Ask me to do the impossible! (Aug 9)

Reading, Matthew 14:22-33
 
The moment that puzzles me most in this reading is Peter’s response to hearing Jesus identify himself as the figure approaching them across the water.
Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
The more I think about it the stranger it feels that Peter chooses this command unprompted.
 
To recap, the disciples are out on the boat near dawn, the winds are against them and they have spent hours being battered by the waves. A figure approaches them in the darkness, seemingly walking on the water… understandably they are terrified of this approaching ghost, perhaps come to bring them down to a watery grave. Hearing their fear the figure responds, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.
 
Now what adds to my puzzlement, or exacerbates the strangeness of what Peter says next, is that it is unclear how sure the disciples are that it is Jesus. Perhaps in the crashing of waves and whooshing of wind it is hard to discern for certain the source of this voice? Perhaps the phantom is posing as a trusted voice so that they drop their guard? Perhaps it is Jesus and so their fears of immanent ghost attack are replaced by concern for what this storm will do to Jesus or their boat? The thing is, I’m not sure which of these scenarios best explains Peter’s request: Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

We’ve all had to prove our identity (or, increasingly, our humanity), we’ve had to produce documents, gather witnesses, or click every square with traffic lights. We have had to take steps in order to gain the trust and access of an institution, a website, an account, etc. You’ve probably also watched a film or television series where there’s a doppelganger, evil twin, or a malevolent character masquerading as our hero, and the tension involves whether the real will be recognised. There’s lots of ways this is ascertained – perhaps asking some esoteric question about a childhood memory, or creating a situation to test character (not unlike Solomon’s decision to cut the child in half to reveal the true mother). In Toy Story 2, the “real” Buzz Lightyear holds up his foot to reveal his child’s name written on his sole. All that is to say, that when faced with all these options, Peter’s choice: Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water seems ill-thought through.
 
Peter could have said, Lord, if it is you, tell me where we first met… or Lord, if it is you, how many loaves and fish did you just turn into a feast… or Lord, if it is you, save us from this storm. All of these would suffice, and might actually better reveal the character of Jesus. For Jesus has not asked them to do anything quite so drastic as walk on water. Lord, if it is you, ask the impossible!
 
Some strategy. Why is it Peter chooses this option? It intrigues me. Well, since I’m up here, and chose the reading, and to begin the sermon this way, I do have a possible response. But before I get to that, I wonder what you make of it? Why do you think Peter chooses this means of affirming Jesus’ identity? Discussion.
 
Here's what I have. The feeding of the 5000 represents a fundamental shift in the relationship of Jesus to his disciples. Because it is the first miracle of Jesus that involves the disciples. The disciples have seen Jesus heal, they have seen him restore a girl to life, they have seen him cast out demons, they have seen him still a storm. But in all of these instances they are witnesses, an audience watching what happens. Even when they were sent out, they were entrusted only (though it is no meagre commission) with the proclamation of good news. But when we come to the feeding of the 5000 something shifts.
 
The crowd is hungry and the disciples, not uncaringly, implore Jesus to send them away to find food. Instead, Jesus responds, you give them something to eat. The disciples object, pointing to the practical impossibility of the request; they have but 5 loaves and two fish between them. But Jesus takes this offering, blesses and breaks and then, vitally, gives it to the disciples who give it to the crowd. We are not alerted in the reading at what point or in whose hands the small amount of food becomes a large amount of food, but what is key is that it involves the disciples. The disciples are, for the first time, included in the miracle, they are participants with Christ in the miraculous feast. Christ is its centre, of course, but the disciples are called upon to act with him. They become something like a conduit through which Christ’s power flows, through the intermingling of his hands with theirs the little becomes a lot.      
 
We cannot overlook this shift. It is a shift which, of course, will not be completed until after the ascension of Christ and the sending of the Spirit. But it signals that Christ’s power is one that will be shared, Christ’s followers will be sent, Christ’s ministry will have a church. The disciples will not remain passive observers of Christ’s glory, they will be active participants in Christ’s work. To be a witness, they will come to see, will be a role of word and deed, of proclamation and action, of following fully in the steps of their Lord.
 
And while this shift will not be complete until later in the story, Peter has just had his first taste of it, his first experience of what it means to bear true witness, by participating with Christ in the holy work of God. And one gets the sense he wants more.
 
So when he hears Christ’s calming assurance he says, well Lord, if it is you, command me to do the impossible again. Just like when you told me that I could feed crowds with a packed lunch, tell me I can walk on water like solid land. Command me Lord, to do as you are doing, to share in this power again, to participate in your glory once more. Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And the one who told him to give the crowd something to eat, in full awareness of how little food they had to spare, now tells him to come.
 
There are times when Peter just gets it. Times when he is struck with such clarity of who Jesus is and what he is called to do. In just a couple of chapters Jesus will ask who do you say that I am? And Peter will famously declare, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And this here, on the choppy seas, sometime before dawn, is another of those times. Peter has a streak of clarity of who Jesus is and what he is called to do and makes just the right request. For in the wake of one’s first taste of the kind of power, meaning, and purpose that comes from being a participant in the work of Christ, one does not make small requests, one does not ask safe questions to verify identity. No, in this moment, Peter is right, if it is you… and if you are who I am starting to believe you to be… then command me to do the thing that I will only be able to do if I am right.
 
Of course, we all know how the story goes. Peter steps out (in what we must admit is tremendous faith) only to feel the full force of this ferocious wind. We all know a bracing wind is something of a wakeup call, it sharpens your sense of the moment. And that’s what happens to Peter. The wind awakens him to his surrounds, to what an onlooker would say is happening here: a man has hopped out of a boat in the dark, in the middle of a tempest, and, well of course he will begin to sink. All Peter’s confidence in the shift, all the afterglow of his participation in the miraculous feeding vanishes, and he begins to sink. He begins to sink not only into the sea, but into the past, into the reality before the feeding, into his role of mere observer, of an audience to the work of Christ. He starts to sink into the past before he was someone who took part in the impossible. Of course, he does not sink entirely. He does not sink entirely into the sea, nor into the past, he does not sink to a reality before he saw Christ heal, and raise, and deliver, and calm the storm. And we know he does not sink that far back because his instinct is still to shout, Lord, save me! He still knows this is Jesus, even if perhaps he has forgotten who he can be with Jesus.
 
And Jesus remains true to Peter as well. Jesus immediately reaches out and catches Peter. I love the detail of immediately, because of course this is who Jesus is. He is not a tester or trickster but a friend and saviour. Peter has tried something incredible and does not need to be punished because he wavered. It is true that Jesus’ response, You of little faith, why did you doubt can sound harsh - like an admonishment - but I don’t think it has to be. To me the line sounds parental, something you might say to a kid who has climbed up high with the intent to jump into your arms, but, losing their courage at the precipice, asks to be lowered down instead. When you reach out and bring them to you, you may say, “you could have jumped, I would have caught you” but this does not signal their failure, but that they had the right idea, and when they trust themselves and you next time, they will soar and be safe!
 
I mentioned before that there are times that Peter gets it so right, and this is one of those. And we also know that those moments are often followed by ones where Peter doesn’t get it quite so right. But it is how we understand this dichotomy is important.
 
In many translations the second part of Jesus’ response to Peter’s sinking is not why did you doubt, but why did you waver. This feels like a more accurate description of what happens to Peter, a wavering within a general trajectory of faith. Like those graphs where the line keeps trending upwards while still containing dips, the life of faith is not some steady incline. We all have those highpoints where we feel the fire of conviction and the focus of a holy purpose. And then we all have times where we feel colder, where the hope brought on by Jesus’ promise feels thinner, where the material realities of our surroundings feel more determining than the work of Christ we are called to participate in. That is to say, we all waver, we all have doubts, we all have moments where we sink back a little. But what we also have, importantly, is not just ourselves. We have Jesus, the Lord, who even as we waver, even when we doubt, even when we start to sink, reaches out immediately and catches us.
 
I come back to the old prayer, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. This is the prayer fitting for the one who stepped out of the boat only to sink, who recognised Jesus as the Messiah only to miss the meaning entirely, who followed Jesus until the end, only to deny him as the cock crowed. But it is also the prayer fittingly prayed to the one who saw Peter waver but caught him, who heard Peter misspeak but drew him near, who knew Peter denied but sought him out and told him, once again and rather fittingly, to feed his sheep.  
 
No one who wavers is lost, no one who wavers is denied their commission and calling, no one who wavers is demoted back down the ranks in the kingdom of God. It didn’t happen to Peter and it won’t happen to you. What we celebrate in this story, ultimately, is that Peter gave it a go, and this is what we want to celebrate in each other, for we have all been called to participate with Christ, and take part in the work of the kingdom. And we celebrate those moments we step up to the precipice in the full confidence that there will be times we all waver, but that each of these times, we shall be caught.