How Can We Preach this Tired Story in a Way That People Can Hear it?
Gospel Reading: Matthew 14:22-33
For Sunday, August 7 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 19
This story is about, well, life and death and who Jesus is and what that means when Jesus is coming toward us walking toward us.
It is a ghost story.
It is hard for me to feel the fear in this story. I think it's simply the amount of times I have heard it.
Jesus walking on the water. Peter walks on the water and then takes his eyes of Jesus and starts to sink and yells, to Jesus “Save me!” and Jesus reaches out to him pulls him up and they get back in the boat. Jesus spanks him a little—“Ye of little faith—Why did you doubt?” The rest of the disciples look up into Jesus’ eyes with Peter and confess in unison “Truly you are the Son of God,”
Lessons that tell themselves.
It is hard to think of it as real, because I know it so well. I have heard so many sermons and songs and lessons about it. When I read the story those lessons just start telling themselves to me.
You know, you have to keep your eyes on Jesus—or you know there were eleven other people that didn’t get out of the boat—get out of the boat, Russell.
So well constructed.
It is also hard to think of as real because it is so well constructed—it is structured so that Peter’s cry for Jesus—“Lord save me!” —is exactly in the middle of the story. There is the same number of Greek words before it and after.
Not only that, it is almost exactly in the middle of Matthew’s Gospel. The center of the whole story and the center of the whole Gospel is Peter’s "Save Me!" And Jesus reaching out and grabbing him. It is not until Peter really starts to go under that he yells out for Jesus.
So metaphorical.
It is all so metaphorical. A metaphor for what?
Salvation: If you call on his name you will be saved? Jesus doesn’t reach out for you until you truly realize you need him? Or maybe that Jesus keeps coming to us; that he is always right; that there is no need to be afraid?
Or it is okay to be afraid—Jesus is right there even in your fear?
It seems like it is something about fear and Jesus coming to us. There is fear all over this text, this situation. Jesus and his followers have just heard about Herod, murdering John the Baptist—Jesus, mentor, friend, cousin. And have heard that Herod thinks Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead. So now Herod is after Jesus. When Jesus hears this he tries to go into hiding. He quietly leaves in a boat to a deserted place. But people heard that he was leaving and the follow him. So the deserted place fills up with a huge crowd. And instead of hiding out he teaches the people all day and then feeds them with a miraculous meal.
This might be the end.
When everyone has finished eating he sends his disciples away in a boat. Then he dismisses the rest of the people, then he goes up into the mountains by himself. To pray.
So, maybe he was not running away to hide. But he wants to be by himself. He doesn’t want the disciples around. Why? Maybe to protect them? If he was going to get caught he did not want them to get caught with him. In Mathew Jesus only goes off by himself to pray twice. Once is here and the other time is right before he actually is caught and arrested. So, maybe Jesus thinks this might be the end. Jesus maybe thinks he is about to be arrested, maybe killed.
Evidently the disciples are thinking the same thing. Because when they see Jesus coming toward them walking on the water they think it is a ghost. Jesus’ ghost. Maybe that is how you can preach this in a fresh way—as a ghost story.
The Hardest Question
How can we preach this tired story in a way that people can hear it?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
