‘making’, ‘dismissing’) and the importance in his life of solitude and prayer.  Jesus’ life and ministry are sourced from God, the ‘I AM’ of the Exodus story revealed to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:14), the eternal fountain of life and source of living water.  Though Jesus would endure his own storm, and he would go under and die, he does so even while holding on to this relationship with the Father that was central to his life.  It is Matthew’s Gospel that has Jesus crying out in agony from the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’  In this he is evoking Psalm 22, a psalm of both lament and hope.  So while there appeared to be no outstretched hand to save Jesus, he continued to direct his cry to ‘my God’.

Had there been no resurrection, there would not have been a ‘Jesus, Lord of the sea’ story.  There would just have been a misguided man and his God.  But Christian theology comes from the resurrection and from faith in the God of Jesus, his Father, the author of life who is the ‘I AM’ beyond all death and destruction.  It is in this resurrection faith that we understand who Jesus is, and what discipleship and ministry mean.

In the second part of this reading we see more clearly how Matthew works from a post-resurrection faith in ministering to his community by writing a ‘gospel’ – good news – for them.  Here we have the disciples in their boat out in a storm, ‘battered’ by the waves.  The Greek word ‘battered’ here also means ‘persecuted’ or even ‘tortured’, so here we have a clue that for Matthew’s community this storm may represent something else – a political storm with which they must contend – and do so without the physical presence of Jesus to comfort them and give them strength.  They are alone and feeling at sea.  In the Gospel story, Jesus comes towards them in the early hours of the morning after praying all night.  At first he is mistaken for a ghost (a reference, perhaps, to the community’s post-resurrection thinking).  Jesus not only identifies himself to his disciples but ministers to them in their fear and trouble: ‘Take heart, it is I (literally ‘I AM’), have no fear’.  So he is identified as God, both by walking on the water (Job 9:8 uses the same word as Matthew for God walking on the sea) and by using the name ‘I AM’.

Peter represents the disciples in this story, but as a character demonstrates his courage and impetuosity.  Though the outer story has Peter wanting to walk on the water to perform a miracle and enjoy the power over the elements that belongs to God, the inner story for Matthew’s community shows Peter as a disciple who wants to be like Jesus, not as a matter of power but as the calm in the storm.  Jesus grants him the invitation he requests and Peter starts out towards Jesus, but he sees the waves and is afraid.  Beginning to sink, he cries out ‘Lord save me’, and Jesus’ response was to reach out his hand and catch Peter.  It was God’s ‘outstretched hand’ that delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, and from ‘many waters in Psalm 144.  The same words are used in the Psalm, in Exodus 3:20, 7:5 and here in Matthew 14.  So Matthew is again portraying Jesus as God, delivering his people in a time of trouble.  Still, Peter is rebuked, first for having little faith and then for doubting.  Notice that Peter had enough faith to trust Jesus and step out of the boat, but that trust was threatened by the wind and the waves, but again, he had trust that Jesus could save him.  So within the storm, where do we place our trust?  By his rebuke to Peter, Jesus calls us to trust in him – and through him to his God.  This is asked of us, even when life’s storms are evidentially dangerous and life-threatening.  The one central relationship that is always worth trusting and clinging to is our relationship with God, even if we are endangered, even if we die, as did Jesus and eventually Peter.

Being ‘saved’ does not mean that our life will always be saved.  IT means staying in relationship with God no matter what.  It means being healed – and that requires us to integrate our lives around our central relationship with God, letting everything else fall into place around that.  It requires us to spend time alone with God in prayer, meditation and contemplation to allow the eternal ‘I AM’ to be present to us, even if we face storms of doubt.

Jesus and Peter returned to the boat symbolizing the Church.  The storm abated and they travelled on together to their destination.  Matthew offers his community a vision of hope and comfort during troubled times.  The faithful can trust in the presence of Jesus with them, even though he had died, because his resurrection makes him present to the Church for ever.

Matthew’s Gospel ends with Jesus saying to the Church, ‘Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age’.  Through the witness of Matthew in his Gospel we now find ourselves called to be like Jesus, to prioritize time in our lives for God, sending away and dismissing other demands on our time.  We are summoned to trust in the God that Jesus revealed, even during the storms we endure.  And Jesus’ words of comfort remain with us always as he stretches out his hand to counter our fear and doubt: ‘Take heart, I AM, have no fear!’  Amen.