In his short, poetic book named Pond River Ocean Rain: Find Peace in the Storms of Life, Charles Lattimore Howard reflects on how God can perhaps best be understood as Water. He writes that there are times when God sometimes shows up in our lives as a calm pond, and sometimes, God is best known as a rushing river that never stops, and sometimes, God is like the rain, a refreshing and nourishing source of life. Every time I return to this book, though, it is the idea of God showing up as the ocean that really catches me. God as vast and wide and overwhelming as our human minds can imagine.
And because our gospel lesson today has Jesus walking on water in the middle of a storm on the ocean, I turned again to this Pond River Ocean Rain, wherein Charles writes, “Life has taught me that every difficult night ends. And the light of morning always enters our windows. Every night ends. Every storm season of our lives ends, but how do we survive these long sad stretches? “[1] When I hear the gospel, I can just imagine Peter confident but weary from a long night of fishing as he steps out onto the water from the boat, and then as the strong winds pull at his robes as he becomes afraid, I wonder if he thought about how he would survive this long sad stretch. I imagine his heart racing as Jesus reaches down and saves him, saying “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
One of the distinct and difficult things about being a Christian in the 21st Century is that it is all too easy to read the Bible, especially the dialogue, with our own inflection and presumption about how a conversation would go. In response to Peter’s fear and sinking, Christ says words that many religious scholars and preachers have tended to put in a scathing, criticizing voice: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” I’ve heard sermons that cast Jesus’s response as a vitriolic reprimand that mocks and shames Peter. But the way we read these words of Christ matter, and I hear them less as a reprimand and more of a gentle affirmation that Christ knows the grandeur of faith of which Peter is capable, “you of little faith, why did you doubt?” I don’t think our gospel lesson is really one that provides a shame-inducing level of expectation that we should all have enough faith to walk on the ocean in the middle of a storm, but rather one that celebrates Peter’s vulnerability, of his willingness to try and lean into his faith, even after a long night of fishing on a boat battered by waves.
Whenever I encounter a story of one of Christ’s miracles in our sacred texts, the important thing for me is not just to take in the majesty and wonder of miraculous events that points to Christ’s divinity, but I also want to make sure I’m aware of what is the Good News of that miracle. By Good News, I don’t just mean the parts of the story evoke happy feelings, I mean what the writers of the New Testament meant by calling them the Gospels – the Good News being a literal translation of Greek word for Gospel. The Good News is the news of salvation and liberation from sin and estrangement from God. So, when I hear Matthew’s account of Jesus walking on water, the question that feels most present for me, is what is the gospel—what is the Good News—of this miracle and Peter’s attempt to answer Christ’s call? The Good News is that Christ sees us in our most vulnerable moments and *still* longs to be in relationship with us.
Because for Peter, his faith is not so little that he continues to believe that Christ is a ghost, but rather his faith is so grand that he steps out of the boat, and it is not a gentle morning breeze that causes him to doubt, but strong winds that can move a fishing boat pulling at his chest. Peter is not without faith, but there are doubts that come and chip away at the faith that motivated him to step out on the water. To me the Good News of this miracle is not even that Christ saved Peter from sinking, but that even after the crippling doubt, that Christ’s response was to bring Peter to safety, join the others, and calm the winds. To me, the Good News is that we can cultivate the same gentleness that Christ created for Peter and the disciples in the face of the strong winds that collectively and individually knock us off our faithful paths.
To me, the Good News is that a life of faith is not without doubt, but rather that the fullness of our faith, all the mistakes, all the mess-ups and moments of little faith are seen and loved and valued by God. The Good News is that God meets us with gentleness in these moments just as Jesus met Peter with gentleness. To return to Charles Lattimore Howard’s understanding of God as water, he says that God “reaches with a relentless love, never giving up on us, even if our fear drives us to run. This is how God loves us. Relentlessly. Like the waves of the ocean.”[2] When I think about the miracle of Jesus walking on the water, I’m reminded that the Good News is that God’s love reaches relentlessly for us like the unceasing waves of the ocean.
And truly, the only way in which faith can exist is in the context of this abundant love. It is a shame to think that so many Christians, myself included, have spent so much of their life of faith worries that God’s love cannot handle the fullness of our doubts. When I hear the story of Jesus walking on water, what is most important to me is not the miracle of Christ, it is that even in the face of doubt that threatens to drown Peter in the choppy ocean, Christ leans down and pulls him out. To lean into the fullness of our faith, this story of Jesus and Peter out on the water tells me that our faith requires us to take risks, to grow and transform, and even occasionally doubt.
Because the Good News is that God’s love is like the waves of the ocean: relentless, vast, and far deeper than we can even imagine. And the Good News is that we can show up in our faith communities and to God fully and vulnerably as Peter stepping out onto the water. And the Good News is that we can have a faith like the ocean, even when we doubt. Thanks be to God.
[1] Howard, Charles Lattimore. Pond River Ocean Rain: Find Peace in the Storms of Life. Abingdon Press: Nashville. 2016. 54.
[2] Howard, Charles Lattimore. Pond River Ocean Rain: Find Peace in the Storms of Life. Abingdon Press: Nashville. 2016. 73.
A sermon delivered to the people of Christ Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, Kentucky on Matthew 14:22-33 for Proper 14A on August 13, 2023.
Becca Kello 