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The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
"Still Point in the Turning World"
The Rev. David Frazelle
“Immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, ‘Take heart, it is I, have no fear.’”
It is easy to miss the miracle in today’s gospel reading about Jesus walking across stormy water to reach the disciples in the middle of the sea. As with last week’s story of the spontaneous feeding of five thousand families, our modern scientific minds go immediately to the defiance of the laws of physics in the literal language of these stories. What happened with the molecules of bread and fish, in last week’s reading? How did Jesus overcome gravity on the sea, in this week’s reading? When we get stuck in a Newtonian interpretation of these stories, when we want the gospel story to provide accurate scientific reporting, then it becomes easy to miss the real miracle of Jesus walking across the stormy sea to reach the disciples.
Although our story is set in the middle of the gospel according to Matthew, the subject of the story is really the relationship between the Church and Jesus after Jesus’ death and resurrection. It is one of those gospel stories that communicates how Jesus is present and active in the Church in the same way that he was present and active with the first disciples. Saints and scholars from the earliest days of the Church through today have seen that the boat in this story represents the Church. In fact, it is partly because of this story that this main part of the church building is called the “nave”, from the French “navir,” which means “boat.” The wind in the story is not the holy breath of God as in other biblical stories. Here, Matthew uses a different word for “wind,” and it represents the conflict and persecution that assaulted the early Church, which again is represented by the boat full of disciples. In the biblical imagination, the sea represents the forces of chaos, danger and anxiety that threaten the goodness of life and the created order that God intends. And in the context of this story and of all epic stories of the ancient world, only God can overcome these forces of chaos and danger represented by the sea and wind. Only God - the great “I AM” who created and separated the seas – only God can walk on the sea.
In our story, against this background of understanding, Matthew tells us that it is the deepest, darkest part of the night. Jesus was supposed to be Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” but Jesus was by himself, alone in prayer in the mountains, separated from the disciples by miles of stormy seas. Jesus had promised that he would be with them always, even to the end of the ages, but Jesus had made them get into a boat and had sent them away to the other side of the sea. And in that situation, in that small boat assaulted by the waves of the storm and thwarted by adverse winds, Jesus comes to the disciples, walking on top of the water. The miracle is not that Jesus defies the law of gravity. The miracle is that Jesus is stronger than the forces of chaos, stronger than the forces of fear, stronger than the forces of death. The miracle is that Jesus uses this strength, which is God’s own strength, to come to a boatload of people in trouble in the middle of the sea. The miracle is that Jesus comes to his disciples over the stormy waters of the sea, and says “Take heart! I AM. Have no fear.”
But the miracle is not over yet, according to Matthew. For when Jesus gets into the boat with the disciples, the winds cease. The storm is silenced. The disciples fall down in worship and rest in the calm presence of God in Jesus. And the prayer of Jesus from the beginning of the passage – the intimate communion with God the Father that Jesus went into the mountains alone to enjoy – this prayer of communion with God becomes the disciples’ prayer as well. Jesus comes to them over the stormy sea to give them what Ezekiel knew in the sheer silence at the entrance of his mountaintop cave. Jesus gives them what the psalmist knew when he wrote, “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people.” Jesus brings them what Paul knew when he wrote, “The Word is very near you . . . on your lips and in your heart.” Jesus brings to the disciples the knowledge of God in their boat, in the middle of the sea of chaos, anxiety, and danger. This, too, is the miracle of our story. And it is our miracle still.
Like it or not, our boat is the Church. By the gift of our baptism, and by our choice to be here this morning, we find ourselves as participants in the very story we have heard. And we are no strangers to the storm. We who are gathered in this boat are no strangers to chaos, danger and anxiety. The more our culture invents to simplify our lives, the more chaotic our lives seem to become. The perils and dangers of this mortal life are too numerous and varied to name. Anxiety has been the most commonly diagnosed psychological disorder in America since about 1998. As families and as individuals, we are no strangers to the sea of chaos, danger and fear. And as members of the larger Church, we have heard about the dangers of persecution in some parts of the Anglican Communion, and we know about the rampant anxiety about the possibility schism in the Anglican Communion. Corporately and individually, we are no strangers to unpredictable seas.
The good news for us, the saving news for us, is that Jesus comes to where we are in our boat, in the midst of the storm. Christ is already present in the gathered community listening to the Word of God. Christ comes to us in the ordinary elements of bread and wine, in the ordinary routines of our daily lives, in the community of faith making its journey through the storm to the other side. This is the miracle we celebrate today: Christ comes over the stormy seas of our lives and says, “Take heart, I AM. Have no fear.” And when we are awakened to that miraculous reality of Christ in our midst, we are drawn into his prayer on the mount of communion with almighty God. The knowledge of the glory of God comes to us in the presence of Jesus Christ, across the sea, through the storm, and into our boat! And finally this knowledge gives to us, as it gave to Peter, the confidence and the power to step out onto the stormy sea ourselves and prevail!!! – for a little while, until we need to be lifted up again back into the safety and peace of our boat, which is the one holy catholic and apostolic Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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