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Proper 14A 2008 Matthew 14:22-33
We have, I suspect, heard an abundance of walking on the water stories. At least they have come cascading across the internet.
These stories typically involve three people out in a boat, in this case a doctor, a lawyer, and a priest.
While the three are out in the boat, the lawyer suddenly remembered that he left his lunch on the dock. The priest offered
to go back to get it for him. He stepped out of the boat, and walked on the water toward the shore. The lawyer jumped out
of the boat and tried to follow him and sank immediately. When he came back up for air, he spluttered, “What happened?”
The doctor told him, “He knows where the rocks are!”
There was also a report several years ago that an Israeli tour entrepreneur was pacing concrete blocks just under the surface
of the Sea of Galilee at the supposed site so tourists could have their photo taken walking on water.
There’s something humorous about poor old Saint Peter who once again didn’t get it quite right. But on the other
hand, Peter was the only one of the disciples in that boat who tried to do anything. And in his trying lies the tale.
When you wonder what it was that endeared Peter to Jesus, it must be because Peter was always a man of action, quick to speak
and to do. Lots of people have good intentions, but never take that first step. But Peter did. For whatever reason, Peter
seized the Lord at his word. Peter yelled to Jesus across the waves and through the storm, “Lord, if it is you, command
me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus said to Peter, “Come.”
Peter took a few steps on the water and suddenly was afraid. His confidence and faith left him, and he began to sink beneath
the waves. With his last breath he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus reached out and caught him, saying, “You
of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Peter made mistakes. But Peter learned from his mistakes. Peter first understood who Jesus really was.
Take Winston Churchill. By his thirties, Churchill was a success as an adventurer, writer, and politician. But the principal
subject of his early writing was himself. Elected to Parliament at the age of 25, in the cabinet at 31, and when World War
I began, he was First Lord of the Admiralty and in the War Cabinet. But Churchill’s world revolved around himself.
Other Cabinet members didn’t quite trust him.
In 1915 Churchill’s world collapsed. The Gallipoli expedition, Churchill’s responsibility, had become a disaster.
He was forced to resign from the Cabinet. But Churchill learned from his mistakes. He discovered qualities key to his success
as Prime Minister of Britain and Allied leader during World War II. This new Churchill inspired the British people to stand
tough until the United States joined them.
On average a successful entrepreneur has about four failures to each success. Henry Ford forgot reverse gear in the first
car he invented. The building in which he built the car didn’t have a door wide enough to let the car drive out.
And then there are experts. The founder of IBM once said that there would maybe be a demand for no more than a hundred computers
ever. And experts said Marconi could never broadcast radio messages across the Atlantic Ocean.
“Come,” said Jesus to Peter. “Step out of the boat and onto the water.”
Theodore Roosevelt once read How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis. Riis described the New York slums of at the turn of
the 20th Century: vice and crime and disease in crowded cramped dark rooms and tenements without running water and heat.
As soon as he finished the book, Roosevelt went to the newspaper office with the message “Have read your book and
have come to help.”
That’s a good motto for us. “Have read your book and have come to help.” That’s how free health
clinics and havens are built, hospice established, meals carried to the home bound, thrift shops opened, lives changed. The
list of what has been done goes on and on. But the list of what needs to be done is still endless. “Come,”
says Jesus to us. “It’s time to get out of the boat.”
AMEN
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