Get Out of the Boat

Scripture: Matthew 14:23-28

A number of years ago I went sailing in Lake Erie with three Methodist minister friends of mine: Don, Tom, and Wayne.

Just as we turned for home, at our farthest point from land, a terrible storm broke out. Violent winds tossed us mercilessly. We dropped our sails and used the boat’s small engine to try to work our way in the general direction of shore. We were all terrified.

All of us, that is, but Wayne. Wayne seemed completely unfazed by the whole thing.

He napped. He grabbed a snack. He commented on the brisk night air. He admired the flashes of lightning.

He smiled at the funny way the compass spun around frantically whenever we almost capsized.

We all wondered at Wayne’s Christ-like calm in the storm.

At one point, Wayne went into the cabin below for his gloves. Tom, distracted by the giant waves smacking our little craft about, didn’t see where Wayne had gone and suddenly cried out in alarm “Where’s Wayne?!”

Don dryly responded, “Maybe he walked home.”

We all know the story of Jesus walking on the water. We’ve heard it and read it since our first Sunday school classes. We’ve seen it depicted in paintings and films. We’ve incorporated it into our clichés, describing an extraordinarily virtuous person as someone who “walks on water.” We’ve run across it over and over in our study of the Bible: indeed, the story of Jesus walking on the water appears in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John.

The three gospel renditions of this story closely resemble each other. Matthew’s version, however, differs in one very significant respect. In Matthew’s story, Jesus is not the only one who walks on water—so does Peter, even if only briefly.

Now, I think it’s easy to miss the importance of what happens here with Peter because of the two very different—and to some extent, conflicting—images we have of him.

On one hand, we think of Peter as a towering figure of our faith. He and his brother Andrew were the first disciples called by Jesus. When Matthew, Mark, and Luke list the twelve disciples sent into the world by Jesus they name Peter first. Those same gospels portray Peter as the recipient of unique revelations and as having a special closeness to Jesus.

In Matthew, Jesus describes Peter as the “rock” on which he will build his church. This takes on a kind of literal significance when we remember that the largest church in Christianity—the 5.7 acre Vatican Basilica that Michelangelo designed, that took more than a century to build, and that can hold 60,000 people—is named not for Jesus but for Peter and is traditionally thought to rest upon his burial site.

Jesus tells Peter, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom.” This passage gives rise to a symbol that endures throughout the thousands of years of Christian art that follow. In paintings and sculptures we can tell which disciple is Peter by the keys hanging from his waist. And, of course, this passage gives rise to countless jokes about awkward encounters between those who would enter the kingdom of heaven and Peter, who holds the keys to the gates.

One of my favorites is a Charles Barsotti cartoon that depicts an amused-looking Peter saying to a relieved-looking fellow being interviewed at the gates of heaven: “No, no, that’s not a sin, either. My goodness, you must have worried yourself to death.”

How often I’ve hoped that’s how things turn out!

On the other hand, however, we think of Peter as deeply human and therefore profoundly flawed. Jesus commanded him not to sleep—and he slept. (Mark 14:33-34, 37-38) Jesus said to Peter, “You will deny me three times before the morning”—and, even having been warned, Peter did so.

On occasions recorded in both Mark (8:33) and Matthew (26:33-35) Jesus calls Peter “Satan.”

We all remember Jesus’s powerful injunction that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. But sometimes we forget that Jesus directed this rebuke not at one of his tormentors or persecutors but at one of his disciples—a disciple identified by the Gospel of John as the beloved Simon Peter.

So when we come to the story of Peter’s failed attempt to walk on the water we may have one of two understandable reactions. We may say, “Well of course Peter walked on water briefly; after all, he was Peter.”

Or we may say, “Well of course Peter faltered; after all, he was Peter.” And, over the years, many sermons have been preached on the fact that Peter started to sink when he let the storm distract him and took his eyes off Jesus. In my view, all of these points have merit.

But I want to focus our attention on something different. I want to take a close look at an element of the story that precedes all that—a fact that I think tells us a great deal about who Peter was and about who Jesus calls us to be. And the fact is this: Peter got out of the boat.

Jesus invited Peter to take a risk, to make a bold move, to engage in a leap of faith—literally. And Peter responded. Peter got out of the boat.

Now, this can’t have been an easy decision. Staying in the boat must have seemed a great deal safer. But somehow Peter understood that this was only how things seemed. Somehow he grasped that he wasn’t leaving behind security but the illusion of security.

“Security,” Helen Keller once said “is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Jesus called Peter to a daring adventure. And he calls us, too.

But, oh, how we love the boat. Oh, how we love to tuck in, cover up, and float along.

Matthew has a story about that, too. Maybe you remember it. Jesus has just begun his ministry and he invites James and John to come with him. Matthew tells us that “[i]mmediately they left the boat and their father [Zebedee], and followed him.” James and John got out of the boat. Zebedee didn’t. And that, my friends, is the last we hear of Zebedee.

Now, I’m not suggesting we pass judgment on poor, unheralded, un-sainted Zebedee. We have no business passing judgment in any event, but this holds particularly true with respect to those who act as most of us probably would under the same circumstances. Zebedee did precisely what many of us would do; he played it safe. As a result, he missed a chance to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. But he did keep his boat.

I suppose Zebedee played it safe for the same reason most of us do—out of fear. Fear limits us and makes us small. It breeds inertia and feeds our darkest impulses. I like how Bruce Springsteen puts it in one of his songs: “Fear’s a powerful thing. It can turn your heart black, you can trust. It’ll take your God-filled soul, fill it with devils and dust.”

In the film Apocalypse Now, a crew of American soldiers travels down a river deep into the Vietnamese jungle. At one point they go ashore in search of mangoes but flee back to the boat when a huge tiger leaps from the bush and attacks them. One of the soldiers—literally rending his shirt with fear—screams out over and over “Never get out of the boat! Never get out of the boat!”

That’s what fear does. It keeps us in the boat.

And we can always come up with a million seemingly good reasons to stay there. We can always list a million reasons to stay put, to stay behind, and to stay safe. We can always find a million things to worry about, a million things to fear, a million things that matter and need full consideration before we take action.

A good friend of mine recently learned that his wife has a fairly advanced form of cancer. The news came out of nowhere and they’re facing many challenges, including a long and aggressive program of chemotherapy. When I recently asked him how they were doing, he said “You know, it’s strange. My wife and I are at peace in a way we’ve never been before. We’ve spent all these years thinking lots of things mattered. And now our life is entirely focused on just one thing.”

Peter had a million reasons to stay in the boat. But he had one infinitely better reason to get out.

Jesus calls us to a life of courage, a life bravely focused on what matters. Not a life without fear—after all, we’re human. Besides, as the flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker once observed, fear is the necessary precondition for courage.

But Jesus invites us into a life of faith that makes it possible to see our fears for what they are and move beyond them. That is why the great theologian Karl Barth memorably said that “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” We will know fear. But we will also know what we need to do.

We may be afraid to speak up when we see prejudice and bigotry and injustice. Jesus says, get out of the boat.

We may be afraid to step up when we see tragedy and poverty and hunger. Jesus says, get out of the boat.

We may be afraid to put up when we see work that needs doing, care that needs giving, forgiveness that needs imparting, and love that needs sharing. Jesus says, get out of the boat.

Getting out of the boat is how we change our lives. It’s how we change ourselves. It’s how we change the world.

These changes do not come effortlessly or painlessly. But, as William Penn put it: “No pain, go palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”

Many years ago a man named John Newton sailed a ship that brought slaves to England. Then, on one remarkable day, John Newton got out of his boat. He dedicated his life to serving God and God’s children. And, along the way, he wrote a song you know by the name “Amazing Grace.” Amazing, indeed, what can happen when we let God work in our lives and follow God’s call out into the daring adventure.

Periodically in our lives we have to decide whether and how to commit--or recommit--ourselves to God's work. As we ponder the alternatives, fear—and fear’s right-hand assistant, complacency—will tempt us mightily. But what we need now are daring hearts, brave hearts, faithful hearts.

Those cartoons that have fun with the nervous encounters between Peter and those individuals newly arrived at the pearly gates often tease us about our inadequacies. Again, Charles Barsotti penned one of my favorites. But this time the petitioner looks nervous and Peter is disappointedly reviewing what appears to be a resume. “That’s it?” Peter asks the poor guy. “Salesman of the month, August 1987?”

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with “Salesman of the month, August 1987.” It’s a fine thing. We do lots of fine things. We do lots of fine things as individual believers. We do lots of fine things through our churches. We do lots of fine things that are very admirable, but very safe.

So I keep entertaining this image. Your time has come and you're standing before Peter like one of those characters in a Barsotti cartoon.

"Tell me about yourself," he says. So you do. But then at some point you stop your story. Peter looks inquisitively at you, tilts his head, and says, "And what happened next?"

You smile. You look him straight in the eye. And you say, knowing he’ll understand, “Well, then I got out of the boat.”

Ah, may it be so for all of us.

Amen.