Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, preached on Sunday, August 13, 2023.
It is the common complaint. Though it may not be in water, we find ourselves drowning in a thousand things. We live with disappointments that consume us and poison our relationships. We live with anger that spurns resentment and fills us with bitterness. We live with fears that steal away our peace. We live with anxiety that undermines our confidence and courage. We live with suspicion that turns everything into a personal threat. We live with a digital reality that promises everything but delivers little of its promise. We are drowning. We are suffocating. We are dying. And then some Pastor is going to tell you to keep your eyes on Jesus and it will all go away. We are drowning precisely because the things we thought would help, failed us. And now we wonder what Jesus can do.
The Gospel for today is often summarized to “keep your eyes on Jesus and you will be okay.” It is not quite that simple. When Peter stepped out on the water to walk to Jesus, the water did not turn to stone. It remained water. Worse than that, it remained stormy water, stirred up by wind and storm, and filled with threat. Jesus did not ask Peter to trade the uncertain waters of the storm for the safety of the harbor or shore. Instead He called Peter to put His trust in what He could not see and would not know until He stepped out of the boat. The miracle was not that Peter looked down and succumbed to his fear. That was expected. It happens to all of us every day. The miracle was that as long as Peter focused his faith and trust in Jesus, he actually stood in the midst of the storm.
Our great temptation is to believe that the only way we can stand is if the storm goes away. So we pray the Lord to take the storms of our lives away, to calm the troubled waters of our days, and to take away the turmoil in our hearts. How often do we pray the Lord to stand in the midst of the storms, to stand in the troubled waters of our daily lives, and to stand even when our hearts are filled with turmoil and upset? It is great when the storms go away but we all know that as soon as one storm passes, another one will come along. We see that in the weather. Take along an umbrella. Take a coat just in case. We live with the unpredictable every time we look to the skies but when it comes to our lives, we want the unpredictable to go away and we want a predictable peace.
That would be great but the reality is that it is not going to happen. We live in a sinful world out there and with sinful hearts in here. Our peace is daily threatened. The devil roars about like a lion seeking whom he may devour. He is no toothless lion but a real threat. The world is not some passive or neutral place but is set against the things of God and the people of God. It is not simply that there is evil out there. It is that the good things in this world can prove as harmful to us as the bad. When the good deceives us so that we are satisfied with it and yearn for nothing more, the good has stolen our souls just like the evil can. The people in our lives are not good at heart with a thin veneer of sin but, like us, sinful and unclean. Our great expectations of others are traps and threats as well.
Nothing is as much a threat to our peace as our own hearts. St. Paul said best. The good that we would, we do not an the sin that we would not, we do over and over again. Our desires infect our thoughts and poison our words and consume our minds until even the Christian can feel like he or she is drowning. We go to church and we read our Bibles and we pray but we still feel the storm around us and the churning waves under us. All we want is for it to go away – if not forever then just long enough so that we can breathe and rest.
Jesus does not offer us such a respite. He does not say your enemies will disappear or the storms of life inside or outside of you will cease or that the ground on which you walk will become solid and sure. What He does promise is that none of these has claim on you like He has claim on you. They can threaten but He will hold on to you. They can distract you but He will not hide Himself from you. They can stir up your feelings until you do not know which way is up or which is down but He always knows and He has hold of you. Strangely, we are always glancing away, wondering if the storm is gone so that we can let go of Jesus. But the storms remain so that we might never let go of Him who will never let go of us.
Peter could see Jesus. The Lord was right in front of him. The same Lord who told him to get out of the boat and walk to Him was right there before Peter’s eyes. It is not that the Lord abandons us to even is distant from us. He is right here. In His Word He still speaks. In baptismal water He still raised the dead. In absolution He still sets prisoners free. In the Eucharist He still feeds the hungry. He heals us with His grace now in the moment and to everlasting life. Peter did not see Jesus because the only things Peter allowed into his heart and mind were his fears, his anxiety, his disappointment, his disillusionment, his sorrow, and his weakness. Jesus did not let Peter down. Peter never gave Jesus a chance. Peter was too busy looking for calm so that he would not need Jesus - until the next time.
Scripture is blunt, perhaps too blunt. The Good Shepherd sets His table in the presence of our enemies – not in some utopian place hidden from our enemies. The Lord of the cross who paid once for all for our sin calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. Jesus warns that in this life you will have sorrow and pain before the perfect release of eternal life steals them away. Jesus insists that we will be persecuted but insists this is not a sign we have been abandoned but the mark of those in whom Christ lives and who live in Him.
This is the promise. The storms are around you, the surging waves are beneath you, but Christ is in you. This is your focus. This is your faith. This is your hope. This is your courage. The same Lord who endured suffering that the price of your sin might be paid and who died the death for sin that you might be free and who rose so that you might know you have a life death cannot overcome is in you. By His Spirit, your cold dead hearts have been given new life from above.
Peter looked down and saw that the threats were still there and he could not look back upon Jesus. You are always looking down and around at the things that are not right, not as they should be, and not as you hope they were – whether in you or in the world around you or even in the Church. Because of that you cannot turn away from your disappointment and see that Jesus is still here, with you always, even to the end of the age, bestowing the fruits of His redeeming work upon you. You are never worthy of such grace but it is His joy to bestow upon what you could never earn or merit. Look to Him. Look for Him where He has promised to be. Look at Him when life out there and life in here threatens. He is your rescue, your redemption, you savior, your salvation, your life, and your peace.
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