St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Proper 14/Year A ● August 13, 2023
Gospel: Matthew 14:22-33
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We enter into our gospel passage in Matthew today with Jesus dismissing the crowds after his miraculous response to their human needs by healing and feeding. After feeding the 5,000 Jesus sent the disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, without him, while he stayed behind to dismiss the people. After dismissing the people, Jesus went up on the mountain for solitude and to pray. By the evening, the disciples’ boat was quite a distance away, and was taking a beating from the waves.
In the early morning (this would have been between the hours of 3:00 a.m.-6:00 a.m.), Jesus walked to the distressed disciples in the boat. Now, they had expected to meet him on the other side of the sea, not in the sea. The scripture does not indicate that the disciples had called for him to come to their aid, nor does it indicate that in their overwhelm of struggling with the dangerous waves battering their boat, that the disciples even thought to call on Jesus.
Yet, Jesus, praying by himself, knew of their distress and responded to their need, and to their terror at the sight of him. Jesus said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (v. 27). We are led to assume that the disciples heeded his direction because the story shifts from Jesus’ group address to his intimate one-on-one encounter with Peter.
Peter asked Jesus to command him to come to him on the water. When Jesus did command him to come, without hesitation, Peter left the boat, which was still in the midst of being battered by the waves, and walked on the water toward him. Noticing the strong wind, Peter was afraid and began to sink. Peter began to sink, not because of a defect in his faith. Peter began to sink because he was distracted by the strong wind (v.30). Peter’s fear of the strong wind distracted him from his focus on Jesus, and he was no longer fully present with him. When Peter cried out for the Lord to save him, again an indication of his faith, Jesus did. Jesus and Peter got into the boat at which point the distraction of the wind ceased. And all in the boat, who witnessed this encounter, worshipped Jesus and proclaimed him truly the Son of God.
When Hollywood and other secular entities appropriate this scripture, such appropriation often fails to point to God made manifest in the human person of Jesus, witnessed by other humans. Jesus’ ability to walk on water was not about his divinity; if it were, Peter, a mere mortal, would not have been able to also walk on the water.[1] It was God’s divine empowerment of Jesus and Peter, which enabled them to do what was humanly impossible. “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).
I am reminded of the area of the church where the congregation sits called the nave—which derives from the Latin word for ship, navis. If one looks up to the ceiling from the pews in a church with Gothic Revival architecture, one will see that the shape of the ceiling resembles the inside of an upside-down boat. How very apropos this scripture is for where we currently find ourselves gathered in this very non-Gothic revival structure here at 3836 Flatiron Loop. Even without the gothic revival structure, we can look at the off-center arched ceiling as our own unique expression of a nave. It takes some imagination, but whenever I look at that arch in our roof, my gratitude is renewed for the blessing of this beautiful sacred space and for the blessings to come for the church of our future.
For six years, faithful disciples have been called to construct the boat of the faith community, today known as St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. In those six years we anticipated some rough waters, and are not naïve about the potential for rough waters to come. St. Paul’s is at a very vulnerable time in our life with many milestones ahead of us and many distractions awaiting us. While this boat has always moved through unchartered waters—with every milestone being the first of its kind—the transitional growth from a church plant to a mission church brought us to a new body of unchartered water, with future challenges yet to manifest.
Let us be mindful that the divine empowerment that we need to navigate the path set before us is not found in adopting the distracting fear of what might happen in the future. Remember, the disciples in the boat feared what harm might come to them, but Jesus’ presence amongst them was sure. When Jesus told the disciples, “Do not fear,” I hear him saying to his Church, “Do not fear tomorrow; focus on me today.” In this present moment, the Church Universal’s “boat,” is still recovering from being battered by layered storms of the pandemic, and the ongoing storm of growing irrelevancy at a time when the distractions of our daily lives are all priorities. These “priorities” are hard to ignore when they show up in the words and sounds of smartphones attached to our bodies. It is in this present moment, where Jesus meets his faithful, and whispers, “Do not fear tomorrow; focus on me today.”
What strong wind of distraction keeps you from focusing on Jesus as you move about your life—what strong wind of distraction keeps you from focusing on Jesus even as you worship God in this place today? In our shared state of vulnerability, and in the midst of everything swirling about this boat of St. Paul’s, Jesus comes to us, to train our eyes, ears, and especially our hearts, to be fixed on him. And, Jesus is always calling us to be with him in the present moment in prayer.
As we eat of the bread and drink of the wine, the real presence of the risen Christ comes among us and stands with us, to empower us to be instruments of God’s grace for others struggling through the storms of the human condition of suffering. In the midst of these always challenging, 21st Century times, may God continue to empower you, and St. Paul’s, to move through all fears by faithfully walking with Jesus; to call upon Jesus’ name in times of rejoicing and in times of trial;
and to abandon myriad distractions in order to focus on our one savior who stills all storms, as we strive to bring Christ’s light and bear Christ’s hope in the uncharted waters to come. Amen.
[1] Hare, Douglas R. A. Matthew: Interpretation. John Knox Press, 1993, p. 169.
