Don't Give Up the Ship!

Matthew 14:22-33

Lorenso Veneziano, Christ Rescuing Peter From Drowning 1370 PD

One summer during college I tried my hand at being a river guide on the lower Youghiogheny river. 

Guiding whitewater rafting trips is a fairly complicated skill. 

Professional white water boaters know the commands and techniques that allow them to maneuver around obstacles and dangers. 

When the guide shouts LEFT BACK!, all those on the left side should paddle backwards while the right side would continue to paddle forward, maneuvering the vessel like a tank to the left, as if the paddles are the tracks of a tank. 

When you have a good team of boaters, the guide can just dip their paddle in the river like a rudder, sit on the back of the boat, and steer the vessel around dangerous obstacles. 

Obstacles like the lower Youghiogheny’s “Dimple Rock,” a large undercut rock, where the water sucks things down beneath the rock; paddles, life vests, boats, and yes, people. 

If you didn’t gauge your approach to Dimple just right, you would drive your raft into the rock and the waves would fold your vessel like a taco, in fact when this happens it is referred to as a “taco”.

I perfected this technique, so well in fact that many would ask me if I realized I was working as a river guide, not at Taco Bell. 

I got a lot of jokes about tacos before I quit guiding whitewater boats. 

(cc) David Berkowitz - www.marketersstudio.com / www.about.me/dberkowitz

But that fall I continued boating, taking a class on whitewater boating. 

I borrowed a friend’s whitewater canoe and found that I actually could steer a boat pretty good on my own. 

I could read the water, the waves, the current, and the rocks well. 

What I came to find, was that it wasn’t my paddling, reading the water, or my skills as a boater that made me a bad guide.

It was my ability to guide others. 

I couldn’t anticipate how others would or were paddling. 

If someone in the boat was just dipping their paddle in the water or furiously paddling, I couldn’t tell the difference. 

Because I trusted them to paddle forward, obeying the commands, propelling the boat forward. 

Without forward momentum, the river would toss you into rocks and sometimes even hydraulics, which are large stationary waves that just continuously roll back on themselves, pounding against boats and trapping the passengers until the boat either capsizes or you experience what is known as a “bus stop” because everyone exits “the bus”.

Forward momentum was, and is, one of the most important ways to get through rapids, without it, boaters can be stuck in waves, fallen trees and limbs, or even undercut rocks like Dimple, sometimes trapped in holes so deep that people are never recovered. 

~

In our Gospel today the disciples seem to have lost all forward momentum as they are crossing the sea of Galilee and having been in a similar circumstance, I cannot imagine how terrified one would be trapped for six hours or more on rough waters in a small boat like theirs. 

Jesus doesn’t come to the disciples until the fourth watch of the night. 

The night was split into four three hour watches in Roman society. 

This was how attacks were prevented, thievery was deterred, and people were able to protect their property and community from existential threats. 

Rembrandt, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee 1633 PD

So by the time Jesus comes to the disciples it is somewhere between 3 and 6 in the morning, and they have already been struggling against these waves on the open water for six hours AT LEAST.

The boat isn’t just being battered by the waves, the boat is being tormented and tortured by the waves. 

The disciples could only have been hanging on for life, clinging to the vessel, prayerfully hoping it wouldn’t come apart beneath them. 

And for the early Christian community hearing this story, the boat represents the Church. 

In fact, that is why we see so many church buildings with arched ceilings and supports. 

Traditional church structures are built to represent an upside down boat. 

And the church truly can take a beating by the waves outside our walls sometimes. 

A beating so serious that we find ourselves shouting at one another at times. 

LEFT BACK! DIG DEEP! ALL HANDS! LEAN IN!!

And when we feel that we are the only ones digging deep, we can become so discouraged that we decide to go it alone. 

Feeling betrayed, abandoned, or even enraged with those that we just don’t think are paddling hard enough to get us out of this rut. 

I still feel like I can read the waves and handle the boat, but I have to be honest, I still can’t read how other folks are paddling. 

I’m not sure Peter could either. 

He was the first to recognize Christ by responding to Christ’s call to not be afraid, shouting above the waves and the wind, “Since it is you, command me to come to you!”

Knowing that this vessel has no forward momentum, 

Peter abandons the ship. 

~

Now some would say that Peter was a coward by the time we get to the conclusion of this episode, but if you take one thing away from this story today please know this; 

I don’t know too may people who would have gotten out of that boat. 

But if the boat isn’t providing the forward momentum to follow Christ, sometimes we may need to dig deep on our own, take a chance, and abandon the ship. 

If we leave the ship behind for our own gain, without regard for those who've been tossed about in the waves with us, 

Well, then we are only serving ourselves, not the Church. 

But there is a tension in this story between Peter and the ship. 

~

Now, I remember my own fear of the water as I was struggling  to learn how to swim as a child. 

Once while I was visiting my father's parents when I was young, we were spending our day at their swimming pool in Luray, Virginia. 

Frustrated with my hesitation, fear, and resistance to respond to the swimming instruction my parents were providing, I recall Mabel, my father’s mother, picking me up under my arms off the deck and throwing me into the deep end of the pool as she demanded; 

“Oh, just swim already would you!”

Me in all my glory beside that memorable swimming pool

It is one of my earliest memories. I recall looking up at the surface of the water as lounge chairs fell into the pool, just before my mother and father dove in after me. 

I believe, “Are you out of your mind?!” was but one of the questions my mother asked that day. 

I recall the tension in my father’s expression, as he tried to figure out how to smooth this one over between his wife and mother 

*a look I saw on his face nearly every visit*.

What I remember most of all was the panic that I felt. 

Right up until both my parents grabbed me underneath my arms, simultaneously pulling me up to the surface.

I did learn how to swim.

I actually became incredibly comfortable in the water in spite of this experience, perhaps because of the things that I remember the most about that day.

I remember the panic that set in as I reached to the surface of that water.

But what I remember most of all is the trust and confidence I felt when my mother and father’s hands wrapped around my arms.

I knew, even before I was pulled to the surface that I was safe. 

Because I trusted in their love, I had confidence in their love, I had FAITH in that love.  

~

When Peter cries out “Lord, Save me!!” there is a definite tone of fear and dread that we may not fully realize. 

And while some of us may have a phobia or a fear of the water, the disciples have an even greater fear than we. 

Even fisherman and sailors in those days had a deeply seeded fear of water. 

It was believed that the depths of any body of water contained evil that was lurking beneath the surface. 

Chaos occupied the darkness of the seas, oceans, and lakes,

Often personified as sea monsters or terrifying godlike creatures. 

We even find references to them throughout scripture. 

So, this story contains a deep, dark, and foreboding evil that is lurking and preying on those above. 

Just think of the impact of “Jaws” in the summer of 1975 after its release that June. 

So the very act of stepping out of that vessel is an incredible display of faith on Peter’s part. 

Alessandro Allori, St Peter Walking on The Water 1590 PD

It illustrates an important thing for us to consider, not only as Christians, but as Lutherans. 

Faith may be a gift from God, but faith is NOT a NOUN, faith is a VERB.

Faith is not a possession, it is an ACTIVITY.

Faith is not intended to whither and die on the vine, it is meant to be tasted and lived. 

Faith is a chance we are called to take, sometimes outside of the boat, into the storms, following a truth we are constantly reaching toward but we cannot fully grasp. 

And you may choke on a little water, you may get a little scared, but if the boat cannot move you closer to the object of your faith you may need to take matters into your own hands. 

But this doesn’t mean that we give up the ship. 

Peter isn’t being scolded when Jesus says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 

Peter is being coached during this swim lesson by the One who loves him even more than my own parents did as they pulled me out of that water. 

And even as Peter was distracted and wrestled with his doubt, he still knew where to look when he cried out to who….?

The Lord! Jesus THE Christ!

Ironically, this story ends where it began; in the boat. 

It ends in the boat because we don’t give up the ship, even if we have to strike out on our own from time to time when the ship loses momentum. 

We don’t give up the ship if it loses its momentum.

We get out and we lead the ship if it loses its way or the crew takes its eyes off that compass +

Because even if we are arrogant enough to think we don’t need the ship, the ship needs us. 

We are called to live in community and to support one another, especially when our vessel stalls in the waves. 

Because sometimes the ship won't follow Christ into hell and when that happens we may need to lead the ship into the storms of hell, 

because if Christ was willing to follow us into the deep waters of our sin and death, aren’t we called to do the same for all those who are tormented by the waves of bigotry, fear, hatred, and death?

So, sisters and brothers, grab a paddle or grab a bowline, but let us not shy away from the storms because we are called to seek out all those struggling against the waves. 

Amen. 

Julius Sergius Von Klever, Christ Walking on the Water 1880 PD

Sources

Hare, Douglas R. A. Matthew. Louisville, Ky: John Knox Press, 1993.