This sermon was originally delivered at the online Sunday service of Scarsdale Congregational Church in Scarsdale, NY, on August 9, 2020.
We are capable of more than we imagine. I witnessed this truth in action over and over when I used to work as a teacher of English to speakers of other languages. Again and again, students would come from all over the world, some with little or no English background, and a lot of them would initially feel totally overwhelmed and discouraged by what they suddenly realized was a monumental challenge. And yet, again and again, after a few months of intensive study and immersion, they would find themselves confidently conversing and expressing themselves in environments that, just a few months earlier had been inaccessible to them. We are capable of more than we imagine.
I learned this truth again when I was training to be a chaplain in a prison, where the women I met there demonstrated incredible wisdom, insight, and resilience, defying all expectations of what they were capable of, including their own and, I admit, my own.
And I learned this lesson again when I became a hospital chaplain and I am constantly learning it anew, when I show up at the bedside of strangers going through impossibly difficult situations and discover, against all odds, a human connection that transforms both of us for the better.
The boundaries of the possible are much wider than we assume.
Of course, we also have limits, and shouldn’t be hard on ourselves about this. We are, after all, human— bound by our own needs and imperfections and the laws of science. So what are we 21st-century Christians meant to make of the Bible’s miracle stories? Especially one like this, which seems to be one of Jesus’ more frivolous miracles. He’s not healing or feeding anyone or even addressing any kind of need. We might read into this story that it is some kind of rescue mission, that the disciples in the boat were in danger, like they were on an earlier occasion when Jesus calmed the storm, but the passage doesn’t say that they were in danger. Just that the waters were choppy and a strong wind was against them. Was Jesus showing off? Did he just want to have some fun? And when the disciples on the boat looked up and saw the figure of a man standing in a place where the figure of a man most certainly should not be, no wonder they screamed in terror. To which Jesus replied, “Have courage. It’s me. Be not afraid.”
To be honest, I struggle with how to preach this story and its message of not being afraid to you in times like these, when there is so much to fear. Am I to instruct you to be like the apostle Peter and volunteer to exit the safety of the boat and walk on water at a time when so many of us feel like we are already exhausted from just trying to stay afloat? The pandemic of COVID-19, layered on top of the longstanding pandemic of institutionalized racism, has brought frighteningly to our attention just how many among us have been treading choppy waters for a long, long time. In the community I live in and serve in the Bronx, one in two hundred people have died from COVID-19. I have counseled families who have lost multiple family members to the virus, who have faced food and housing instability because the breadwinner and person whose name was on the lease has died. They were struggling before the pandemic hit and now they feel like they are drowning. Maybe what we really need right now is a Bible story counseling us to stay in the boat—to stay safe, to stay at home, to care for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors, and to let our fears be our instructors.
I do believe that the audience that Matthew’s gospel was originally written for could relate to the sensation that they were treading choppy waters. The gospel was likely written for a community of Hebrew Christians some time after the destruction of the Second Temple, under Roman rule and oppression. They, too, lived in times that were rife with loss and uncertainty. And from their location under the oppression of the Roman Empire, it is likely they would have recognized, in this miracle and in the preceding miracle of Jesus feeding the five thousand men, echoes of God’s Exodus miracles of parting the Red Sea when Israel was liberated from Egypt and providing manna for them in the wilderness. Perhaps they saw, in Jesus’ aquatic ambulations, the enduring promise of God’s faithfulness toward God’s people: a reminder like the one we heard read in the Psalm earlier: “Remember the wondrous works God has done, all God’s marvelous works, and the justice God declared—you who are the offspring of Abraham, his servant, and the children of Jacob, his chosen one” (Ps 105:5-6). The God who had showed up in impossibly difficult situations in the past had continued to show up and would continue to show up, to render the impossible possible, for those who put their faith in God.
Returning to the story in Matthew, I also can’t help wondering if Jesus himself was feeling some fear as he walked across the sea that early morning, the news of the gruesome murder of John the Baptist still fresh in his mind. Perhaps he sensed that his own boundary-transgressing ministry must inevitably be directing him toward a similar fate. Maybe he went for that watery stroll because, after having finally achieved a few hours of long-coveted solitude and prayer, he needed to return to the comfort and company of his small inner circle, his friends who, however imperfectly, still “got him” better than anyone else.
“Take heart,” Jesus calls to his friends from across the waters, “It’s me. Be not afraid.”
“Be not afraid” is the most commonly spoken command in the Bible. Angels always seem to have to say it when they show up and scare the wits out of mere mortals. The prevalence and importance of this phrase might leave us feeling guilty or inadequate when we find ourselves feeling scared, like we are somehow wrongheaded or just not putting enough faith in God. But fear and faith are not mutually exclusive experiences. The Quaker educator and activist Parker Palmer offers the helpful distinction, “‘Be not afraid’ doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to HAVE fear. It means you don’t have to BE your fear.” Even when our worlds are spiraling out of control, we can choose to operate out of a place of hope, a place where a different kind of reality is possible. That place of new possibility was the place that Jesus chose to operate out of throughout his ministry on this earth, the place he guided and instructed his followers to operate out of, too.
Last week I watched the recent documentary by Dawn Porter about Congressman John Lewis and his more than six decades of social activism. And I found myself stunned by some footage, early on in the film, of Bloody Sunday in 1965 when peaceful protesters were massacred by state troopers. I was struck by the fact that the past does not stay in the past: what happened in Selma, Alabama all those years ago is still happening today, in Portland, in New York City, and all throughout this country and this world. The fight is still being fought. In the words of Angela Davis, “Freedom is a constant struggle.”
And that’s hard.
And it’s scary.
But something this film also showed is how, throughout the struggle, people like Rep. Lewis and so many countless others have showed up to challenge the oppressive status quo, to get into “good trouble” and transgress the boundaries of the possible. Their example—the fact that they have done it and still are doing it—encourages us that we can, too.
The bad news, as we in 2020 know and as our early Christian ancestors knew too well nearly two millennia ago, is that the winds of injustice rage on. Standing against these winds is hard and can feel impossible. But the good news is that the God who Jesus worshiped and represented is one who has been transgressing the boundaries of the possible for us for a long time. And if the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water is meant to teach us something, maybe it is that, even when we feel afraid, when we operate from a place of faith, the boundaries of the possible are wider than we think.
Interestingly, even though Mark and John’s gospels also contain the story of Jesus walking on water, only Matthew includes the part about Peter walking on water, too. And yet this is the version I think we tend to be most familiar with. Maybe it is because, in Peter’s own enthusiastic but imperfect attempt to imitate Jesus, we find resonance with our own experience. And maybe it is encouraging to be reminded that even Peter, whom Jesus gently rebukes for having “little faith,” managed to find in himself an ability that, without Jesus’ example, he never would have dreamed he had.
This week, as I was preparing this sermon, I was inspired to sit down and write out a list of people who have encouraged me, by their example, to find in myself an ability that I never dreamed I had. And I would encourage you to try something similar. You might find yourself including people you know as well as well as people you’ve never met but whose stories inspire you. You might include figures from the Bible and from history. And then you might consider maybe adding yourself to that list, since chances are you, too, have accomplished a few things you once thought impossible. So be your own inspiration.
And then together let’s imagine that we can do even more than what’s been done before. Because the God who transcends all limits has been fighting, is fighting, and will never stop fighting for those who put their trust in God. A God who will always take a risk on the preposterous hypothesis that this imperfect and bumbling group of disciples can do more and be more than we can possibly imagine.
