Risky Business Dr. D. Jay Losher 26 July United Christian Parish John 6:1-21 = Risks for Faith on Clark is a friend going all the way back to

Transcription

1 D Risky Business Dr. D. Jay Losher 26 July United Christian Parish John 6:1-21 = Risks for Faith on Clark is a friend going all the way back to Chicago days. Don was a successful lawyer ~ smart as they come. Don was also a rock-ribbed Republican, so much so that he had made partner in the prestigious law office of Isham, Lincoln and Beale, a firm going back to Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln. He was on the corporate fast track with a wonderful and growing family. Yet, after a corporate merger that melted down, Don left that lucrative world of corporate legal counsel to form his own boutique legal firm. One reason that Don Clark formed the tiny practice was so that he could devote more of his time and energy to death penalty defense cases. Note the cognitive dissonance here, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican whose consuming passion is doing pro-bono death penalty appeals. What could possibly have motivated him to leave all the trappings of corporate success behind for a small practice? For Don Clark, his moral objections to the death penalty were an article of faith ~ a matter of his Christian calling. His vocation from God was, yes to make a living, but just as much to use his legal expertise and experience to defend the powerless, a real Biblical kind of conservatism. His call from Jesus is to use all he has to take risks, even for unpopular causes. Today Don is General Counsel for the UCC. We tend to forget that faith, our faith is a risky business. If our faith is not calling us to take risks, maybe it should. That s one of the many meanings we can derive from Jesus walking on water. strong wind, the disciples cowering in A fear in their tiny boat and Jesus walks out to them. The Gospel of Matthew adds details about Peter being frightened out of his 1

2 wits. Peter challenges Jesus, and Jesus invites him to step out of the boat and joins him. Peter at first able to walk on the water but begins to flounder. Jesus reaches out and takes Peter by the hand and lifts him up saying: You of little faith, why do you vacillate? When Jesus gets in the boat, the wind dies down and the waves cease. The danger passes and the disciples worship Jesus. Our modern mind rebels at this idea of Jesus walking on water. Like Jacob and the angel, was it a mirage, dream, hallucination? Surely this is just a legend, we think. No one can actually walk on water. The people of Jesus day would not have had our qualms, our quibbles with physics, would not have dismissed the idea so quickly. Biblical people would have seen this as a sign of Jesus divinity, of Jesus being the Son of Man, the one longed for, the Messiah. Only God has the power to overcome the boiling waters, to subdue the seas and tame the chaotic depths. 1 ou have certainly heard well- Christians who say if we Ymeaning just had enough faith everything would be peaches and cream from now on. Almost everyone has heard things like that at one time or another: Become a Christian and all your problems will be solved. Tithe and all your financial woes will disappear. Give your life to Jesus and all manner of problems will be solved. Well, whoever said that following Jesus would make your life smooth sailing, obviously never read our Gospel Lesson for today. In today s lesson, Jesus sends the disciples [that s us] straight into a storm. 2 2

3 W hy did Peter sink when he stepped out in the storm? Not really because of doubt. Doubt is not the best translation here. The Greek word here is not one of the usual words for doubt. In fact it is only used once here and one other place. It means vacillation not doubt. 3 It denotes a condition of hesitation, of not-quite-surehow-i-got-myself-in-this-mess, it is not skepticism per se. So let s rephrase: Why did Peter vacillate? What held him back from getting out the boat? The very same thing which makes us vacillate, which holds us back from taking risks for the Gospel: Fear. We each need to ask ourselves: What is keeping me from getting out of the boat, the invisible box I have drawn around my faith? What is holding me back from becoming the person God wants me to become? Ask yourself, is it: Fear of failure? Fear of losing the race? Fear of loss of material possessions? Fear of drowning? Of dying? hat are we afraid of? What is our greatest fear that Wparalyzes and keeps us cowering in the bottom of the boat? What keeps each of us stuck? Just as in our narrative today where Jesus overcame Peter s vacillating fear, Jesus is able to overcome our own vacillation just as easily with his calm and confident: Take heart. It is I; do not be afraid. Fear of failure? Micah has one answer: What does the LORD require, but to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. All God asks of us is to take the risk. The outcome, success or failure, remains as it always has been in God s hands. 3

4 Fear of losing? This is a big one, especially in our highly competitive culture. However, the cross is the ultimate demonstration that in God s realm, losing is actually winning. Fear of losing our stuff? Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor reap. Fear of drowning? Of dying? Jesus has vanquished it, even death itself. Jesus is the pathfinder through and beyond death. No doubt about it, this faith business is a risky business. If anyone says otherwise they are not telling the truth. hankfully, not many of us ever have had our faith tested like TPeter s was tested that day. Not many of us ever have any of those moments where we actually are called on to walk by faith. Or float. Or fly. Susan asked for something special for her birthday. She wanted to hangglide. We made arrangements for her to go up in a hang-glider along with an instructor. The tiny contraption looked more like an oversized kite than it shared any features with an actual airplane. But Susan s desire was even stronger than her fears and we both simply trusted that somehow that odd apparatus would hold Susan and the instructor up. After they were both strapped in, an ultra-light took off and towed the glider up to 5,000 feet. There were cameras mounted on the glider which captured perfectly the surprised and joyous expression on Susan s face when the pilot said, Don t let go; you re steering it! I am not at all sure what keeps a hang-glider or even an airplane in the air. Yes I understand the theory all right, the measuring of wind speed and lift, wingspan and surface area, but at some point you just have to forget all the 4

5 mathematics and take it on faith. That is what Jesus wanted Peter to do. It is what Jesus wants us to do: to step outside the boxy boat of our own making, to skate on the thin ice, to test the waters, to trust the wind under the wings to hold us up. n the midst of all our fears, our vacillation from practical concerns and I reeling from ambiguity, Jesus comes to us over the swirling storms and says gently: Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid. Jesus business is to lift our fears. Jesus rising tide floats all boats. And we need to get out of that boat, out of our rut ~ look Jesus straight in the eye, confident not in ourselves but in Jesus strength. Take a risk? Jesus already has. Loss our shirts? Jesus did it already. Be humbled? Jesus was even more humbled. Die, even? Jesus did and lives again. And we can too. If we but respond to Jesus one word, compelling invitation: Come. Jesus reaches out his hand and invites us: Walk with me on water, and soar, and fly with me ~ into the realm of the living God. 1 Eugene Boring, The New Interpreters Bible: Matthew p Michael A. Turner, Pulpit Resource August 19, 2008, p.28 3 Boring, op.cit., p διστάζω distazō means vacillation rather than doubt. This word is only found twice in the New Testament, here and Matthew 28:17. 5