"The Courage To…..Sink"
First Congregational Church -- Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 10, 2008
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[texts: Rom. 10: 5-15/Matt. 14:22-33]

On Wednesday this past week I had the privilege of helping our VBS students – and a few adult helpers – to walk on water. Well, in actuality they were walking on a mixture of corn starch and water tinted blue. But, it was still a fluid! If they moved across the vat quickly enough the children barely left an impression, but if they slowed down, if they hesitated, they began to sink and the stuff oozed up around their toes. Yes, we were telling the very Gospel story we heard today and the core lesson was that Jesus gives us the power to be brave. And, in the midst of the giggles, the “eews” and other wondrous noises of energetic children they learned, at least I think they did, that God is with them always and that’s the power, the courage Jesus gives to us – the assurance of the Divine presence. Something else I learned from watching them though was this, part of what we have to do is have the courage to sink and the encounter with the Divine is what gives us this courage. Let me explain, in a bit of a round-about way what I mean, because I want to go from “walking on water” to outer space.

From the onset of modern astronomy we have speculated about life on other planets. Scientists continue to work diligently to discover if "there is something out there." However, it has been the artists, writers, and film makers who have had the most influence on popular culture and mindset. Science Fiction has offered much in the way of what such a "close encounter" with people from other worlds would be like. Some project hostility, like H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, made forever infamous by Wisconsite Orson Welles' radio adaptation. A more benign, peaceful vision is offered by Steven Spielberg's E.T. in the relationship between the little alien and Elliott. The list, and the review, could go on and on.

What I find curious is how the encounter with 'extraterrestrial' has become a metaphor for religious experience. There are myriad examples, including E.T., but the most transparent one is the concept called 'the Force' in George Lucas' Star Wars films. Intelligent beings from outer space also fueled Eric van Daneken's attempts to explain numerous ancient wonders, like the pyramids and other magnificent structures, in his book and film Chariots of the Gods. These two, but really all of these attempts, seek to explain why there is this hunger in the human person to know something greater than ourselves. What space has given us is simply a new twist to an old problem, how do I explain myself and where I came from?

Both in the case of science, 'hard' or fiction, and religion what is at issue are faith and encounter. No matter how much 'proof' there is, at the core of science is faith that principles, laws, observation, and the like will lead us to truth. This same conviction is shared by religion. What ultimately gives us the faith to follow through with a series of experiments or to enter into a life of contemplation or service is an encounter. Talk to a scientist about how he or she first began the quest for some particular area of knowledge and he or she will tell you that there was an encounter, almost a revelatory experience.

While there are strong similarities for the religious experience, and here I would recommend to you William James' Varieties of Religious Experience and Jonathan Edwards' Treatise On Religious Affections as classic studies, there is a profound difference. The researcher encounters something outside the self. The seeker after God encounters something at once external and integral to the self. It's the difference between, say, a close encounter of the third kind, to steal from a movie title, and a close encounter of the Divine kind. And, in each of those cases of encounter, there is also a moment where we become willing to take the risk to discover, to experience, to know for ourselves in a new and a real way. That, I believe is the courage to sink.

The disciples were still reeling from the experience of seeing Jesus use five loaves and two small fish to feed a crowd of more than five thousand people. They're no doubt speculating about the identity of this gentle teacher who does things only God can do. Now he tells them he must go off to pray and, the Greek text is explicit, he "forces" them to get into the boat so he can be alone. (There is material here for further reflection when we consider that the Second Person of the Divine Trinity still went apart to pray and be in contact with the Heavenly Father.) Off they go and soon find themselves in a desperate situation when a storm blows up. After many hours, the disciples struggling with the boat and Jesus in prayer, they see Jesus coming to them "walking on the water."

Matthew here evokes a number of Scriptural references to make the point, again, that in Jesus the disciples had encountered the Divine. The scene itself reminds us of Genesis chapter one and the chaotic waters which God tames in creation. He also references Psalm 107:23-32 which reminds of the Lord's ability to still storms in his steadfast love for his children.

[Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters;
they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity; they reeled and staggered like drunkards, and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
Let them extol him in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.]

So what Jesus does in coming to them walking on the waters, like the multiplication of the loaves and fish, is something only God can do. In Job 9:8 it says that it is God, "who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled on the waves of the sea." These texts also are evocative of those found elsewhere (like Exodus 14:13-31, Psalm 77:20, or Isaiah 43:16) where God's walking on the waters is tied to the Exodus event when the sea is parted and liberty is obtained.

When one has encounter of the Divine kind there is a moment of new creation and liberation. The disciples, as usual, aren't quite sure what they're seeing until they hear Jesus call out to them, "Fear not. It is I." Again, the encounter with the Divine is emphasized because Jesus' use of that construction "It is I" is to remind us of Moses' encounter with God at Sinai and God’s self-revelation as "I Am Who Am." We're reminded here, then, that what we're supposed to see is that Jesus does what God does and goes by the same Name and conclude that in Jesus we encounter the Divine.

What happens when we enter into this Divine encounter? Peter, always impetuous, works up enough courage to say to Jesus, "Command me to come to you on the water." And as he is bid to walk forth, he leaves the boat and walks on the water. He musters up the courage to sink and steps out. As long as he keeps his eyes on Jesus, stays focused, he too is able to do what only God can do. However, when he looks to himself and his situation -- he begins to sink. And, again, Jesus does what the Psalms and other Scriptures attribute only to God, he rescues the drowning.

Peter's close encounter of the Divine kind is a good reminder of how we are to live in relationship with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. When we become too self-focused (and this can apply to a church as well as to an individual), turning our eyes so inward that we can no longer see the God who beckons to us, we begin to sink. The great theologian of the early church, Origen, wrote about Peter, and every Christian:

"’Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Hearing these reassuring words, perhaps there will be one among us animated by a greater ardor, a Peter, walking toward perfection but not yet perfect, who will get out of the boat, knowing he has escaped the trail which was shaking him. First of all, in his desire to meet Jesus, he will walk on the water, but, his faith still being insufficient, he still doubting, he will grow afraid and will begin to sink. However, he will escape this misfortune, because he will call upon Jesus with great cries, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’ then the Logos will stretch out his hand, will help him, and hold him when he beings to sink, reproaching him for his lack of faith and his doubts. Note however that he did not say, ‘Unbeliever,’ but ‘Man of little faith.’ It is written, ‘Why did you doubt, for you had a little faith, but you swerved in the direction opposite to that faith.’”

The great preacher of the last century, Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "It is cynicism and fear that freeze life; it is faith that thaws it out, releases it, sets it free." Faith comes in the moment of encounter – it begins as the courage to sink and then finds the ability to walk, even on water. Sometimes we don't react well to the moment of Divine encounter, like Peter beginning to look away. The contemporary spiritual writer Anne Lamott's book Traveling Mercies recounts her own coming to faith after a long search and struggles with drug and alcohol addiction. She talks about how one night in 1984 she was sick, scared, and very near death.

“I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner. . . . I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. . . . And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, ‘I would rather die.’” She didn't die. She had the courage to sink, got out of her little boat of preconceptions, called an Episcopal priest who became her counselor and friend and found her way into Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City, California. In that group she found acceptance, love, care that have slowly brought her more and more into relationship with God.

Anne's story isn't unique. The Bible and Christian history are loaded with those who wondered what this relationship; this encounter of the Divine kind would do to them. Paul even persecuted the church and after the encounter could pen those comforting words, "all who call on the Name of the Lord will be saved." The Bible is full of stories showing how God takes us where we are, loves us where we are, and then -- through the ongoing encounter -- brings us to where we need to be. In each case of the encounter, there is first the courage to sink, the willingness to open ourselves to encounter God and to encounter others. The courage to sink even implies the willingness, the openness, to fail – and that’s not something most of us enter into willingly. Still, it’s a powerful point, because at some juncture we have to be willing to simply get out of the boat; stop lying back there with our fears and baggage and step out onto the water.

Anne spoke to this in an interview several years ago in The Christian Century, I think what she says is wonderful. She said, “I just think Christianity is so rich and profound. The dogmatic, judgmental, televangelist presentation of Christianity has scared so many people away and made them feel like they must be doing such a bad job that they should just cut their losses and get out. I don't have a relationship with a God like that. I have a relationship with a God who is so tender and so willing to keep letting me start over. It's like that old Christian saying: God loves us exactly the way we are and he loves us too much to let us stay like that. That's really been my experience. I can't blow it so badly that God doesn't still love me -- and I can also feel in me the stirrings of wanting to get a little bit cleaner on the inside and little bit quieter and a little bit less self-driven.”

You see I believe that God is the first one to show the courage to sink, to take the risk of relationship. God began the encounter of the Divine kind when God made the world, when God came to Moses in a bush that burned. God continued the encounter in Jesus who reminded us who God is, who we are and how much God loves us. God continues the encounter through the Lord’s free people, the church, through Word and sacrament, and through the wonders of the world God made. Jesus told the disciples, "Don't be afraid." He calls us to come to the encounter without fear and, like Anne said, he calls us to that encounter again-and-again as we come to know more clearly that he is with us and who we are.

This is not the stuff of science fiction, but the reality of encountering the God who creates, who liberates, who renews us as we take the risk to leave the comfortable boat of our lives and walk on the water toward him. The very first thing we have to do is muster up the courage to sink, to put aside the fears, the self-doubt, and all of the other things that would keep us cowering in the boat. Then we have to step out and onto the water. Have the courage to sink. Don't be afraid, it is He. Amen.