If You Want To Walk On Water...

"If You Want To Walk On Water..."
Matthew 14:22-31

One time I was fishing with my Uncle Sonny in Puget Sound.  This one day we put the boat out from Neah Bay, which is on the tip of the peninsula on the state of Washington.  It's the place where Puget Sound, the watery gap between the peninsula of the state and the mainland of the state, meets the Pacific Ocean.

It's a much better ride in the boat if you can get positioned inside the Sound and away from the mouth of the peninsula where the Sound meets the open Pacific Ocean.  This day we were just inside the boundary waters of Puget Sound, but not far enough in.  We were fishing for King Salmon, fish that were as big as me at that time.

I actually hooked one that trip.  It jumped out of the water, full length, and Sonny gave out a shout.  I was pulling back on the pole as strongly as a kid could.  The pole was bent in a perfect letter C.  But it was hard to hold on, and it was hard to play that huge fish for one reason.  The swells.  The swells are huge rolling waves, and they were as high as a two story house.  The little boat would slide up to the top of a swell.  It seemed like we were on the top of the world.  Then we'd slide down the watery wall of that swell and I was afraid we were going to scrape the ocean bottom.

Up and down, and back and forth we'd go, me trying to hold on to the pole, as well as trying to hold down my breakfast.  It didn't take long for me to lose both.  The line snapped and I lost my King Salmon.  And with one more lurch of the boat on a swell, I hung over the side and lost my breakfast.  I drank a lot of ginger ale the rest of the day.  And as far as our fishing luck went, we never had another bite the rest of the day.


The disciples in the fishing boat maybe faced swells half the size Sonny and I rode that day.  They couldn't put up the sail, or the wind would have ripped it apart.  They were rowing.  Rowing on swells that were taking them up and down.  Rowing on whitecaps that were throwing water into the boat almost faster than they could bail it out.  It was not just a scary situation because they were hanging over the side seasick, with a storm blowing.  It was scary because they thought they were literally going to die.

Then, Jesus entered the scene.  Where had Jesus been?  He was at some lonely place praying.  When Jesus went into the wilderness of temptation, he prayed and fasted for 40 days, then the temptations started.  In the Gospel of Mark story of the healing of the demon possessed boy, the disciples asked why they couldn't force out the demon.  Jesus said it can happen only by prayer.  (Mark 9:14ff)  In this walking-on-the-water story, Jesus prayed and then faced the forces of chaos symbolized in the turbulent lake.  Jesus prepared himself to face all forms of chaos and evil in prayer.  Pray first, then stand up to the powers.

Harry Emerson Fosdick, one of the great preachers of any time, wrote a letter to a woman in Missouri who had recently had a nervous breakdown.  Fosdick himself had suffered such a breakdown.  Listen to what he wrote in his letter to this woman:
Just one thing more:  There are two techniques for living.  One is willpower and drive.  The other is inward receptivity and spiritual hospitality toward God.  I judge that you have excellent willpower and that you have relied on it, but now you face the baffling fact that in a nervous breakdown your willpower is sick.  What you try hard with has gone to pieces and the harder you try the worse off you are.  Let go and let God in.  You must work on that other technique—receptivity.  As all your physical strength comes not by willing it but by absorbing…so your spiritual strength comes by intake of inward hospitality towards God.

Jesus  was all about making that inward hospitality towards God his main priority.  It was from that absorption of God through prayer that gave him the strength to face all the chaos and evil he did.


This scene that Jesus entered, in this story, is a boat with twelve men scared stiff.  The boat was considerable distance from land.  Land represented safety, so the boat was nowhere near safety.

The boat and the disciples were probably far enough out on the lake that going back would have been just as far as going forward.  But going back would have been with the wind and a quicker journey to land and safety.  On land, they could wait until the storm blew by and then sail calmly to the other side.  Why did they keep rowing hopelessly, slowly, fearfully against the wind?

The story says the boat was being "pounded" (NIrV).  The word in Greek literally means, "tormented."  That speaks not to what was just happening to the boat by the wind and the waves, but also what was happening in the boat.  Everything about this scene speaks about torment, which describes an underlying chaotic and mindless evil at work.  It wasn't just bad weather.  It was something much more malevolent.


And the story tells us that when Jesus arrived on the lake it was "the fourth watch."  The daytime was split up into four watches, four quarterly segments.  The fourth watch was between 2 a.m. to sunrise in the morning.  If you are ever up at 3 or 4 a.m. and you're looking out your front window, what does the world look like at that time?  What kinds of feelings do you have when you're up alone at 3 a.m.?  Add that feeling to the rigors of rowing constantly against the storm and you'll have an inkling as to what the disciples are feeling.

This little detail about the watch lets us know how long the disciples have been in the boat.  Six to nine hours.  Six to nine hours!  On a calmer day they could have been back and forth on the lake at least a couple of times.

Having spent this amount of time on the lake, struggling against a foaming storm, it begs us ask the question, why didn't Jesus come sooner?  In the raising of Lazarus story (John 11) when Jesus heard about Lazarus being ill, instead of going immediately, he delayed for two days.

Then Lazarus died.  Both Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, said to Jesus, "If you had been here our brother would not have died."  Both seem miffed at Jesus' supposed intentional delay.  Jesus told the disciples that he delayed so that they "may believe".

Doubting Thomas had to wait a week for the appearance of the Risen Christ.  So this part of the story makes us face the fact that Jesus did things according to his own timing—God's timing—when everything would be just right.  Even though the timing may not be best according to our own estimation.

It is into this scene that Jesus walked.  On the surface of Lake Galilee.  To a tormented boat, full of tormented disciples, on a tormented lake surface, Jesus walked.  Seeing Jesus, the disciples did what any self-respecting disciple would do—they all screamed like little girls thinking they were seeing a ghost.  Real people don't walk on water, especially when that water is one big storm.

But what other options would you have, looking at that figure out on the waves, if you were a disciple in the boat?  Is it a ghost or phantom?  A hallucination?  Or was it really Jesus?  We have to decide if the gospel writers knew what they were talking about or not, in writing this story down.  Either it happened or it was made up.  Those are the only two options open for us.

So if you think the gospel writers were on the up and up, then you have to ask the next question:  "Why?  Why did Jesus walk on water?  Was he just taking a short-cut home hoping the disciples wouldn't spot him?  Was he playing a prank on the disciples, hoping to scare them out of their tunics (which he pretty much did)?  Is this all just a bit of that Son of God sense of humor ("Ha ha; gotcha!  You all have to change your underwear, don't ya?").

Peter isn't sure.  Notice what he says to Jesus:  “Lord, is it you?  If it is…  "If."  Jesus must be standing still, on top of the water, some little distance from the boat, no longer coming toward the boat.  The only way to find out if it's really Jesus, within the bluster of the storm, is to get close to him.  The only way to get close to Jesus, to see for sure, is to get out of the boat and go see.  Jesus wasn't coming at them; they'd have to go to him.

No one in the boat is evidently rowing the boat toward Jesus either.  They want to know, but they don't want to know.  "Lord, is it you?  If it is, don't come to us; we'll send someone over to you.  Peter, go see if it's him!"  Because part of what's going on here is that if it really is Jesus then the disciples have to reevaluate who Jesus is in a major way.  Before, they may have thought he was a great guy who told fun little stories.  Now he's someone who walks on water in the middle of a storm.

Something else that's going on is that if you want to see Jesus, where do you have to go?  Not to some monastery where he's sitting in front of his prayer candle chanting scripture.  If Peter, or any of the other disciples want to see Jesus, to really see Jesus, they have to get out of the boat and step into the chaos.  They have to step out onto the deep, onto some place where they can get way over their heads very quickly.  They have to step out on the water, where everything is fluid, everything is moving, everything is not steady or solid.  They have to be willing to go into a chaotic world, not stay in the safety of the boat.

And when you realize that, when you ask Jesus if you can step out of the boat, move away from the safety of the church (if the boat represents the church), and you ask Jesus if you can come to him, out there, you better be ready for his answer.  To Peter, Jesus said, "Come."  Jesus didn't say, "No, no, no; that's OK Peter; I'll come to you and the others.  You guys just stay there in the safety of your little boat."  No.  Jesus said, "Come."  "Get out of the boat Peter."

And notice something else.  Jesus didn't promise Peter anything.  "It'll be fine.  Easy peasy.  C'mon Peter.  No problem."  Jesus simply says, "Come," then it's up to Peter to deal with his fears and see what the measure of his faith really is.

Mother Teresa told the story about a young French girl who came to Calcutta to work with the Sisters of Charity.  The girl looked worried.  She went to work in the home for the dying destitute.  Then, after ten days, she came to see Mother Teresa.  She hugged Mother Teresa and said, "I've found Jesus!"
Mother Teresa asked, "Where did you find Jesus?"
The girl responded, "In the home for dying destitutes."
"And what did you do after you found Him?"
"I went to confession and Holy Communion for the first time in fifteen years."
Then Mother Teresa asked, "What else did you do?"
"I sent my parents a telegram saying that I found Jesus."
Mother Teresa looked at her and said, "Now, pack up and go home.  Go home and give joy, love, and peace to your parents."  Then Mother Teresa wrote,
She went home radiating joy, because her heart was filled with joy; and what joy she brought her family!  For if we want others to become aware of the presence of Jesus, we must be the first ones convinced of it.

Peter steps out of the boat.  What's going through his mind?  What would be going through your mind, as you hoisted one foot and then the other over the side of the boat and stepped out on the raging surface.  Would you be asking yourself, "Can I do this?  Am I convinced of that?"

In order to get to the answer to that question, the only way you are going to find out is if you get out of the boat.  And you aren't going to get out of the boat unless you are convinced.  When I'm thinking about some huge project or challenge that I'm facing, I assess my own abilities and strengths.  I compare those assets to the challenge in front of me.  "Can I do it?"

That's what Peter did before and during the point he stepped out on the lake's surface.  He heard and felt the wind.  He took a bracing gulp as he felt the cold water on his feet.  But he also had to be measuring his own faith against the power of the waves.  He's being forced not only to see the waves; he's also seeing his answer to the question, "Can I do this?" and his answer is "No."  That's when he sinks.

If we're honest, that's most of our answers.  Most might risk getting out of the boat, but at the same time that voice in our heads is saying, "I can't do this."

And that's exactly what Jesus wants us to find out.  Focusing only on ourselves we are incapable of handling the chaos of the world.  We ask ourselves the question, "Can I do this?"  No, you can't.  But if you asked the right question, "Can WE (me and Jesus) do this?"  The answer is, Yes.

When Peter began to sink, the story tells us that "right away" Jesus reached out and grabbed Peter, keeping him from sinking.  To his credit, Peter walked out and got close enough to Jesus that Jesus could reach out to him.  Jesus' hand is always ready to catch those who risk coming out into the chaos of the world to meet him and do his bidding—even though we may get over our heads.

After Jesus grasps Peter they have a brief conversation.  "Why did you doubt?" Jesus asked.  The answer is fairly obvious, and Jesus wanted Peter to struggle with the answer.  Peter focused on the wrong question:  "What can I do?" rather than the right question:  "What can WE do?"  Peter focused on the storm and decided he wasn't going to measure up to that.  Had Peter kept his focus on Jesus, the storm wouldn't have mattered.  Peter was so close.

And here's a bit of a twist.  What if Jesus didn't ask his question to Peter, but to the disciples still inside the boat?  What if Jesus was asking why they doubted, and showed that doubt by not getting out of the boat as Peter did?  Then Jesus' question becomes our question—aimed at those who are too afraid or doubting to take their faith outside of the boat, outside the walls of the church, and into the chaos of the world.

Do you want to walk on water?  In other words, do you want to express your faith and not your doubt?  Do you want to be out there where Jesus is, even if it is a scary place to be?  Do you want to be more than yourself, and be that self with Jesus at your side as your strength?  If you want to walk on water, then you'll have to step out of the boat.