Sunday 08/09/20 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “Can You Walk On Water?”
Old Testament Scripture: Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b
New Testament Scripture: Romans 10:5-15
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 14:22-33
Friends, welcome again on this our Tenth Sunday after Pentecost.
This morning, as I discussed in our
children’s ministry time, we have one of the gospel accounts of Jesus walking
on water. Quite an amazing miracle, and it occurred in rough waters and in large
waves, no less.
Before diving into our gospel lesson
for this morning though, I want to talk a little bit about the sovereignty and
the authority of God. Do you know, for example, that many devout Jews will not even
write the word “God” on paper? If they do, they will write a capital G, then a
dash, and then a d. They will basically write capital “G-d”. They do this, so
that they have not written the name of God fully. The first time that one of my
friends who is a Jewish Rabbi did this, I asked him, why don’t you write the full
word for God? The Rabbi said that “G-d’s” name is so holy and so righteous,
that he does not write it in its fullness. Meaning, that “G-d’s” name is so
much bigger and so far beyond us, that we should not even write it fully on paper.
This same orthodox Jewish friend told
me that when traditional Jews read the holy scriptures, they do not touch the
pages or the scrolls that the scriptures are written upon. For the words of the
scripture are to holy to touch. Therefore, you will see some Jews with the “The
Torah,” or the first five books of the Old Testament, and “The Torah” scroll that
they carry has wood handles. These wood handles ensure that the holy word of
almighty “G-d” will not be touched by our human hands.
So, “G-d’s” name is too holy to fully
write, and “G-d’s” word is too holy to touch. This view of God is one where God
is sovereign, is in control, and we are to seek him in all things. In the world
that Jesus grew up in, the view and the worship of “G-d” existed for many in the
ways that I just described. They depended upon “G-d,” and everything good came
from “G-d”.
In this “Post-Modern” era that we are
living in now however, we are now in an era where the basic values of our Judeo-Christian,
or Jewish and Christian heritage are no longer commonly held. Further, the sovereignty
of God has been challenged by many. It is funny that even to this day that if I
have a Bible on a table or on a desk, I am uncomfortable having another book or
anything else on top of the Bible. Why? Well, because the Bible is God’s holy
word, and since it has such value and authority, I cannot cover it up.
Until recent years, belief in God and the
sovereignty of God was the standard in our culture and many. We now though live
in, as I said though, an era of “Post-Modernism,” or “Post-Truth”. Our culture
unfortunately no longer, in general, believes in the sovereignty and the
authority of God as they once did. As a result of this, in some circles
Christianity has become more humanistic. God becomes less and smaller and we
become more. We say a prayer to God, but we begin to see ourselves as the power
and the authority of God here on earth. Some decide that they believe that they
know exactly what God wants for the whole of humanity, and then they go forth
believing that they are living out God’s perfect will for the whole world.
Such folks are not ill intended, but
instead of fully trusting the sovereignty of God, they have assumed in their
minds, some, or much of the sovereignty and the authority of God for
themselves. For if you don’t believe in miracles, if you don’t believe that God
can do anything on earth and in heaven, if you don’t believe that God can heal
us and restore us, if you don’t believe that the Holy Scriptures have any
authority, well then just what do you believe? It is shifting our faith which
was once solidly centered on Jesus Christ, to be more centered on ourselves. Some
might use the teachings of Jesus to build an ideology and a theology, but they might
not teach or espouse God’s ultimate authority through His only Son, Jesus
Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We can attempt to make the church “hip,”
trendy, or change foundational beliefs in God, to bring a new and much more
secular generation into the church. We can decide that the historic truths that
have been believed for millennia were true then, but not true now.
To be fair, it is true that various religious
groups have done awful things historically at times, citing their holy
scriptures. Different groups of people have been marginalized and harmed, and
this was wrong. Yet, just because someone mis-read their VCR instructions, it does
not mean that they throw out their VCR. In the era that we are living in now
though, I worry that much of the mystery and the majesty of God has been stripped
away by some. I have heard some people say things to me like, “Oh Pastor Paul,
people don’t believe in all those miracles and powerful things anymore”. Well I
do, and so do most Christians the world over, as they have for almost two-thousand
years.
Some have said to me, “But Paul if you
continue to teach the old beliefs, it shows that you don’t want to change, and
you will lose the next generation”. It is true that the younger generations are
in general much less connected to churches than they used to, but from
everything that I have seen and read, most young Christians are ones that believe
in the historic and unchanging faith of the Christian Church. By this I mean,
the basic teaching of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit.
When we look at our reading this
morning from Psalm 105, verse 1-3 says:
“O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known his
deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to
him; tell of all his wonderful works. Glory
in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek
the Lord rejoice” (Ps. 105: 1-3, NRSV).
How many people do you know that still
view God like the Psalmist does this morning? That God is our hope that we
should praise Him, and sing to Him? How many people do we know that believe in
God as more of a loose construct, and not as the very source of our life, our breath,
our hope, our salvation, and our eternity?
In
looking at the Apostle Paul’s letter or epistle to the Romans for this morning,
the Apostle Paul tells us once again in 10:9-13:
“because if
you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the
heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The
scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” For there is
no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is
generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved” (Rom.
10:9-13, NRSV).
The Apostle Paul was so committed to
his faith in Christ that he went all over, preaching, teaching, and loving. He
was even martyred in Rome for his faith in Christ. He did not believe in a loose
view of God, but instead he believed that the savior that was promised in the
Jewish scriptures, or what we call the Old Testament, was and is Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul believed that Jesus was and is the savior the world. He
believed this so strongly in fact, that it cost him his life, as church
tradition holds that he was beheaded in Rome for his faith in Christ. Is Jesus
the center of our lives? He is in mine.
Given all of this, if we as Christian reject
much of the wonder, power, and the authority of God, then what is left?
Generally, what is left is a Christian faith that is heavily centered on political,
economic, and social issues. Do not miss hear me though, many of these things
are important and deserve attention, but none of them are to ever overshadow
the authority of God in Jesus Christ.
This takes me back to our gospel lesson
for this morning, once again from the gospel of Matthew. In this gospel lesson,
Jesus walks on water. If God is all powerful and sovereign, and if Jesus was the
fullness of God in the flesh on earth, then what could God not do?
Some would say, “But Pastor Paul, walking
on water on scientifically impossible”. I would say, this is true, for us humans,
but could God do this? Of course, if you believe that God is still present,
still among us, and is still continually active in our lives. Those that reject
the miracles of scripture are attempting to lessen God and increase us. The
real question is, how small can God get before we are really God, and we just
reference God here or there? We do not pray much, we do not read scripture
much, and God is just there somewhere? This exceptionally low view of God and
this more nominal understanding of the Christian faith is, I believe, one of
leading causes of the decline of Christianity in American and Western culture.
So, let us look once again at our
gospel lesson for this morning. It says:
“Immediately he made the disciples get
into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to
pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat,
battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And
early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the
disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a
ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them
and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Mt. 14:22-27, NRSV).
Jesus,
being a man of prayer, sends his disciples across the Sea of Galilee in a boat,
as he went up the mountain to pray by himself. Jesus then leaves the disciples
on the water for a while, and the waves are knocking and rocking their boat. I
can imagine that disciples were afraid and worried in the boat like they did
when Jesus calmed the storm on the sea. In an amazing miracle, God in the
flesh, Jesus, walks towards them, on the water, and does not sink. It is also interesting
that the disciples when they saw Jesus shouted, “It is a ghost!”.
Given
this, did the disciples believe in ghosts? This is sort of a gray area in
Christian teaching, as to be a ghost means that you have not crossed to eternity,
and you are lingering here on earth. Or maybe since ghosts are part of the
folklore of many cultures, the Apostles said they saw a ghost, but they did not
really mean literally. This one is certainly up for debate!
The
other important question to ask here, is why did Jesus Christ our Lord walk on
the water towards the disciples in their boat? I mean he could have just
appeared in the boat, and all would be well. Why did Jesus feed thousands in
our gospel lesson from last week? Couldn’t Jesus have just reinforced who he
was? Why did Jesus heal, forgive, and do the amazing things he did? Couldn’t Jesus
have just preached?
What
gets conflated here, is that faith without living like Jesus is all we need to
do here on earth. I do not believe that this is true, but I also do not believe
that all the Christian faith is, is what we do here on this earth. What we do
on this earth matters, but if we do not believe that God is all powerful,
sovereign, and authoritative, then how can we be sure that we are following God’s
perfect will for our lives?
Do
I believe that Jesus literally walked on water in our gospel lesson for this
morning? Of course, He was God on earth. So why did Jesus do all the things he
did? The primary reason was so that people would believe in Him and have faith in
Him. Sure, we are to love all, help all, feed all, etc., but never independent
of the authority of Jesus Christ. Jesus walks on water, not us. The head of the
church is not us, not me, but Jesus. If the church becomes a secular form of
Christianity, where Jesus is merely a nice guy, who did nice things, or maybe did
not do them at all, then why even have a church? The strength and the authority
of the church has always been in Jesus.
So,
walking on water? Well, if you meet the qualifications to die for the sins of
all of humanity, and if you literally rose bodily from the dead, then I think
yes walking on water is child’s play. When we have deep faith in Christ, when seek
him, follow him, cling to him, as we feed, cloth, love, heal, and forgive, then
the church will have strength. The church will have a future, it will grow, as
will our faith and our hope.
In
looking at the rest of the gospel of Matthew reading once again, our gospel
ends saying:
“Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you,
command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of
the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he
noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried
out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him,
saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the
boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you
are the Son of God”
(Mt. 14:28-33, NRSV).
Peter,
putting his full trust in Christ, begins to walk on the water on the Sea of
Galilee. Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and loses faith, and he begins to sink.
Jesus then pulls him up out of the water and says, “You of little faith”. Jesus
then brings Peter into the boat, and the wind and waves cease. The Apostles
worship Christ and proclaim that he is indeed the Son of God.
Jesus is more that just a moral teacher, and he came, lived, loved, healed, preached, died, rose, ascended, all for us. His whole life was one of extravagant love and he invites into relationship with Him. If we turn from our sin and our darkness, He will embrace us. He will lead us, fill us, and can us to change the world. Jesus is the head of church, not us. So, can we walk on water? Nope, but Jesus can. Amen.
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