Sermon for the 11th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 7th August

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

Bagshot Park, near London, is one of the Queen’s residences. I think now Edward has it as his home. But before that the Queen allowed the Royal Army Chaplain’s Department to use it as their headquarters. (I don’t know where they are now, since Edward got married). Anyway, it is a sumptuous place, and I was once there for a five-day visit from the Theological College in Dublin, treated like Kings, and a gin and tonic was only 50p! Outside there is a very large ornamental pond, like a swimming pool (have I told you this before?) and beside it was a notice in the ground, which read, “Please do not walk on the water”.

Now, I would imagine that trying to walk on water would be a fairly difficult proposition, even for Army chaplains. Today’s Gospel reading is, of course, all about that extraordinary event on the Sea of Galilee. What, on earth, was going on here?

I have a book at home which is all about this one event. Briefly, John Ortberg believes that this event isn’t just a miracle, in the sense that Jesus is ‘showing off’, but that it has a much greater significance than just a miracle. It is, in fact, a Theophany!

What, in all that is good, is a theophany?

Let’s picture the scene for a moment. The feeding of the five thousand had just happened. He ordered the disciples to get into the boat simply to get to the other side, to Bethsaida, Mark tells us, while Jesus ‘dismissed’ the crowd, it says. After which he wanted to be alone, and went up on to a mountainside to pray. Evening closed in, it was dark, and Jesus was there alone and the boat had gone on without him. A storm had blown up and the boat was (in the old word) “tormented” by the waves. They only wanted to get to the other side, but by three O’clock in the morning they were tired and exhausted and were concentrating on just staying alive. And you know the rest so well. Suddenly, this ghostly figured appeared, walking towards them and they were terrified, even moreso!
Peter thought indeed that it was Christ himself and he got out of the boat and began to walk towards him on the water. Then ‘he saw the wind’, he was afraid and he began to sink, Jesus rescued him and said, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Poor Peter, why does he always get a raw deal?

We always tend to see this story as Peter’s failure. Did Peter really fail? We often ‘judge’ failure by its outcome. For example we don’t see Thomas Edison as a failure. Yet never really a success at school; often seen as a bit of a dunce. Edison made some 900 light bulbs before he was successful at the one that worked. He invented countless other things that we now take for granted and he is known as one of the greatest inventors of all time. Yet how many failures did he have to endure? Did Peter really fail? He saw the wind and he did sink. But here is what we sometimes forget: There were eleven other bigger failures sitting in the boat! They didn’t share in what must have been an euphoric feeling of being empowered to walk on water, to being lifted up by Jesus in a moment of desperate need, they couldn’t, because they didn’t even get out of the boat. The worst failure is not to sink in the waves. The worst failure is never to get out of the boat. And the title of this book by John Ortberg? It’s called “If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat”.

The most amazing success of Peter was that Peter recognised God’s presence. Matthew wants us to know that sometimes it takes eyes of faith to recognise when Jesus is around. What is this event all about? Mark’s version gives us a clue. Mark tells us that ‘He was about to pass by’. The verb is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament as a technical term to refer to a theophany – those defining moments when God, in a sense ‘shows himself’. Peter’s amazing success was that Peter recognised Him, the others, however, did not.

Life can certainly throw at you some wobblies. It is recognising God in the middle of such circumstances is what it’s about. There’s no doubt that Peter was the strongest and most courageous person on that boat. Far from being a failure, he showed more guts than the other eleven hanging on for grim death!

In all honesty, I don’t think we can all be Peters. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think most of us are like the ones who didn’t get out of the boat – expecting the worst, but hoping for the best. Perhaps we should all learn to concentrate more on Jesus than on the storm.

I like the story of the farmer who had an old mule that fell into a dry well. When the farmer heard the mule’s braying and realised what had happened, he determined that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbours together and enlisted their help in burying the old mule in the well and putting him out of his misery. Initially, the old mule was very upset! But as the dirt rained down on his back, the old mule had a thought. He decided that every time a shovel of dirt landed on his back, he would shake it off and step up. The dirt continued to cascade down the well, but he just kept shaking it off and stepping up.

Hours later, the exhausted old mule finally stepped over the wall of the well, to freedom.

I really don’t think that God expects us all to be like Peter, Rather than being successful, God does ask us to be faithful, to be faithful, no matter what is thrown at us.