Sermon
at St. John’s Church, West Grimstead -
Sunday 13 August 2017
1
Kings 19:9-18; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33
Dear Lord, I pray that these words spoken next shall be your words
and shall be a blessing to all who hear them.
Amen
“How can you believe in God without seeing Him [or Her]?” is a question which I have often been asked by non-Christians
in their quest to understand what it is that makes me a Christian. Last week we
looked at the Transfiguration and that particular event in Jesus’s life which
was witnessed by the Apostles Peter, John and James and which led Peter to
later write, in his Second Epistle (1 Peter 1:16-19), that as an
eyewitness to that event he could write with such conviction and certainty
about the nature of Jesus as the Son of God.
However, as I preached last week, we
can’t all have or expect to have those mountaintop revelations or a “Road to
Damascus” experience such as Paul had but must rely on Faith alone as Paul
tells us in our second reading this morning – “you must believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and believe that he
was raised from the Dead – then you will be saved.”
It is clear
though, that the disciples, even though they spent hours and weeks and months
in the company of Jesus, sometimes found it so hard to believe in his divinity.
Peter, especially, is found wanting in this area of a number of occasions
despite having been at the Transfiguration, having witnessed the calming of the
storm on the Sea of Galilee and numerous miracles and healings still struggles
with his Faith as many of us do today.
This lack
of Faith can be seen throughout the bible – right from the Garden of Eden,
through the Exodus and Exile, and the Return to Jerusalem. In our first reading we find Elijah at a low
point in his life. The prophets of God,
Yahweh, have all be persecuted and killed by the Baal-loving King Ahab who had
been goaded by his Queen, Jezebel, to hunt down and kill the last and greatest of
these, Elijah. Elijah has run off to Judah and is hiding in a cave on Mount
Horeb, that same holy mountain where Moses encountered the burning bush, where
Moses struck the rock and water gushed out during the Exodus, and some scholars
have equated to Mount Sinai where the Tablets of the Ten Commandments were
handed down.
Elijah was
to meet with God on that same mountain as Moses but unlike the encounter that
Peter witnessed at the transfiguration, there was to be no brilliant light or
loud noise or other spectacular event associated with the occasion – Elijah
wasn’t to hear God’s voice thundering in earthquake, wind or fire but in the
sound of silence. Elijah had hoped to have a conversation with God earlier but
had to wait until that quiet moment when God was ready to speak and the turmoil
had settled.
It would be
wonderful if we could all have those great mountaintop experiences wouldn’t
it? Those blinding flashes on the road
to Damascus but for most of us it doesn’t happen. Even
for those for whom it does they have to return to their hum-drum daily lives
just as the disciples had to do after the Transfiguration and just as Elijah
and Moses had to get on with their tasks assigned to them by God.
Paul in his
letter to the Romans reminds us that Jesus is there to save all – not just the
Jew but also the Gentile. The way of
salvation is open to all who believe – in other words those who have Faith and
believe in the Good News will be saved.
Paul
answers a very tricky theological question – one which is often debated between
those of different faiths and no faith at all – “how can people be saved if they don’t believe because they have never
heard?” Paul’s answer is “How beautiful are the feet of those who
bring good news!” In other words, it is the duty of all believers to spread
that good news, the Gospel, to everyone – to go out and evangelise. At the end of every Anglican service the
minister implores the congregation to “Go
in peace to love and serve the Lord” with the answer “In the name of
Christ, Amen”.
Every time
now that I read the account in Matthew’s Gospel of Jesus walking on the water I
am reminded of the scene in the book and film “The Shack” where Matt, finds
himself in a sinking boat and Jesus comes out to take him across the lake to
where he is later invited to sit in judgment on others in place of God and
finds it impossible to do. The film
portrays it beautifully as Matt and Jesus hand in hand run across the lake
splashing as they go like children in a shallow paddling pool. Such joy!
Peter, and
the other disciples, we heard in our gospel reading, were terrified, not
joyous, on two counts. First of all their boat was being hit, once more, by a
severe storm and secondly they though Jesus was a ghost – something to be
feared. Jesus was very calm, and like God in the silence on top of Mount Horeb,
spoke softly and calmly – “Take heart, it
is I, do not be afraid.”
Peter,
somewhat doubtfully, responds as only Peter could have “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water”. Note
the doubt “if it is you” – just like
Gideon’s fleece and Doubting Thomas’s request. Jesus, though makes the point
very quietly and calmly with just one word “Come”. We read that Peter, starts to walk on the
water towards Jesus and whilst walking his attention is fixed on following
Jesus’s command to come to him. In this one piece of scripture this morning we,
like Peter, are being told to come and obey Jesus’s words which, we will recall
were prefaced by his general words to all the disciples “Take heart, … do not be afraid”. Peter has tested Christ and now
Jesus tests Peter. We hear in an earlier scripture passage from Matthew (Matthew
8:23-27) how Jesus can command the wind and the waves and here we read that
the strong wind came up which distracted Peter. This strong wind, we read, so
frightened Peter that he immediately began to sink crying out “Lord save me!”
We can note
three things here, lessons which Peter’s responses give us. First of all, whilst we keep focussed on
Christ, looking towards him and obeying his words we can move forward feeling
safe even in an environment in which we are not familiar; secondly, we should
allow nothing and nobody to distract us from that focus however difficult and
tempting that might be and thirdly we should never be frightened of following
Jesus. Now like Peter, however hard we try we are likely to fail but again in
this same passage we read that Jesus will not let us drown if we try our
best. Jesus, we read, immediately reached
out his hand and caught Peter. Yes he
did admonish him for his lack of Faith but Jesus would not let him or any of
disciples perish and also immediately calmed the storm.
This
passage of the good news, the gospel, fills me with great hope in a world that
sometimes seems hopeless. It tells us that God, through his son Jesus and the
Holy Spirit are always there to save us if we believe and have the faith to
listen and come to Him. We can have an
encounter with God, just as Elijah did on the top of Mount Horeb, but it can be
a soft small voice of calm speaking through the winds and storms of this
life. We need to be ready and willing to
listen to that voice and have the faith and belief to obey it – to step out of
the boat, to focus on God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit without fear or
compromise. By connecting with God
through prayer we can carry Him within us and so spread the good news to those
who still need to hear it; to go out into the world to love and serve the Lord.
In a moment
of silence let us quietly pray to God that his voice will be heard by us this
week, not through the earthquake storm or fire but in the silence of our
prayer; that we make a promise to
ourselves to spend a little time each day in silent prayer listening out for
his word for us and that we thereby, through calling on the name of Jesus able
to save others for Paul said “How
beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” and Jesus said to
Peter “Come, take heart, do not be
afraid.”
Amen
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