Rector's Sermon
7 August 2011

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
1 Kings 19:9-18	Psalm 85:8–13	Romans 10:5–15	Matthew 14:22–33

       The Gospel story of the disciples in the boat in a storm on the Sea of Galilee and of Peter’s attempt to reach Jesus brought to mind two other boat stories. In the first, Jesus is sleeping and a storm suddenly comes up. The disciples become terrified that the boat will swamp, as Jesus continues to sleep through all the commotion. Anxiously, they awake Jesus, imploring, “Help! Don’t you care that we are about to capsize?” Jesus sizes up the situation and replies, “Don’t panic, keep the course into the waves,” and the water calmed down and the storm ended. (Matthew 8:24-34)

       In the second story, found in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the disciples to put out away from shore, after they had had an unsuccessful night of fishing. Suddenly, the nets are full of fish, so full that the boat is in danger of sinking. Here again the disciples are confounded, don’t know what to do, and are close to a stage of panic. Peter speaks for all the disciples when, in effect, he exclaims, “What is the significance of this large haul of fish?” (Luke 5:2-12)

       In today’s Gospel, the disciples are crossing the lake to meet Jesus on the other side. A storm whips up and the disciples are again very concerned. Perhaps it was a small fishing boat, not built to hold anyway near twelve people. Again the disciples are close to panic. In the midst of the storm, there appears a figure, perhaps even a storm demon, and a bad omen, walking on the water towards them. Jesus assures them it was he who was coming to be with them. Peter, always impulsive by nature, asks Jesus if he could come to him.  Jesus replies of course, and Peter jumps overboard, perhaps a little too confident in his own ability, to show the other disciples how brave he is. He begins to sink and cries to Jesus,  “Save me.” Jesus reaches out his hand, grabs him, and brings him safely into the boat, as the storm subsides. 

       A boat has always been a symbol for the locally gathered people of faith. Just look up at the ceiling, built as a hull of a ship. We are inevitably at sea; surrounded by the waters that can, without much notice, churn up into frothy waves of chaos.  It can be a challenge to keep from being swamped by the waves, or being driven by the wind broadside so that we capsize into the abyss. What the boat stories of the Gospel are telling us is that we don’t navigate the waters of our time and culture solely by our own skill and reckoning. We don’t catch fish solely by our own skill and perseverance. We can indeed accomplish much on our own, but we still need the guidance and the grace of Jesus. We don't get through the storms of life alone. The good news in all this is that God cares, even when in our panic it seems God is absent or asleep.  God will come to us.

       While on vacation, I worshipped at three Episcopal parishes on Sunday, all very different in widespread locations from Albany, NY to Charleston, South Carolina They serve as boats for people of faith, surrounded by the waters of their particular environment. These parishes certainly never controlled the waters they float in, and yes these waters and the storms they had endured had profoundly influenced them all. Nevertheless, they are all healthy, vibrant parishes of the Episcopal Church because they had trusted in the living Christ being there for them, and trusted in God’s guidance, not solely their own, and in moments when it seemed as if either history or the changing neighborhood would overwhelm them, they remembered the boat stories of the disciples on the Sea of Galilee. To be sure, they aren’t perfect or totally unsinkable. One, especially, had some leaks, about which I would be concerned, but overall, all of them are quite seaworthy, and I would not be afraid to climb aboard and sail with them.

       The waters ahead for St. John’s will not always be calm. So much of the future is out of our control. We do have a responsibility and call to respond to this future, but the waters this parish will sail upon are not ours to command or even to insist on being provided an accurate chart of the shoals and sandbars before setting out. Nonetheless, our Lord calls us to set out, to cast the nets, to leave the safe harbors, to get into the boat and throw off the lines and raise the anchor. Yes, there will be instances of near panic ahead, but don’t let the clouds of panic obscure the hand of Jesus reaching out to support you. Across the waters of two thousand millennia, the boat stories assure us, Jesus is also there awaiting to be recognized, awaiting to be called upon, and will not desert us in our voyage on the waters on this earth, even in the most unsettled or stormiest of weather

       And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.