(Matthew 14.22-33)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
The 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 26, 2009
The fifth in a summer sermon series on questions members have asked to hear sermons about.
This morning's question: "If I'm led by the head and not the heart,
does that mean I'm missing out on something when it comes to my faith?"
I forget where I first heard it, but it's true. Every question is a statement. Sometimes they're obvious. "Would you like to change clothes and clean up before our guests arrive?" isn't really a question. It's a statement. And there's only one right response.
With other questions, the statement they are making isn't as clear. It helps to get a context for the question. So I've asked Lyda to tell us where the question for today's sermon comes from.
I was at a worship service in Atlanta a while back. The church was packed to the rafters. There were liturgical dancers who were amazing. They were dressed all in red. And they stomped down the aisle and shouted. It was incredibly moving. Then the preacher talked about the Jesus of the black woman - the Jesus who sustained black women through slavery. This he called the Jesus of the heart. Then he talked about the white woman's Christ. He talked about white women who approach things very intellectually. That is the Christ of the head. I was with him all the way. Then he said the true Jesus was the Jesus of the heart. And that got me angry. And I've wondered about that ever since. Is there something I'm missing because I come at things out of my head so much?
"If I'm led by the head and not the heart, does that mean I'm missing out on something when it comes to my faith?"
The German poet Rainer Marie Rilke is most famous for something he wrote in 1903. In a letter to a young poet, he encouraged him to
have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were unlocked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers . . . because you would not be able to live them. . . . Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer (Letters to a Young Poet, New York: The Modern Library, 2001, p. 34).
What I hear Rilke saying is that the questions we live are really important. And if we're not living the right question, then we probably won't get what we seek. I wonder, Lyda, if the question you're asking is one that can get you to the faith you seek. You talk about being someone who comes at things from your head. But I don't think we can divide ourselves like that. Into head and heart. Body and mind. Spirit and soul. Our Jewish ancestors who wrote the Hebrew Bible saw humans as whole, undivided, living selves (Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament Theology, Fortress Press, 1997, pp. 452-3). In the second creation story, God takes dirt from the ground and breathes on it (Genesis 2.7). And we became living beings. We didn't become discrete bodies and souls or heads and hearts or flesh and spirit. God makes us whole, undivided, living selves.
Lyda, it's not like there's an orchestra conductor inside you, who, when you saw the liturgical dancers who so deeply moved you, cued your heart to say, "Feelings, get louder." And it's not like when you listened to the sermon, the conductor signalled your heart to play quiet down so your brain to get louder because you had some serious thinking to do. All of you reacted to the power of the dancers. All of you reacted to the sermon you heard. We have kind thoughts. We have wise feelings. We're not separate . . . God makes us whole, undivided, living selves.
So, Lyda, I suggest the way you've asked this question isn't going to get you to the faith you seek. Because it assumes you're a divided being. Maybe a question that has a better chance of clearing the way for you is something like, What keeps me from finding the faith I seek?
One of the things that gets us in trouble when we talk about creating a deeper faith is the holy trinity many of us worship: our reason, our experience, and our beliefs about how the world works. What happens when I hear a story in the Bible or hear something about the Christian faith . . . and it isn't logical . . . it doesn't fit with my experience . . . something happens that doesn't fit with how I know the world works? Often, I dismiss it outright. I close myself off to it. I say, "That's ridiculous. No one can expect me to believe that." The whole, undivided, living being God has made me to be has shut the gate. That Bible story, that teaching, is not going to get in.
Which means there's no room for wonder. If I let my reason, my experience, or my certainty about how the world works close me off to a Bible story or teaching about Christian faith that they have no room for, then I don't wonder about them. I don't wonder what they might have to say to me. I don't bring that to my faith community and ask them to wonder with me about what it would mean if it were true. I just dismiss it out-of-hand.
But if we don't have room for wonder, we will never find the faith we seek, if the faith we seek has anything to do with God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Because we've turned our reason, our experience, or our certainty about how the world works into our gods. They are the source of truth we trust. They determine what we can and cannot believe. They are the gods we worship. Which means there's no room for the God we hunger for.
One of the best expressions of the relationship between wonder and faith is Hymn #144. Let us sing it together.
Praise the Source of faith and learning that has spared and stoked the mind
with a passion for discerning how the world has been designed.
Let the sense of wonder flowing from the wonders we survey
keep our faith forever growing and renew our need to pray:
God of wisdom, we acknowledge that our science and our art
and the breadth of human knowledge only partial truth imparts.
Far beyond our calculation lies a depth we cannot sound
where your purpose for creation and the pulse of life are found.
May our faith redeem the blunder of believing that our though
has displaced the grounds for wonder which the ancient prophets taught.
May our learning curb the error which unthinking faith can breed
lest we justify some terror with an antiquated creed.
As two currents in a river fight each other's undertow
till converging they deliver one coherent steady flow,
blend, O God, our faith and learning till they carve a single course,
till they join as one, returning praise and thanks to you, their Source.
Thomas Troeger © 1987, Oxford University Press,
in The New Century Hymnal © 1995, The Pilgrim Press)
One river is our reason, our experience, our certainty about how the world works. Another river is a Bible story or faith teaching that doesn't fit with those. Like the hymn says, these two rivers begin to come together. And they fight each other's undertow. There's turbulence. It's anything but calm. But if we allow wonder to rise in us, then the turbulence subsides a bit. The gate that our reason, experience, and certainty about how the world works had kept locked shut cracks open a bit. Which is enough for God's Spirit to get through. And help us imagine letting Her work wonder in us, and see if indeed this story or teaching might clear the way a bit and bring us closer to the faith we seek.
There's something else related to this comes up when we live the question, What keeps me from finding the faith I seek? That has to do with preachers who interpret the Bible or Christian teachings in a way that seems to say having a living faith requires us to believe things we know cannot be true. This is different from the defensive stance we take of keeping the gate shut because something might threaten our reason, experience, or way we think the world works. What I'm talking about are those times preachers seem to be telling us that faith demands that we ignore what we know to be true. What are honest Christians who want to deepen their faith supposed to do when preachers tell them this?
This morning's Gospel reading is a perfect example of such a Bible story. Listen for a word from God.
Jesus insisted that the disciples get in their boat and go on ahead to the other side of Lake Galilee while he dismissed the people. With the crowd dispersed, Jesus climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.
Meanwhile, the boat was far out to sea when the wind came up against them, and they were battered by the waves. At about four o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. They were scared out of their wits. "A ghost!" they said, crying out in terror.
But Jesus was quick to comfort them. "Courage, it's me. Don't be afraid."
Peter, suddenly bold, said, "Master, if it's really you, call me to come to you on the water."
He said, "Come ahead."
Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, "Master, save me!"
Jesus didn't hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, "Faint-heart, what got into you?"
The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down. The disciples in the boat, having watched the whole thing, worshiped Jesus, saying, "This is it! You are God's Son for sure!"
(Matthew 14.22-33, adapted from The Message ©1993-96, 2000-2002; used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group)
When Lyda and I talked about this passage last week, she said, "Peter gets out of the boat and walks on water. It's only when he becomes aware of what he's doing that he becomes afraid and sinks under the water. But at least he got out of the boat. I'd be the one who'd say, 'Wait a cotton-picking second! People don't walk on water!' That's my anxiety: I come to all of this from the rational side, and is my rational brain getting in the way of opening my spiritual side?"
Up until yesterday, every Bible scholar I've come across has interpreted this story the same way. Every preacher I've heard preach on this passage, including me, has interpreted this story the same way. Using Rilke's image of living the questions, interpreters of this Bible story say it asks us, "If I had the faith that I seek, I would step out of the boat with Peter and believe I can walk on water."
The anxiety you talk about, Lyda, seems to grow out of this question. You are a whole, undivided, living being. You hear a Bible story like this. Your whole being gets caught up in it, as it did when you saw those liturgical dancers. You long to have the faith you seek. So your being begins to imagine what it would be like to have so much faith that you step out of the boat with Peter, and walk on the water toward Jesus. Then, as a whole, undivided, living being, you say, "Wait a minute! Humans can't walk on water, no matter how much faith they have!" Which drops you into that anxious place. To have the kind of faith I seek, do I need to believe that humans are able to do things I know they can't?
Which makes me very grateful that yesterday I came across a different interpretation of this story that blows the traditional interpretation totally out of the water . . . so to speak.
Look at this story again. The disciples are in the middle of Lake Galilee. A storm comes up, and they fear they will drown. Jesus comes to them on the water. [I'm not going to get into a debate about whether Jesus could walk on the water. Those who believe he was fully human and fully divine could argue he is able to do things humans cannot. But that's for a different sermon!] And he tells them, "It's me. Don't be afraid." Which should have been enough assurance for the disciples. But then Peter says this truly odd thing: "If it's really you, then call me, and I'll come to you on the water." Jesus, who has to be wondering what in the world Peter is thinking, says, "Come!" And so Peter steps out, and, like any of us would, he sinks under the surface. So Jesus lifts him out of the water and says, "Faint-heart, what got into you?" Or as a more traditional translation says, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"
Up until yesterday, every interpreter of this story has assumed Jesus is referring to Peter sinking under the water when he talks about Peter's lack of faith. But there's nothing in the story that says that's the case. Instead, what if Jesus is telling Peter he lacks faith because he got out of the boat in the first place? What if Jesus is telling Peter he lacks faith because he didn't believe God was in the boat with them all the time? It should have been enough for the disciples that Jesus came to them in their fear and told them they didn't need to be afraid. It was enough for the rest of the disciples. But not for Peter. Peter didn't trust he was safe in the boat. He didn't trust God was with him in the boat. So he decides to leave his faith community. And step out by himself. To head toward the God he could see. Instead of trusting he was held in the presence of the God whom he could not see. (This interpretation of the story is in M. Eugene Boring, "The Gospel of Matthew," The New Interpreter's Bible, Volume VIII, Abingdon Press, 1995, pp. 329-330.)
This way of hearing this story can free us from the anxiety we feel when it seems like having the faith we seek requires us to believe humans can do things we know they cannot. Jesus does not ask us to believe utterly ridiculous things to follow him. He just tries to help us clear the way, so we can move toward the faith we seek, and the God we hunger for.
Looked at this way, the story invites us to live some different questions that have nothing to do with believing we can walk on water. Jesus' message that God is always with us and with our faith communities invites us to live questions like, Do I expect to find God in church? Do I expect to find God in all the communities I'm part of? Do I look for God there? Do I bring God with me to these communities? Do I trust my faith community enough to believe there's really a place for me there? Do I trust that they love me and will be there for me when I need them? Do I trust that people in my faith community will receive the love I want to give? And trust they will listen as I talk about the God I know, and the God I long to know?
A faith that makes God real and alive for us doesn't require us to believe we can walk on water. A faith that makes God real and alive for us invites us to live the questions that move us toward God. Such a faith shows us how to clear the way of all that gets in our way as we try to follow Jesus on the way. In community . . . with God . . . as whole, undivided selves whom God breathed life into, we live the questions. We clear the way. And in deep wonder, we seek to build a faith. We seek to build a faith in the God who loves each of us and all creation with a depth of love we will never truly know.
Amen.
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