Risky discipleship in stormy waters Matthew 14:22-33 for Welcome to Sunday, 9th August 2020

I grew up by the sea, and miss it dreadfully – both on the hazy days of high summer, when the entire world seems to be heading to the nearest shoreline, regardless of the need for safety and social distance, and if possible even more when the storms hit and the waves are high, breaking onto the promenade, flinging shingle onto parked cars, changing the whole shape of the beach overnight… My father loved the sea too – but, having served 6 years in the Navy, with the experience of Atlantic convoys for ever branded on his mind, his love was balanced by a sense oplayf great respect which he tried to pass on to me. I might treat the sea as a beloved friend – rushing down to talk to it if we had been away for a couple of weeks, leaping around in the shallows as if the sea were a kind of oversized family pet…but he had seen the full fury of Atlantic storms, had helped rescue men from the water after their vessel had been torpedoed…The sea, for all its wonder, was a place of risk…not to be trifled with. I never got to talk theology with my father…He died when I was 18, a long time before the God story began to be the most compelling story of all for me – so I don’t know how he felt about the gospel we’ve just heard. I’m certain that, as an introvert, he’d have been absolutely with Jesus on the need to take time out to regroup after over populated days…but what would he have made of the storm on Lake Galilee, and Peter’s foolhardy challenge to his Lord – “If it you, command me to come to you on the water”. I mean – what was that even about? Was it a desperate need to be sure that he really was an insider, able to do the very thing that he had just trembled to see Jesus doing? Was he trying to prove to himself that his decision to abandon his own work as a fisherman was not going to leave him high and dry? It all feels a bit bonkers, really – and I’m sure Jesus was tempted to respond “Do not put the Lord your God to the test”. But he doesn’t. He lets him take the risk – that step of faith that gets Peter out of the boat, and walking, incredibly, on those very waters that just a few minutes before had battered the boat so fiercely…And of course all is well, as long as he keeps his gaze on Jesus. When he’s distracted, when he notices the wind and the waves again, then it all goes horribly wrong again. And one perfectly valid reading of this passage would simply be to remind you to hold on, to focus on the things of faith, to hear for yourself Jesus’s words “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid”. That might be what you need today…if the week has been tough, if corona worries have kept you awake at night and economic anxiety perplexed you by day…then do just hold on to that assurance that Jesus IS there in the storms…that he won’t let you drown, but will reach out a hand to help you, and will walk you back to safety in the boat… But it feels impossible this week to consider those in danger in small boats on big seas without reflecting on the families who have taken a different kind of risk – in stepping INTO a boat, an inadequate rubber dinghy perhaps – and launching out on to treacherous waters. We know their motivation at least: they truly believe that what they are leaving behind is so bad that it’s worth risking their lives – and the lives of their children – in a desperate attempt to reach somewhere they believe will be better. That isn’t a decision anyone would take lightly. It’s a tremendous risk and we know that most of those travelling will have paid everything they have, staked their all on that journey. For them this small island, with its rising unemployment, denuded Health Service and increasingly inhospitable approach to immigration, still looks like the promised land. I cannot imagine anything that would currently make me take that kind of risk…so perhaps God is inviting me to notice that, however leaky my boat might seem, it’s still afloat and actually, I’m not really even slightly damp. In other words, as I pray for those braving the Channel day by day, I need to take time to count my blessings, to notice and be thankful that amid all the fear and frustration, life is beautiful and full of love. Perhaps, too, there is an invitation. If, as God’s Church, we are Christ’s Body here on earth, are there things that we should do – ways in which we should move forward to take those desperate travellers by the hand and walk with them to a place of safety? That’s a real question, not a rhetorical one – because I recognise that open borders look uniquely threatening at the moment, that on the whole there is no general will to offer hospitality no matter what it costs. But though it’s a real question, I think I’ve found the answer for myself at least. You see, the trouble is that I think we’re SUPPOSED to be counter-cultural…That if we’re serious about following Jesus, we need to remember where the road took him… It’s going to be costly – true hospitality means sharing til it hurts, and then continuing anyway… More, its going to be risky after all…though not in the way I’d imagined. It turns out, you see, that we are going to be taking exactly the same risk as Peter…in leaving our place of safety to get closer to Jesus. That’s what discipleship looks like. Taking the risk to stay close to our Lord. Scary, as the waves rise around us…but actually the only choice worth making. It may take a while to commit to it…And there may well be times when we fear that we’ll drown, but you know, it’s going to be OK. Truly, he IS the Son of God – and he will walk with us til we too reach safety