A sermon for 13th August, 2023; Year A Proper 14.

Once upon a time, some forty+ years ago, an academic who was not a mathematician did some wage review for the civil service, and accidentally became responsible for the teachers of England and Wales receiving a well-deserved but rather unexpected – on all sides – pay boost. That is how my father ended up buying a boat.

It was a small boat, with a very small outboard motor. Did you know that the Bristol Channel, that little strip of salt water between England and Wales, has the second largest tidal drop in the entire world, second only to somewhere up north of here (Canada? Alaska?)? Having been in a very small boat with a very, very small outboard motor, boat-surfing around Lavernock Point in a foolhardy effort to get home ahead of the tidal turn, swamped by waves that I worked ravenously to put back into the Channel using a very small bucket, I can believe it. My father tells the story of one such outing; when we finally got back to dry land, he asked me, “Were you scared?” With as much teenaged bile and bravado as I could muster, I replied, “Scared? I was too busy bailing out!”

I know who I am in this morning’s Gospel story. If I had seen Jesus walking towards us on the water from Flatholme, I would have thought he was a ghost, too, because I would have assumed at that point that I was a ghost. 

Evening had come and gone, and it was already the dead of night. Wind and the waves were battering the boat; if there was a moon it was obscured by the spray. The elements were against them, and they knew themselves no match for the chaos.

Then came Jesus. Then came Jesus, descending the mountain on a cloud of prayer, drifting across the sea like a breath, like an angel, like a ghost. Then came Jesus, and he said to them, “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” (Matthew 14:27)

There is a theological aspect to this story, of course. It speaks not only to what happened, what Jesus did out there in the dark and the storm, but it speaks, he speaks of who he is. “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.”

In the beginning, when the world was formless and void, the authors of Genesis imagine a storm of oily water, suffocating and chaotic, devoid of life, empty of breath, but full of chaos. Then came the Word of God, speaking light, speaking land, speaking heavens and earth and ocean, speaking life. (Genesis 1)

When Jesus treads upon the storm, he reminds his disciples, he reminds us, that he is that Word of God that quells any force that mitigates against life, against light, against hope. The commentaries tell us that walking on water is a feat reserved to the divine; it is a quelling of the chaos, a subjugation of the elements that belongs only to the Creator of all things.^[i] Jesus, coming to his disciples on the sea, was showing them who he was, who he is. The wind and the waves may have been against them, but Jesus says, “Take heart, it is I.” No one, nothing can stand against the love of God made manifest and standing before them, in the heart of the storm.

“Do not be afraid,” he tells them, because perfect love casts out fear, and he is the perfect love of God. “Do not be afraid,” speaks Emmanuel; “I am with you.”

In the midst of the storm, or facing down the wildfire, in the deep pit, in the wake of bitter betrayal, after the scary diagnosis, even when planning the funeral, the question arises, “But what of it?” The text does not tell us that the wind and the waves subsided when Jesus made himself known – this is not the same story as the, “Peace, be still!” moment. No, but Peter says, “If you call me, I can come to you on the water.” And when he starts to sink back in fear, Jesus catches him. (Matthew 14:28-31)

I know who I am in this story. Sometimes I think I only went out in that ridiculous boat on the Bristol Channel because no one else would, and I didn’t want the man to die alone, and I hope that counts for something. I am hoping for courage but my heart is sinking. I am too busy bailing out the boat to pray. The wind and the waves are against me, I am underpowered and overwhelmed, and as much as I want to keep my attention fixed on Jesus, the storm is stealing it, and sinking me. That’s just how it goes, sometimes. 

But I know who Jesus is, too. When he says, “Take heart, have courage” – because courage is heart, encouragement is the giving of one’s heart, votre coeur, to another – when Jesus says, “Take heart, it is I,” he is not saying, “Be brave. Man up!” Rather, he is offering his heart, himself, his courage, his power, his love and mercy, his life to his disciples. He will not leave them to face the storm, the fire, the flood, the betrayal, alone. And when he does get in the boat, the wind drops immediately, like the others, falling down in worship before him.

From the very early centuries of the church, our prayers have included the Sursum Corda: Lift up your hearts; we lift them to the Lord. The original said simply, “Up with your hearts.” “We have them with the Lord,” was the response.^[ii] As we come to celebrate and commemorate and rely on Christ’s presence with us, we begin by taking heart, taking encouragement, that his heart is with us; and we place our hearts with his. 

So take heart, whatever the storm, whatever is against you, whatever has you sick or afraid or wanting to walk on water; take heart, Jesus is with you. Even when we are distracted and rightly dismayed, he is already reaching for us to pull us back from the abyss. Nothing, no distance nor elements nor trouble can keep him from you. Indeed, “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” (Romans 10:8)

Amen.

^[i] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume III, pp. 326-330

^[ii] Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed: Texts translated and edited with commentary, R.C.D. Jasper and G.J. Cuming, third edition (The Liturgical Press, 1990), 31-38

Year A Proper 14: Genesis 37:1-4,12-28 (Joseph’s is sold into slavery by his brothers); Psalm 105, Romans 10:5-15 (“the word is very near you”), Matthew 14:22-33