Heavy Seas

Sermon: (Mt. 14:1-3)
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Aug.7, 2011

Stories of the sea are plentiful in literature, both sacred and secular, and in the movies. I am thinking of Moby Dick, the great novel by Herman Melville about the great white whale, the movie Shipwrecked, and Tom Hank’s movie, Cast Away, to name a few. In Scripture we have the Great Flood and Noe’s Ark and Jonah and the Whale. Then there is today’s story of Jesus walking on the water.

There is something primal about deep water in our heritage that has stayed with us. Perhaps it is because we may be descended from animals that millions of years ago crawled out of the sea and began to live on dry land. Perhaps it is because we spend 9 months in the amniotic fluid of the womb before we are born and eventually learn to crawl on dry land. Perhaps it is because a large percentage of our body is water based. Perhaps it is because water is essential for our life. Perhaps it is because of all these things and more.

Deep water, such as the sea, can be threatening for creatures like ourselves who have to learn to swim and sail. We don’t have webbed feet. When there is wind behind it or when it comes in great amounts is has great power to destroy. Witness the hurricanes, tsunamis and floods that have plagued our planet in recent years. It also has the power to run tiny mills, like the one that used to stand down here on Horsehoe Creek or to generate electricity in massive kilowatts, like the hydroelectric plant on the Mississippi at Keokuk, IA near where I grew up.

Given the natural power of water, no wonder Jesus chose water as the sacrament of initiation into his supernatural life. He submitted himself to the baptism of John which was a baptism only of repentance and by so doing sanctified the act and made it a means of grace for us. The symbolism is of his death and resurrection. Through it we are born again. Jesus also spoke of living water as a means of filling up the void at the center of our souls.

So we come back to today’s gospel. Jesus has been toiling very hard in the ministry. He asks the Apostles to sail on ahead while He has time alone to commune with the Father. The Apostles run into heavy seas. The sea of Galilee , while only about the size of Lake St. Clair, was capable of sudden storms. They are getting nowhere until they see a ghost-like figure walking to them across the water. Jesus calms them and agrees to beckon Peter to come to Him. As long as Peter did not focus on his fears he was fine, but when he realized what he was doing, thinking he alone was doing it, he began to sink.

The message? We can do mighty things with the help of Him who strengthens us. It takes two to tango, however. We have to be willing to take the plunge of faith, and attempt to do what seems impossible and we have to continue to depend on Him. Once we think we are doing it all by ourselves, we give into our fears and sink. Think of times you were called on to handle situations in your life and that of your family that you didn’t see how you could possibly survive, let alone thrive. It seemed like you had to walk on water. But you did it with His help.

The spiritual implications of storms at sea are overwhelming. I wish share with you a conversion story shared with me recently by an old friend. He is a recovering alcoholic. At the time of this event, which was many years ago, he was newly sober but adrift, without God’s meaning to fill the void in His life. For whatever reason, he set out in a sail boat, a rather large one, into the Atlantic Ocean to make his way, all by himself, down the east coast to Florida. He got caught in a hurricane. The boat lost its power, so that he could neither control it nor radio for help. He gave up, believing the Gulf Stream would take him and he would never be found, if indeed the boat even weathered the storm. He was down in the hold, curled up, accepting what he thought his fate to be when Jesus came and sat next to him. Jesus simply said “You will be forgiven” and was gone. My friend decided all was not lost and that he had to take what control he could of the boat. First he wisely made a meal for himself in the galley and then went topside to take down the sails, which he had not done. Eventually, the hurricane subsided and he made his way into the coast, not knowing where he was. He docked at Charleston S.C. He not go on to Florida. Florida was not the intended destination anyway. He said it took him some years to realize what Jesus meant. He meant eventually you will forgive yourself for your previous life. My friend is now in the process of writing a book about his spiritual journey, of which that journey in the sea is a metaphor. Since his rebirth he has helped many, many people.

We can do all things in him who strengthens us, sailing through storms and metaphorically walking on water, if we are willing to take the plunge of faith and if we never forget whose wind is in our sails.