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Phew! That was a rough boat ride! Have you ever been out on the water in a boat when it got stormy? Anybody?
Those disciples probably had been in storms before. They were professional fishermen, after all. What scared them was seeing Jesus walking on the water. That was something they’d never seen before. And then Peter wants to try it. What was he thinking?
Would you have wanted to do what Peter did? Raise your hand if you would.
Can you remember a time when you trusted God and did something scary like that?
Every Sunday in Lent this year we’re talking about significant steps in Peter’s journey of faith. Peter’s path is not a straight line – it’s wandering all over the place.
We started last week with the story of Jesus calling Peter, James, and John to leave their boats and nets behind and follow him. And they did. We might call that the beginning of their faith journey.
What is the beginning of your faith journey?
We have these maps of Peter’s journey.
If you were to draw a map of your faith journey, what would you put on the map?
Turning points, God moments, Lord save me moments?
I know that’s a big question, so we’re going to take some time to think about that. We’ve got paper and crayons and markers.
There might be a lot we don’t remember, and that’s ok. Put what you do remember. I don’t remember being baptized, but I put that as my starting point anyway. Your map might be winding around like Peter’s or maybe it looks more like a zigzag or a spiral. Maybe yours is a timeline.
Go to a table or stay in your seat and make a map of your faith journey.
- – – –
How did you do? Did anything on your map surprise you?
Did any of you share your map with the people sitting next to you? Were your maps similar? Was anyone surprised at what your neighbor put on their map?
Sometimes we don’t think of our life events as faith events. Peter was with the disciples and Jesus, and he walked on water, so that seems pretty obvious but sometimes it’s not.
I haven’t ever been on a boat out on the water in the dark. But I have been in a car in the desert in the dark. Somehow, Rob and I made a wrong turn and ended up on a dirt road when we were supposed to be getting on a freeway. This was long before GPS or cell phones. We were following a paper map, a route in a book put together for us by AAA called a triptik. A paper map is no help in the dark
in the middle of the desert on a dirt road,[2] especially since, just like here in Kansas, dirt roads don’t always have street signs or landmarks.
But once it was light out, we could see the highway not far from us, and we just had to wend our way along the dirt roads until we found a paved one that intersected with the highway. I don’t remember whether we thought to pray or we just dozed off, but now looking back on it I can see how we weren’t as lost as we thought we were, and I think that’s often true for us in our faith journeys as well. Jesus promises to be with us always, but we don’t always see it.
Looking back to make your faith map, can you see God’s help in ways you didn’t see before?
When Peter got distracted by the wind and the waves and starts to sink, he was terrified. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You of little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt?”
Jesus says in one of his parables that it only takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains. Peter had enough faith to get out of the boat. We can see in Peter’s faith map and maybe in our own faith maps that our faith will ebb and flow, change and grow.
Did any of you have points on your faith maps when you struggled with your faith and doubts and questions and that’s what helped you to move forward and grow?
Brian McLaren has a wonderful book called Faith After Doubt that incorporates theories of faith development and learning stages to show how our doubts help us to grow, even suggesting that without asking questions and exploring our doubts we get stuck.
“Doubt, it turns out, is the passageway from each stage to the next. Without doubt, there can be growth within a stage, but growth from one stage to another usually requires us to doubt the assumptions that give shape to our current stage.”[3]
We tend to make assumptions about what Jesus means when he says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” What was Peter doubting? Was he doubting Jesus? Or was he doubting himself?
Is faith in Jesus separate from faith in ourselves or are those two intertwined?
How many of you have seen the TV show on Netflix called Queer Eye?
There’s an episode in the newest season in which the “Fab Five” go to New Orleans to help a man named Denton who is deaf. “Denton is the head football coach for the Louisiana School For The Deaf . . . and the newly appointed athletic director for the school. He’s an inspiring coach and mentor to his team but is lacking in confidence off the field. He pours all his energy into his work, leaving little time for himself and his own needs.”[4] The Queer Eye team helps Denton gain confidence with an updated look, some better food choices (he’d been eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches) and some encouragement to trust himself to be good enough.
I wrestle with trusting myself, and maybe some of you do as well. We talk a lot about trusting God. Frog is my acronym for fully rely on God. Still I doubt myself. But if we’ve been following Jesus, praying, learning, seeking God’s will, we also have the Holy Spirit living in us, and guiding us. For the most part, trusting ourselves is trusting that God is working in us through all of that. It’s not always straightforward, but I think trusting ourselves is part of trusting God.
This story about Peter and Jesus walking on the water brings up another question. Peter cries out, “Save me!” And Jesus does. Jesus saves Peter from drowning.
What does salvation mean to you? We might have different answers to that question.
The word “save” “…is sozo in Greek. . . to save, heal, preserve, or rescue, taking someone from danger to safety. It can be delivering or protecting literally or figuratively. This is the root that “savior” and “salvation” come from in Greek.”[5]
Diana Butler Bass in her book Freeing Jesus talks about the different understandings of salvation at her parent’s Methodist church versus her friend’s Bible church. Bass had to say she received Jesus and prayed the sinner’s prayer in a specific time and place in order to fit in, but she knew that Jesus had been with her all her life, and she points out that when Jesus healed people and said, “Your faith has made you well,” they were receiving salvation in that moment.
She says:
We often think of being “saved” as being rescued, and when it comes to Jesus as Savior, the popular conception is one of Jesus snatching believers from the perils of hell. Jesus saves us by taking us to heaven. . . [But] the word “salvation” comes from the Latin salvus, which originally referred to being made whole, uninjured, safe, or in good health. Salvus was not [just] about being taken out of this life; it was about this life being healed.[6]
What does salvation mean to you?
As Peter was sinking into the sea, he called out to Jesus to be rescued. Have you ever been in a situation from which you needed to be rescued?
Last year, Georgia Vogt invited me to come read to her class at Sterling Grade School. I love doing this! One of the books Georgia had me read was this one: Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest. The raven is an important character in Native American stories. In this story the raven brings light to the world. It’s a sort of creation story. After I finished reading it, one of the children said, “But God is the one who created the world and gave us light.”
And suddenly my mind went blank. I responded…..”uhhhh…” I looked over at Georgia with a face full of panic. I needed rescuing. And, of course, Georgia rescued me.
The funny thing is that I already knew better than to panic. If I’d taken a deep breath, asked God for help, I probably would have been able to come up with an answer. I didn’t trust myself or God enough in that moment.
Jesus rescues us in all kinds of different ways. He taught that the kingdom of God is at hand, here and now and on into eternity. We can trust that Jesus is with us, but it’s a lifelong journey to learn how to put that into practice and to trust ourselves enough to rely on God as we seek to follow Jesus out into the world.
I hope we trust God and each other and ourselves enough to talk about our different beliefs and understandings, express our doubts, ask our questions, and love one another and God enough to stretch and grow and include each other in our journey to know God’s love more and to help make this world a better place for everyone.
[1] Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash
[2] Photo by Elliott Engelmann on Unsplash
[3] McLaren, Brian D.. Faith After Doubt: Why Your Beliefs Stopped Working and What to Do About It (p. 43). St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[4] https://bobbyberk.com/queer-eye-season-8-denton-the-makeover-and-reveal/
[5] So Much Bible https://www.somuchbible.com/word-studies/annotated-scripture/matthew-14-22-33/#notes-43
[6] Bass, Diana Butler. Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence (pp. 76-77). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
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