Proper 14, Yr A
The Rev. G.
Put your feet down
When I was 8 years old my father took my little brother, Todd, and me sailing for the first time. We were excited. Our chosen vessel was a catamaran sailboat, and we set sail from a small inlet cove off the coast of Georgia on the Atlantic Ocean.
At least, our intention was to sail on the Atlantic.
In truth we did not make it very far from shore before we flipped the boat over and were all 3 tossed into the dark, wind-chopped water.
From the start I was excited, but I was also a little bit apprehensive. Generally speaking, I was confident in my dad’s abilities, but sailing seemed to me like kind of a specialty skill. I had no reason to believe that he knew how to sail at all, much less with any degree of competency.
Nonetheless we sailed on. And as I said, we quickly turned the boat over.
When my brother, father and I splashed into the water I was scared. I was really, authentically scared. I knew how to swim, of course, and I had on a life preserver so I was not in any real danger, but I was young and we were far enough out from the shore that it would be a long swim back; there wasn’t anyone much around; and I had no idea how to flip the boat back over.
And what if we flipped over again? And how deep is the ocean? What’s down there in the dark water? All these things scared me, but the scariest part, well the scariest part was realizing that my dad was fallible, that he could mess up, that the boat could turn over even if he was steering it.
Even though we had on life vests my brother and I swam like crazy when we turned over. Our arms and legs moved like wild fire spreading and kicking through the water. We were treading water in a panic to survive.
And then my leg brushed something hard. I kicked again and the top of my foot brushed sand. I extended both feet and stood up. We had flipped our boat in about 3 1/2 feet of water!
“Todd, I shouted, put your feet down!”
“What!?” he said.
“Put your feet down! Stand up!”
Todd put his feet down and stood up, and we both looked over at dad who was standing up too and wrestling with our sideways sailboat. If only we had a photograph of that day.
It would be a perfect picture of capsized absurdity - two boys and their father standing just over waist deep in the warm ocean water laughing and trying to turn a capsized catamaran upright.
*
When we find them this morning, the disciples are on a boat in the middle of the sea of Galillee. They have been at sea for a while now, and it is the middle of the night. The wind and the waves are fierce and swelling, and the boat is tossing and turning on the water.
Being on a boat in stormy weather in the middle of the sea would have scared me witless, but I don’t think the disciples were too bothered by it. They were more experienced at sailing, and wind and waves came with the territory in their fishing, boating lives. What scared them was something altogether different. They saw a ghost out on the water. That is, they thought they saw a ghost.
Of course, we know that it was Jesus walking across the water, through the tempest, headed for the 12 in their boat. But when the disciples looked up and saw a shadowy figure, distant on the water, headed their way - they shouted, cried, and cowered because they thought Jesus was a ghost. The wind whipped all around them - It was chaos.
Jesus heard their cries, which rose up like an alarming chorus of fear above the slapping sounds of the water on the sides of their sailing ship, and he said those most comforting of words,
Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. It’s me.
When Peter heard Jesus’ voice a switch flipped somewhere inside of him. His own voice became steady; he focused intensely, with laser-like precision, on Jesus; he was uncommonly calm and collected, and he said, “Lord if it’s you, Call me and I’ll come.”
Jesus said, Come.
The other disciples must have thought Peter had absolutely lost his mind when he stepped over the side of the boat. (Can you imagine if you had been there? in the boat?) But he placed his foot on the surface of the chaotic sea….and it planted firmly, like on solid ground.
Then Peter walked.
He walked on the water toward Jesus, who was not at all a ghost. Jesus and Peter walked towards each other on the very surface of the dancing sea which surely shimmered in the moonlight.
Don’t you know that was a graceful moment…the two of them walking on the water.
Peter was focused on Jesus. He forgot the wind and his fears, and he walked with Jesus, full of faith and grace. Then it was over.
As happens so very often to all of us, Peter lost his focus, suddenly everything around him was returned to chaos, a gust of wind whipped him in the face and the switch flipped again.
He tried to swallow, and he choked in a fit of fear. Suddenly he was terribly anxious, and he started to sink like a stone. Pulsing with panic, Peter shouted, “Lord, save me!”
Without hesitating Jesus reached out to Peter and pulled him back the surface of the sea. And Peter walked with Jesus to the boat. They climbed in, and the wind died down. Silence.
*
Now, I suppose at first glance, these 2 boat stories could be rather simply described as just that, two stories – one, a funny story about a father and his two sons, and the other, the legendary story of a remarkable miracle. Just stories.
But I think there is something deeper in them. I think they look like snapshots of the most deeply ordinary sort of everyday life. (What does that mean?)
I mean, how often do we fall out of the boat, panic, and then shortly realize that firm ground is not far below if only we’ll put our feet down?
How often do we, like Peter, screw up the courage to step out of the boat into the chaos beyond these walls only to sink with disappointment and fear as time passes?
How often does fear of failure whip us like the wind so that our focus falls off of God and comes to rest on the shaky ground beneath our feet?
And how often- here’s the hopeful part – how often do we call out to God, Lord save me, and then feel something, even if softly, like a hand on our shoulders, and hear, even if faintly, a windy whisper that sounds something like, here I am.
(If that has not been your experience then I bid you hear Peter’s story as a call to call out to God, Lord, save me.)
*
When I had the good sense to put my feet down the firm ground was there, not far away at all.
When Peter had the good sense to call out to Jesus - Jesus was immediately by his side.
We, Peter, Todd and I, have something else in common. We all sank in the water again, and not a one of us drowned.
I went sailing with Todd and my dad several more times over the course of my childhood. And I promise you we flipped the boat every time. No kidding. We, Harrison men, might be a lot of things, but we are not sailors.
Likewise, I am certain that Peter stepped out of his boat over, and over again throughout his life, and sometimes he walked on the water, and sometimes he sank like an anchor weight…and cried out to God like a frightened child. And when he called - God reached out immediately.
Friends, what I mean to say is that God can be relied on.
Really, that’s the hopeful point I mean to make. That’s the hopeful point I think the gospel means to make. God can be relied on.
I know - it sounds too simple, but it’s true. Call out, go on, call out, you’ll see.
Call out saying, Lord save me.
Lord save me. Lord save me.
Or…just put your feet down.
Amen.