August 13, 2023 Rev. Susan Flanders

Walking on Water - Sermon for Aug. 13,  St.George’s, ME

        Walking on water!  How often we hear that phase!  It can signal admiration - she walks on water for me - because she’s so good at what she does, or so inspiring.  He walks on water - goes above and beyond our normal expectations, does what no-one else can do. 

        The phrase can also signal scorn. If we say someone thinks she walks on water, that’s bad! We’re then saying the person is arrogant, thinks he or she is better than the rest of us. We need only a bit of  the daily news chatter to hear about such people. Walking on water has become a way of expressing how extraordinary a person is, or thinks he is, and certainly today’s gospel story - the original walking-on-water text - is one of many expressing how extraordinary Jesus was. The story of Jesus walking on water is one of those stories about impossible things, seeming miracles. We can’t really believe these stories, but they work on us all the same. They appeal to our imaginations and deepest longings; they are metaphors for actual lived experiences.

        And in today’s version from Matthew’s gospel, we have what is to me the more interesting part of the story, Peter’s attempt to walk on water - his amazing, courageous striding out onto the waves to meet Jesus, only to flounder and be caught by Jesus’ saving hand.  Our human instinct to go for it, dare it, risk it all, but then our fear, our loss of confidence, our realization that we need help.  It’s all there in this tiny vignette.

        I want to dig further into the story with the help of a reflection and then a poem.  The reflection is from Macrina Wiederkehr, a RC sister, author of Seasons of the Heart, a collection of reflections and prayers.  Here is a part of the reflection:

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things!
Take out your heart of courage,
a lamp amid your fears
and walk on the water with me.

Let’s look at everything that could be
believing it will be
if we dare
to walk on water
scared and hopeful.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Let’s wrap our fears in hope.
Across these waters we must go
our lamps of courage high
Scared and hopeful we will go.

Come, walk on the water with me!
Hold high your lamp of courage
Put all your doubts away
Let’s take a chance on staying up.

Come, walk on the water with me!
I’m in the mood for impossible things.
I feel scared
because it is impossible
I feel hopeful
because it is not impossible

So, scared and hopeful
we will walk.

Come!
Walk on the water with me!

      When we face something tough, or perhaps seemingly impossible, it’s fear that gets in our way, right?  This can be helpless fear – like that of the disciples in the storm-tossed boat, feeling there was nothing they could do.  What if you, or your child, or your sister gets very sick – terminal cancer, ALS, Alzheimers – all the terrible fears, of pain, of loss of body function and dignity, loss of mind, fear of death.  All these fears rise like towering waves and raging winds.  Getting out of the boat and walking away isn’t an option – or is it? How can we find hope?  We can’t change the situation, make the storm subside. However, we can make choices about how to live with or live through such a terrible storm. As the reflection says, we can wrap our fears in hope; we can be both scared and hopeful. 

         And lots of times, we are not helpless in our fears, we can do more than hope. Often the storms that beset us are about tough decisions, things that may change our comfortable or familiar lives.  Here’s where courage joins hope in combating fear.  Here is where Peter, seeing Jesus walking on water, and beckoned by him, starts out himself, taking a chance on staying up.  As long as he focuses on Jesus’ outstretched hand, it works, but he gets distracted by the wind, lets his fear take over and begins to sink.  Isn’t that the way with us, when we try to take bold steps in a new direction?  It feels like stepping on a surface that won’t hold our weight. And we also worry about what others will think -“Who does she think she is?  She’s trying to do the impossible.”  How do we respect such voices but not necessarily heed them?  How do we trust that the support we need, the metaphorical hand of Jesus, will be there for us? 

        I turn now to a poem by David Whyte, one of my favorites.  He is a poet who actually works for corporations, bringing the life of the heart and the soul into the business world. But he also writes very personal poems like this one with its allusions to this morning’s gospel.

THE TRUELOVE
by David Whyte

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

         The poem can be heard as a poem about love for another person, about the awakening finally to a love that is both eros and agape and that feels so meant to be that it cannot be denied.  I think it bears all these meanings as it certainly did for me when it was read by my sister at Bill’s and my wedding back in 2005. 

         But I also think it’s a poem about God - about how we are called to love God and discover ourselves known and loved by a presence beyond ourselves, like that ghostly figure of Jesus, calling across the water.  It’s a poem about giving ourselves to that presence – trusting in something that seems impossible, saying “yes” after perhaps a long time of doubt and floundering.  It’s about saying “yes” to a voice calling you to your true self and to real life.  It’s a poem about God’s love for us, just as the gospel story is, at its heart.  If you wonder about Jesus in today’s story – think about times when life has beckoned you to do and to be more than you ever thought, and you found you actually could!  Think about times when a tumult has been stilled in your life or your heart because you’ve felt the presence of God with you – like Jesus sitting in the boat with the disciples. 

        A personal note here: Some of you know that I am in a new and demanding role as caregiver for Bill as dementia and its diminishments shadow our life together. This walking on water story just grabs me this year in ways it never has before. And it grabs me here in Tenants Harbor where every single day I look out at the ocean, sometimes flat and calm, other times raging and rough. And I, we, Bill and I, need to stay afloat and not lose ourselves in fear and hopelessness.  I need to trust that I can be and do what is needed.  I’m not a brash, young Peter, thinking I can walk on water like Jesus.  But I can trust in the hand, that there will be love held out for me and that I will not sink in despair. People, not always those I expect, but those I need, are there, reaching out, and life is still rich and beautiful, and we are held up.

        You’ve probably experienced times like this as well, but maybe like me, you never really connected them to Jesus’ walking on water, or more specifically Peter.  Today, in gospel and reflection and poetry, we are offered a vision of the saving help we all long for. 

Come, walk on the water with me.  Amen.

The Rev. Susan M. Flanders,  August 13, 2023