Can You Walk on Water?: Sermon Preached on 13th August 2023 (10th Sunday After Trinity)

Preached at St John’s Devizes

Readings – Romans 10. 5–15; Matthew 14. 22–33

Did you know that the next Rugby World Cup kicks off in less than four weeks’ time? When I was in my early teens, I briefly entertained thoughts of playing in a Rugby World Cup someday. I would be open-side flanker for Ireland, and in the final, I would burrow through the opposition pack using my low centre of gravity, and score the winning try, under the posts, as the dying seconds ticked away against England (of course against England).

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything goes the phrase. Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. If God wanted me to play in the pack in international rugby, he may have made me bigger than five-foot-five. And given me better hand-eye co-ordination. God, presumably had plans for me that were different than having me put England to the sword in a Rugby World Cup final, although hopefully He has those plans for someone else in a green jersey.

We all have different gifts – and Peter’s gifts didn’t include walking on water, any more than my gifts included being able to play international rugby. I gave you that intro because the story of Peter trying, and failing to walk on water, is one of the most annoyingly misread passages of Scripture.

So let’s work our way through the story to look for things that are often missed.

The first thing to ask is when this took place—that is immediately after the feeding of the five thousand. So, before this morning’s reading starts, Jesus had sailed off on his own to a deserted place, but the crowds followed Him, like fans chasing a superstar. Although Jesus clearly needed some space, He spent  all day healing members of this crowd, then feeding them miraculously. This is the last sentence in Matthew’s Gospel before this morning’s reading starts—“those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Today’s Gospel begins, “Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while immediately he dismissed the crowds.” Then Jesus goes up the mountain and spends all night there, then early in the morning, presumably refreshed, He walks out into the lake to meet the disciples – walking on the water – as their boat has drifted away from the shore overnight. When the disciples see Jesus, given that they, not unreasonably, don’t believe people can walk on water, they think He’s a ghost. And Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

So, Peter puts Jesus to the test. Peter demands that Jesus gives him the power to do what humans aren’t designed to do, all because he doesn’t really trust Jesus. And that is what this is what this story is all about.

I often hear it presented as if Peter’s problem was that he didn’t have enough faith, and if he did, he would have been water-skiing on his bare feet. Sometimes, the preacher then uses it in quite a manipulative way to harangue the congregation for not having enough faith themselves, saying that if they did, they would work miracles too. But if humans were meant to walk on water, God would have given us flippers.

But when Jesus says to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”, that’s not about walking on water, but about Peter demanding a miraculous sign, like, the morning after Jesus fed five thousand blinking families with five loaves and two fishes. How many miracles does Peter need? Worse still, Peter asks to do superhuman things not because he wants to heal a leper or something useful like that; he’s asking Jesus to let him experience a really cool magic trick.

These stories are part of a continuous run of narrative in Matthew’s Gospel that fits between two long monologues from Jesus; between the parables on the Kingdom of Heaven, in Matthew 13 and the long speech about the Church in Chapter 18. This run of stories begins with Jesus teaching and healing in Galilee, like He has been all along, but during it Jesus announces He’ll be going to Jerusalem. That tells us Matthew sees these stories as significant in defining why Jesus is more than just a teacher and healer.

There are three other famous of stories from this long stretch of action which shed further light on Peter failing to walk on water.

One is Jesus telling Peter, ‘Get behind me Satan.’ Why does Jesus call Peter Satan? Well, Jesus could just be taking the mickey out of Peter, as He does frequently in Matthew’s Gospel. But both in that story and this morning’s, Peter asks Jesus to do things that aren’t in God’s plan for him, for quite selfish reasons. Remember that the Devil is also represented the snake in Genesis, who causes the Fall precisely by tempting Eve to do what God had forbidden her to do.

Our call is to be human – God can, of course, do the impossible if He wishes, and perhaps might even choose to do it through us. But it is not our job to walk on water; it’s to be faithful, and to love God and our neighbour as best we can with our current capacities, never forgetting that God can use those capacities for things that we never could have dreamed for ourselves.

Here’s another thing. When Jesus calls Peter “You of little faith”, does that mean he thinks Peter is useless? Well, the second relevant story from this section of Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus telling Peter that he is the rock on which He will build his Church; and the third comes just after that, when Jesus tells His disciples that even if people have as much faith as a mustard seed, tiny things only a millimetre or two across, they’ll be able to move mountains. So Peter may only have little faith, but that little faith is enough to do great things for God.

The final thing to think about is what comes immediately after this morning’s Gospel—Jesus and the disciples put into harbour in Genessaret, are once again surrounded by mobs seeking healing, and also confront some scribes and Pharisees who’d come all the way from Jerusalem to give them a hard time. So the story of the walk on the water is an interlude of intimacy between Jesus and his closest followers in a pretty frenetic period, which comes just before His final journey to Jerusalem.

So here’s what I take from this morning’s Gospel and the context in which it’s written—firstly, God made you to be you, with your gifts, and your faults, which are often just two sides of the same coin. God didn’t make us all superheroes, any more than He made me to be a super rugby player—He made most of us pretty ordinary, and that’s OK. Your job is to be you, and follow Him in faith just as you are.

Secondly, try your best to trust Jesus and not put Him to the test, because the world seems to have some randomness built into it, and life will inevitably have its hard episodes due to health or circumstance. Most of all, trust that on the Cross, Jesus did all that was needed to open the way to eternal life for you, and if you trust Him, there is nothing to fear, for this will be your ultimate destination.

Thirdly, a deep, deep, faith is a wonderful gift—but a little faith is all you need.

Finally, don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself, to laugh at the absurdities of the world, and especially don’t be afraid to have a good laugh along with God. The Gospels show that Jesus, God made human, had quite a sense of humour.

And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and power, as is most justly His due, now and forevermore. Amen.