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A Sermon Preached at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, Oak Park, IL
on the Pentecost 13, Year A, August 10, 2008
by the Rev. Deb Seles

It's summer time and so it's time for movie blockbusters. Maybe you've seen several of them this year: Batman: The Dark Knight or The Mummy or maybe the new Indiana Jones movie. I still remember seeing the first Indiana Jones movie. I came out of the theater breathless from wondering how Jones would escape the boulder coming after him at high speed or how he would outwit the bad guys.

Today's gospel is a bit of a blockbuster itself. Imagine the scene: the disciples are dog-tired. They've just fed nearly half the countryside and Jesus tells, no commands them to get into the boat and travel to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while he goes off to pray.

They get out into the middle of the sea and a huge storm comes up. It's the middle of the night-between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. It's as dark as it can be. The moon was darkened by the storm clouds. No halogen lights then. No radar. No communication with shore or with any other ships. The waves are pounding against the boat, the wind is crashing into them, although some of them are experienced with the sea, they're scared.

It's not unusual for a storm to come up suddenly in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and many experienced fishermen died from sudden storms like this. Then out in the middle of the waves a glowing figure approaches. A figure that had no reason to be there. It's no wonder that the seas were thought to be the domain of demons: there was a whole lot to fear out there. And yet...

Who is it that controls the seas? Jesus reassures them and tells them not to be afraid. Were they reassured? Would you be, in their shoes, if you saw an apparition, someone claiming to be your savior?

Look around you. Where are we? What do we call this space? We call it a nave because it is designed to resemble an upside down boat. The church is that boat in which we are all sailing together. If I asked any one of you: do you know fear? Do you know perils? Have you ever been sailing in waters that suddenly turned stormy? I imagine we'd all answer yes.

And how helpful is it for someone to tell you not to be afraid? Does that ever help? Or should I say, do the words alone ever help? I'd guess most of us would admit that the words alone don't help when we're afraid.

So what does help when we're in the middle of a storm? What helped Indiana Jones when he was in the midst of a seemingly impossible predicament? Ingenuity, pluck and more than a little bit of luck. What helped our friend Elijah (in the earlier reading from 1 Kings)? Remember he was under a royal death warrant. He'd insulted the apostate king Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. He was being hunted down by the king's posse. Another blockbuster circa 930 BCE. Led by God, Elijah retreats into the caves.

Both Elijah and Peter had something our friend Indiana Jones didn't have: they had an encounter with the living God. Surprising to Elijah, that encounter didn't happen in any of the dramatic ways that would have made for a good blockbuster film: not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire but in the sheer silence.

But Peter met the living God literally in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. Now there are those who read this as Peter tempting Jesus: "IF it is you, command me," and we hear time and again how we aren't supposed to tempt the Lord. But Jesus doesn't rebuke Peter, only tells him to come. We can almost hear Jesus thinking, "Well, all right, come on out." It's not that he needed Peter to come meet him.

But maybe that's how it is for most of us. We have to get out of the boat-that is out of our comfort zones, out of our safe place-in order to really experience faith. Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains: "Peter had to leave the ship and risk his life on the sea, in order to learn both his own weakness and the almighty power of his Lord. If Peter had not taken the risk, he would never have learned the meaning of faith.... The road to faith passes through obedience to the call of Jesus."¹

Encountering weaknesses is something that blockbuster heroes like Indiana Jones rarely experiences-he always seems to have luck or good sense at his side. And even when movie superheroes are caught, we know we can count on their ingenuity to work for their escape. But it's not so for our Christian lives-we get out of the boat, out of our comfort zones and we find out how weak we really are.

As I read this passage the other day, I wondered if what Jesus promised to Simon when he first called him was going through Peter's head. Remember, he promised to make Simon and Andrew fishers of people. And here Jesus was fishing Peter out of the drink!

It's as if Jesus is saying to Peter-and to us-I will make more of even your little faith than you can imagine. But I have to do it first-before you can fish for other people, I will rescue you. Before you can wash the feet of others, I will wash you clean.

Now we can argue about the literality of this story until we're all old and gray-whether Jesus and Peter literally were walking on water. But that misses the point. The point here is that this is an epiphany-where Jesus is revealed as God among us.

Just as sailors feared and respected the sea, they recognized that only God had command over it. So God calling Elijah out of the silence, Jesus calling Peter in the storm, Jesus calling us in the middle of our stormy lives-it's all the same-it's God doing what God does-calling and empowering all of us, all of us who may only possess a little faith. And those encounters, encounters with the living God are the basis for courage in people like Elijah and Peter and people like you and me.

Did Peter need to come out to meet Jesus for Jesus' sake? No. Did he need to come out to meet Jesus for the other disciples' sake? No. Because Jesus approaches us because He said that whenever we unite - He will be there! That's why He isn't an illusion in our minds or a ghost, because our union, is really Jesus in the midst of the storm. At the show of the divine saving power and presence, the whole community (those in the boat) bow down in worship.

This is the formal profession of faith of the post-Easter church. Jesus, by entering the boat, does for the whole community what he does for Peter: at his presence the threatening tempest dies down. The whole church (disciples) bow down in worship. When all the people are united by love, it must be like Jesus getting into the boat. It is recognising that God is there among us - that all of us are united with the Son of God!²

Our task is to recognize Jesus' presence among us. He is always walking toward us. Listen to his words. Trust who he is. Jump out of our boats. Ask for his help when we need it. Be saved. And get ready for mission in enemy territory. Because when the Lord gets ready, in the words of the venerable spiritual, "you gotta move..."³

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of DiscipleshipNew York: Simon and Schuster, 1995; p 63.
2.http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/bfletch/a149.html.
3. The Rev. Kirk Alan Kubicek.