August 9, 2020
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois
Matthew 14:22-33
It took even more
courage for Peter to get out of the boat and walk toward Jesus on the water. “Jesus
spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’”[1] Peter, ever the bold one, swallows his fear
and ventures out onto the sea. He tries to stay focused, but the wind was
strong and his fear returned, and he began to sink.
I remember helping a
member of my youth group walk across the high ropes course at Pilgrim Park Camp.
Despite her fear of heights, she had made it up the pole, and across the first
easy stretch, but now she had to trust only her balance and the ropes and
harness to keep her from falling. She froze, and no amount of encouragement
shouted from below could get her moving. So I put on a harness and climbed up to
the place across from her.
At first, I just
talked, reminding her what a great sister she was to her younger siblings, and
got her to tell me about their new dog. Finally, I said, “You already have the
courage to do this inside you. Just look at me and walk. Say to yourself, I
will do this.” She finally started moving, made it to the next pole, and
together we made it around to the way back down.
Fear is a natural response to danger. Fear
kept our ancestors from being eaten by lions, and from falling over the edge of
a cliff. Fear can keep us safe. Fear can also keep us frozen, unable to move
forward, unable to grow. Fear of falling kept my friend safe, but she couldn’t
stay up on that ropes course forever. She had to get moving. Fear of the stormy
sea kept the disciples inside the boat, but they would never be more than
fishermen if they didn’t follow Jesus.
An obscure author named Ambrose Redmoon
once wrote: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that
something else is more important than one's fear.” [2] You may have heard or read this before. It has
been quoted in recognition of many who have shown bravery in the face of danger,
police officers, fire fighters, soldiers, and others who overcame danger and
fear to accomplish what needed to be done.
Having courage does
not mean to be reckless or foolhardy. Those acts show a lack of fear, a failure
to recognize the danger, or to not understand or care about the consequences of
one’s actions. The brave person knows the fear, recognizes the risk, and balances
that risk against the need for action and consequence of inaction. The
firefighter knows to fear the fire, but also knows that in that burning
building, there may be a life in need of saving. The Coast Guard swimmer knows
the fear of drowning, but dives into the stormy sea for the same reason.
Now, Peter didn’t
have to jump out of the boat. Jesus wasn’t drowning. That might have been cause
for an act of bravery. Perhaps that’s why he falters, and begins to sink. Maybe
he thinks a bold, showy act of faith is how this is supposed to work. So, he
gets scolded, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”[3] I think that what Jesus may mean here is not
faith in himself, or in God. After all, Peter will go on to become the leader
of the church. I think that Jesus is pointing out the lack of faith that Peter
has in himself.
When we doubt
ourselves, we limit what we are able to do. My friend up on the ropes trusted
me and the others in our group. It was doubt in herself that kept her from
moving. When you doubt that your writing is any good, you never send the
manuscript to the publisher. When you doubt your ability to make something
good, you never start the project. When you doubt that you can make a
difference in the world, the gifts that you might share languish.
Courage to get
started, to get moving, requires knowing the fear, the danger, and trusting in
yourself enough to hold that fear and move anyway. That trust in yourself comes
with time and experience, but it also comes from recognizing the presence of
the holy that is within you.
Peter looked for
Jesus out on the water to save him. He forgot that God’s Spirit was already
within him, and it was trust in that presence that could give him the courage
to stay on the surface of the water. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they are out
there, yes. But they are also in here, in our being. God is not separate from
us, but part of us, and we are part of God.
One of the great theologians
of the past century, Paul Tillich, wrote of courage and its connection to God.
In The Courage to Be, Tillich said
that we are faced with tremendous anxiety. There is the anxiety of fate and
death. There is the anxiety of emptiness and meaninglessness. And there is the
anxiety of guilt and condemnation.
But the only way to
overcome all of these is to face and accept them with courage. “Courage,”
Tillich said, “is the self-affirmation of being in spite of the fact of
nonbeing.”[4] We are ultimately faced with the reality
that one day we will die. But we can become confident of our own personal
existence only if we cease to base that confidence on ourselves. The courage to
be is confidence in God who is being-itself.
When it is guilt
that causes us to fear, we must remember that “the courage to be is the courage
to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable.”[5] God loves us and accepts us despite all our
guilt. When it is self-doubt that causes us to fear, we must have the courage
to trust that we are able to accomplish what must be done because of the
presence of the holy within us.
We are part of the
one who infinitely transcends our individual selves. “Faith is the state of
being grasped by the power of being-itself.”[6] In spite of the seemingly infinite distance
between us, God nevertheless accepts us into being. Even our death is not the
end of meaning because God is not bound by death, and we belong to God.
The faith that leads
us to have courage is faith that in spite of all that is set against us, in
spite of fear and doubt, guilt and anxiety, we are one with the infinite, with God
who promises to never leave us or forsake us. Let us then be brave as we do what
must be done, as we seek for a way forward, as we prepare to meet the dawn with
hope. Amen.
[1]
Matthew 14:27. The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New
Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian
Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] From
"No Peaceful Warriors!" (1991) by Ambrose Redmoon, available from gnosis@lumen.org.
[3]
Matthew 14:31.
[4]
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1952), 155.
[5] Ibid.,
164.
[6] Ibid.,
172.
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