Fr. Troy Beecham
Sermon, Proper 14 A, 2023
Matthew 14:22-33
Jesus Walks on the Water
"Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."
Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
I recently read the summary of a sermon on this Gospel reading. The preacher saw this narrative as being an evocative tale trying to teach us principles on how to "handle the storms of life". This Gospel is literally teaching us the opposite. Here’s why.
This Gospel reading is part of a larger narrative on Jesus instructing his disciples about the mission that he has given them. This core section of the Gospel according to St. Matthew is full to overflowing with the stories of the miracles of Jesus. For anyone reading any of my sermons, or hearing me preach them, you will be well familiar with my total confidence that the Holy Scriptures mean what they say and say what they mean, and that the miraculous does not need any explaining away. It is unnecessary to try to flatten out the miraculous in the Scriptures. Quite the opposite! In fact, to do so, to present the Gospels as simply stories of a wise, good man named Jesus who taught nice ideas that we can emulate and be good people, is to miss the core revelation of the Scriptures, in fact the whole endeavor of the writing of the Gospels, and the mission of the Church.
And what is the endeavor of the Gospel and the mission of the Church? St. John the Evangelist said it this way, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name." Without the miraculous, without the divine in action in the lives of men and women just like you and me, I see no point in Christianity or in the Gospel. If life really just boils down to us trying to be nice people, well I can get that from any decent philosophy, with the added bonus that it does not require me to participate every week with a community of equally exhausted, hurt, aggravating, dysfunctional people or pay a tithe of my earnings to support the worship life of that community.
Yes, I’ve heard it said a thousand times, "God is everywhere. He can be found on a mountaintop as equally as in a Church". But that version of God as a flattened, humanistic, materialistic, vague universal consciousness does nothing for the human condition. Yes, we can learn many good things from many sources, and even learn to dampen some of the worst impulses of our fallen nature. However, we are unable to save ourselves from our sinful nature, from the cruelty of death, and from the universal bending of human society towards brutality, oppression, and wickedness.
But God has provided for the salvation of all humankind in sending his Son, Jesus, to be the Savior and Redeemer of all who believe in Him and are baptized into his life, death, and resurrection. And Jesus has given his Church, the community of all his baptized disciples (not our institutions and hierarchies), to preach this Gospel of salvation to all the world, and given us His Holy Sacraments to provide the real, objective, and miraculous means of grace. You can’t get that on a mountaintop on your own, or in yoga class, or by any other means in all the world according to the plan of God.
Without the God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, and without the Risen Savior sent to redeem us, and without His Church and the Holy Sacraments entrusted to us for the sake of all peoples, we are doomed to everlasting bondage to sin and death. We are destined for everlasting sorrow and oppression if all we have to hope for is some general ideals about how to "handle the storms of life", relying upon ourselves to save ourselves or the world by learning to just be nice.
The truth about us humans is that we are in need of a Savior. We are never going to be able to engineer paradise! We cannot re-enter Eden! We cannot save ourselves from ourselves and each other. Only God can do these things for us! Only God can bring about His kingdom. We are absolutely vulnerable to sin, the evil one, and our own cruelty towards each other, and that vulnerability makes us anxious, aggressive, despondent, and dangerous. But erasing God from the universe leaves us in charge of human destiny, both personal and collective. We unerringly seek to have power, to be "in charge of ourselves and of others.
The last century gave rise to some of the most wicked philosophies in human history, namely Leftist ideology, whether in the form of Soviet Socialism/Communism, National Socialism, Situational Ethics, Eugenics and the ongoing genocides it produced in the acceptance of murdering unborn babies, people with disabilities, et al…all of which led to two world wars and decades of international war and conflict. In fact, the wars of the 20th century killed 15% of the human population on this earth, and internationally, if you add abortion deaths to that number, in the 20th century we murdered 22% of the human population. And the wars inspired by Leftist philosophy continue into the 21st century, as does the great evil of abortion. Leftist philosophy denies human sin, aggrandizes our worst impulses, and gives us permission to do the most unspeakable things to each other. Sadly and unsurprisingly, there are people still trying to make these philosophies work, as they protest that "real Socialism/Communism" have never been tried, so we have to keep endeavoring to save ourselves until we get it right…no matter how many people have to be sacrificed.
I’ve said it many times and it bears constant repetition: every genocide, every mass loss of human life, started with someone trying to do "good" for themselves and people like them. When we inevitably run up against the reality of sin and death, and our inability to re-engineer paradise, we begin to start identifying those most unlike us as being responsible for holding us back from utopia, and suddenly violence, havoc, theft, enslavement, murder, and every human form of human wickedness becomes not wicked at all: they become necessary, even good. This is the false gospel that Satan has been whispering in our ears since the Garden of Eden, where we lost our innocence and became vulnerable exiles in an uncaring world.
The truly good news, the Gospel Truth, the true Faith, is that God knows our weaknesses and our inability to save ourselves or to create human paradise, and He still loves us beyond our imagining. God has been pursuing us since the exit from Eden, and has sent to us a Savior, Jesus, His own Son, to whom God has given all authority in heaven and earth to save us. God has also given to us His Holy Spirit, to empower us the be disciples of his Son, Jesus, and to experience, though for now only in part, the life of the kingdom of God which is even now coming to the earth according to the timing and will of God.
By the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we can endure the wickedness of human society, our vulnerability to the cruelties of life, and even death, with hope, love, and faith. This is the meaning of this Gospel narrative, and of every Gospel narrative. We are loved by God, who loves us and gave His only Son to save us, and who is saving us even now, who will one day bring His kingdom to earth. And so we wait with faith, hope, and love for the Lord who has the authority to calm the storms of life and the storms of the seas. We hold fast to the Faith of the Church, to the Sacraments, and we give ourselves freely and entirely to God, in self-sacrificing love, so that we might proclaim the Gospel to all peoples in Spirit and in Truth. And as we wait in faith and endeavor to spread the Gospel to all peoples so that they may be saved and find hope, we pray "maranatha!", which means "come now, O Lord!"
Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who cannot exist without you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
