So I’m reading books. A few that I’ve read so far have been deeply theological. I speak that language, so I appreciate this emphasis. By all means, let’s understand what evangelism is and why we bother with it. But I finish these books thinking, “O.K., so tell me how to do it.” This has happened a few times. These books float about five feet off the ground. They’re vague. They talk about “hospitality” and “community” and “mission.”

You know what they mostly don’t talk about? Opening your mouth and letting words come out. When to do it. How to do it. What to say. For many of these authors, words are a last resort. And you’ve only earned the right to use them on someone after you’ve helped him move a piano up a flight of stairs. You have to become his best friend first. (I’m only exaggerating a little.) “Relationship, relationship, relationship,” these authors say. God knows how Philip converted the Ethiopian eunuch. He only just met the guy!

I am increasingly convinced that no evangelism takes place without words. We’re kidding ourselves if we think otherwise. Do we need to look at the decline of mainline Protestantism as proof?

God bless the man who said, “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.” (It’s usually attributed to St. Francis, but he probably didn’t say it.) So comforting, so reassuring, so wrong.

I get that our words mean nothing if they’re not spoken with integrity, and actions speak louder, etc. But there is no gospel without words. There is no evangelism without words. Or if there is, it’s so exceptional it’s not even worth mentioning. We’re not doing evangelism right if we don’t, at some point, explain what the gospel of Jesus Christ is or why it matters to us. I’m sure this is really obvious to many of you, but for some reason I didn’t get it. I don’t think I’m alone.

Someone who is helping me get it is Robert Tuttle. I’m reading his book Can We Talk? Sharing Your Faith in a Pre-Christian World. He challenges his readers to pray every morning this prayer: “God, make me sensitive to my opportunities for ministry.” He says that it will open doors for us to share our faith. Ministry is obviously much more than witnessing with words, but he wants us to pray for opportunities to use words in order to help people come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.^†

Here’s an example of how not to do it. I belong to a civic organization outside of church. We had our monthly meeting tonight. I was a little bored (don’t tell anyone!) and grumpy because my entree was too salty. I made only a perfunctory effort to be sociable. I introduced myself to a few people I didn’t know. But I didn’t try hard.

And you know what thought didn’t cross my mind even once? “What if these people haven’t yet experienced the good news of Jesus Christ? What can I do to find out where they are spiritually? How can I help them understand the gospel?” And I’m supposedly a full-time minister! What’s my problem?

Anyway… You get my point. This is what I’m working on right now.

† Robert G. Tuttle Jr., Can We Talk? Sharing Your Faith in a Pre-Christian World (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 73.

Our sermon series on the challenges to faithful living, “In Good Faith,” continues this week by looking at Gideon, no one’s favorite Bible hero. If the future of Israel rested on the shoulders of this weak and waffling man, then Israel was in trouble. The good news, as the scripture makes clear, is that the success of Gideon’s mission didn’t depend on him; it depended on God.

In the same way, our success—in life, in ministry, in mission—depends not on us, but on God. As I say in this sermon, God gives each one us the power to “be the miracle that this world needs.”

How is God calling you to be that miracle?

Sermon Text: Judges 6:1-27, 33-40

The following is my original manuscript.

I’m not trying to shamelessly pander to high school students in the congregation when I say that I dislike the SAT. Do any of you dislike the SAT? At least I dislike the SAT that was around when I had to take it—I know they’ve reconfigured it a few times since then, and I’m sure it’s better than it used to be. But the premise behind the original SAT was that it was a way of testing not what a student has learned in school, but what a student is capable of learning. Thus the original name of the SAT was the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A test for “aptitude” is supposed to measure one’s natural ability. And if it measured natural ability, then it wasn’t a test you could do anything to prepare for. At least that was the propaganda.

That was what my teachers told me when I was a junior in high school. You can’t study for it, so all you should do is just get a good night’s sleep before the exam. And because I was a little lazy and didn’t want to study for the SAT, I liked that idea!

No one told me at the time about a man named Stanley Kaplan. He started a tutoring business in the 1930s. He first heard of the SAT in 1948, and he was too dumb to know that there was a test that you couldn’t study for. He didn’t believe it. And he made a nice living proving my high school teachers and the creators of the SAT wrong. Of course you can study for the SAT in order to improve your score!

My point is that as much as we might want to, it’s hard to measure something called “aptitude”; it’s hard to measure one’s natural ability; it’s hard to measure potential. But if you could measure aptitude, natural ability, and potential as they relate to doing God’s will, accomplishing something for God’s kingdom—a spiritual SAT, if you will—then this very unlikely Bible hero named Gideon would score very low on such a test. When you compare him to Bible heroes like Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, David, Esther, and Daniel—well, he really doesn’t seem to have much going for him at all.

How did the Israelites get in this situation—that their hopes for the future would rest on the shoulders of such a weak and waffling young man as Gideon?

A little bit of history… After 40 years of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness, Moses dies and Joshua succeeds him. He leads the Israelites across the Jordan into the land of Canaan—the Promised Land. And under Joshua’s leadership the twelve tribes eventually take possession of the land, but they’re still surrounded by neighbors, indigenous people, who worship foreign gods, especially Baal. And despite the success of their God—the one true God, Yahweh—to free them from slavery in Egypt and lead them into the Promised Land, the Israelites are constantly tempted to worship Baal.

At the end of the Book of Joshua, Joshua tells the Israelites that they’re going to have to decide today who they’re going to serve—foreign gods like Baal, or the one true God. He and his family are going to serve the Lord. But know this, Joshua warns: God is a “jealous God.” If you decide to serve the Lord and later leave him to serve foreign gods, you’re going to suffer serious consequences. And in the Book of Judges we see Israel suffer these consequences time and again. They commit idolatry. God punishes them by sending foreign armies to conquer and rule over them. The people repent and cry out to God. Then God shows mercy by raising up a “judge”—literally a bringer of justice, a military and religious leader. The judge defeats the enemy, restores Israel, and brings peace, at least for a time. And this cycle repeats itself throughout the book. But beginning with Gideon, it’s clear that things are getting worse. Idolatry is worse than ever. Something has to be done. And, as always, God continues to be faithful to his covenant; he continues to be merciful; he continues to rescue his people from their sins.

In today’s scripture we learn that Gideon’s hometown is under the control of a foreign power known as Midian. They’ve conquered Israel and replaced the worship of Yahweh with the worship of Baal. The people in Gideon’s town, including Gideon, seem to have given up on God entirely. The angel of the Lord tells Gideon, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior!”–which seems like a joke. I can’t help but admire the honesty of Gideon’s response: “With all due respect, my Lord, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his amazing works that our ancestors recounted to us, saying, ‘Didn’t the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and allowed Midian to overpower us.”

In other words, Gideon says, “I’ve heard all about how God did all these amazing and miraculous things in the past, but what good is that now? We sure could use a miracle now!”

Maybe some of you can relate to Gideon’s frustration?

I grew up in a Christian tradition that strongly emphasized the importance of the testimony. A testimony is your story of how God has been active in your life. When I was going through the ordination process, I had to tell my story, my testimony—of how I became a Christian, what it’s meant to me, and how I knew God was calling me into ministry. I like testimonies, and I would love to hear your testimony of faith sometime.

When I was college, I heard a testimony from a young man who said he had struggled for years to find his soulmate, the person with whom he would spend the rest of his life. He prayed that God would help him find that person. He said he finally just “turned it over to God” and stopped worrying about it, trusting that God would show him that person in God’s good timing. And then one day, out of the blue, he met her, the woman of his dreams. It was love at first sight. And he just knew she was the answer to his prayers. He told a friend, moments after meeting this woman, “I’m going to marry her.” And he did! And of course they lived happily ever after—I hope. That was like 25 years ago!

Anyway, I was quite impressed by this testimony, and I told my friend Brian, who had been unlucky in love himself. He was very lonely. I shared this person’s testimony and said, “Brian, you know, you just gotta ‘turn it over to God,’ like this person did, stop worrying about it, and God will show you the woman you’re supposed to marry.” And I’ll never forget Brian’s response. He looked at me and said, “Oh, what a bunch of baloney!” Only he didn’t say “baloney.” But you get the idea. I do believe that God answered this person’s prayer by showing him his future wife. But, let’s face it, sometimes, when we hear about what God has done in someone else’s life, it just kind of makes us envious. “It’s all well and good that God has done that for you, but what about me? I need God to do something about my situation. I need God to change the way things are for me. I need God to work a miracle in my life.” That’s what Gideon is feeling.

And God tells Gideon in so many words: “You want me to do something? Great! I’m going to do something. And I’m going to do something through you. You want things to change? Great! I’m going to change things. And you’re going to be my agent of change. You want a miracle? Great! I’m going to work a miracle. In fact, you’re going to be the miracle!”

And Gideon answers, “Well, hold on! Not so fast! I have a number of perfectly good reasons why I shouldn’t be the one to answer this call.” You know that when God calls you to do something there are always any number of perfectly good reasons why that isn’t such a good idea.

I’ve heard preachers say that we pray not in order to change God but in order for God to change us. I think that’s mostly true. Oftentimes, for example, when we pray for God to heal someone, he might show us how we can play a role in that person’s healing. When we pray for peace in the world, God can show us what we can do to be a peacemaker. When we pray for world hunger, God can show us what we can do to feed the hungry. When we pray for the salvation of a friend of ours, God can give us opportunities to share our faith. Prayer changes us, inspires us, motivates us to take action. You need a miracle? Sometimes God calls you to be that miracle!

God wants Gideon to be the miracle that Gideon is praying for. “So, Gideon, you want me to rescue the people from the Midianites? Good news! Your prayer has been answered. I’ll do it. And I’m going to start by having you go tear down that altar to Baal where you and your townspeople worship.” Gideon had a hard time believing that God wanted him to be the miracle.

And maybe you have a hard time believing that you can be a miracle, too.

But why? This church is in the miracle business. Didn’t you know that? It’s true! It happens all the time. When you help to love someone into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you are the miracle that this world needs! When you not only feed the homeless on Pine Street and provide material things but also show them God’s love, you are the miracle that this world needs. When you sacrifice vacation time and money go to places like Honduras and do unglamorous work like building latrines—as some of you will be doing in a couple of weeks—you are the miracle that this world needs.

Pray it with me: “God, make me the miracle that this world needs.” Again: “God, make me the miracle that this world needs.”

I know what some of you are thinking: These so-called miracles you mention… They’re not exactly Moses’ parting the Red Sea… These are little things that anyone could do.” And I see what you mean. But what kind of spectacular miracle do you see Gideon performing in today’s scripture? In the middle of the night, when no one is looking, Gideon musters what little courage he has, creeps into the sanctuary, and destroys this altar to Baal, hoping no one finds out he did it. Gideon was very successful at doing God’s will, but no single thing he did was all that miraculous.

It’s true that when we love and serve God and neighbor, the things we do are often little things that anyone can do. But why are we doing it? This is where the miracle comes in.

In verse 34 we’re told that the “Lord’s spirit came over Gideon.” Only that’s not literally what the verse says. The verse literally says, “The Lord’s spirit clothed itself in Gideon.” In other words, the Holy Spirit was wearing Gideon as his clothes. Think about that! Isn’t that an awesome image? You can’t see the Holy Spirit at work. The Spirit is invisible. All anyone can see is Gideon taking baby steps toward becoming the “mighty warrior” that the angel tells him that he is. Only it’s not so much this weak and waffling person named Gideon doing these things. See, it is really God taking control of Gideon, doing what Gideon, left to his own devices, would never do for himself. The miracle is that this cowardly man—whom we first see hiding in a wine press out of fear of being discovered by his enemies—this same man now has the courage to do something he wouldn’t otherwise do.

That, my friends, is the miracle. You may not even know how the Holy Spirit is working through you, but he is!

When you face an obstacle in your life that seems insurmountable, you might be tempted to think, “I can’t do anything about that!” You can’t? The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

You might think, “I can’t solve this problem.” You can’t? The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

You might think, “I can’t be successful in doing what Jesus wants me to do because of this set of circumstances beyond my control.” You can’t? The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to artificially inflate your self-esteem. See… That voice of self-doubt that always tells you that you can’t… it may be exactly right sometimes. You can’t… But God can! Maybe you don’t have the aptitude, the natural ability, the potential to be a mighty warrior conquering all enemies, seen and unseen, in your life. You can’t. But God can!

Maybe you just don’t have it in you to answer God’s call…

But, brothers and sisters, if you’ve given your life to Jesus Christ through faith and baptism, what you do have in you is the Holy Spirit, and he can be the mighty warrior for you. You can’t. But God can. Amen.

A modern church sits atop the traditional site of Peter's house in Capernaum. You can see the ruins through this glass floor.

One complaint about my otherwise AMAZING trip to the Holy Land last year was that the holy places are mostly covered up by churches. For example, you can’t see the cave in which, according to ancient tradition, Jesus was born because there’s a church on top of it. In his fictionalized travelogue to the Holy Land, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus: Reading the Gospels on the Ground, Professor Bruce Fisk shares my frustration but offers this eloquent rejoinder:

As I approached Peter’s house, I was initially annoyed by the modern memorial that, since 1990, has brooded over the ruins like a protective griffon over its nest. It made the ruins harder to see, which made no sense to me. But then I watched a pair of nuns ascend the stairs and disappear inside, which made me realize my attitude was painfully Protestant. Why was I eager to skip over centuries of Christian worship and memory, ready to clear away the layers, inclined to privilege dead stones over living faith? I was nothing if not one more in a long stream of pilgrims, each one on a quest for the grace it takes to remain faithful.^†

† Bruce N. Fisk, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus: Reading the Gospels on the Ground (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 143.

Gideon was bolder about prayer than I am. For example, I’m nursing a terrible cold right now. It came on last Thursday. Maybe I’m a wimp when it comes to being sick, but it’s really dragged me down. I don’t like not feeling like myself. I want to feel better. I’m tired of waiting.

Here’s the thing: not once during these past few days have I prayed that God would heal me of this cold. I assume that when I get a cold, the virus must run its course, and God isn’t going to do anything to stop it. But who knows? I still should have prayed about it. Maybe God would at least heal me of my terrible attitude!

Or maybe there’s no “at least”… Maybe my attitude—including my lack of patience and lack of faith—is the main thing that needs to be healed. If I were healed of that, maybe the cold would take care of itself.

"I Am Second" is an online collection of personal testimonies of faith.

In an anecdote from my sermon yesterday, I told the congregation that I grew up in a Christian tradition (Southern Baptist) that emphasized the power of the personal testimony. Growing up, it was a common feature of youth camps, retreats, and Sunday night worship services. A testimony is a Christian’s story of what God has done and is doing in their life.

Even in our Methodist tradition, testimonies play an important role. For the eight years during which I sought ordination as a United Methodist clergy, I frequently had to tell (and write about) the story of how I became a Christian, what it’s meant to me, and how I knew God was calling me into pastoral ministry. We didn’t call it either a testimony or story, mind you—why use those words when a more pretentious seminary word like “narrative” is available?

Over time, I learned to tell my story in such a way that its sharp edges were smoothed over. It became more cohesive but also more stylized. My call into pastoral ministry did not unfold as neatly as I described in my account of it. This is no surprise: living life, as opposed to talking about living life, is always much more ambiguous.

But here’s the important point: my testimony is true, regardless whether a journalist or historian would describe it just this way. I believe in the power of testimonies.

With that in mind, you can imagine how pleased I was to find this website, “I Am Second” (there’s also now a book version). “I Am Second” is an online collection of personal testimonies from people (Americans only?) from different walks of life.

Aside from the distractingly modish way in which these testimonies are filmed, I like it. Like most people, I’m more curious about famous people’s testimonies. Aside from some star athletes, the celebrities are mostly B-listers, but that’s O.K. (On what planet does Michael W. Smith qualify as a rock star? The guy from Korn, sure, but why not Alice Cooper?)

One final thought: I watch Survivor. Last season featured a few outspoken Christians on the show. I appreciated their faith and witness. One of them—if you watched the show, you’ll know who I’m talking about—seemed annoying, if not like a mental case. (This is “reality TV,” which means, ironically, that what you see does not reflect reality very well; he may be completely normal in real life.) He talked about Jesus. A lot. Even as he acted, act times, like a jerk. My daughter complained that he wasn’t making us Christians look very good.

I got where she’s coming from, but I disagreed. I said, “Yes, but just think of what this person would be like if he didn’t have Jesus in his life!”

And that’s how we should view a person’s testimony—not so much who they are now, but who they are in relation to who they used to be.

I hope you see how terribly convenient all of this is for me. If “loving the poor” is something that only red-caped superheroes do—because they’re retired, or because they’re young and single and kid-free, or because they get paid a teeny tiny salary to do it—then I’m off the hook.  (Because I’m unprofessional, old, married, mothering and decidedly not retired, that’s why.)  If I make engaging with a world in need a really big thing, then it’s kind of like I’m no longer responsible for it.  Which really works for me.

On the other hand, if engaging with a world in need were to be a very small thing—like learning more about the bagboy who tirelessly bags my groceries every week, or shamelessly begging for a baby shower invite to celebrate my favorite waitress at my favorite restaurant, or stopping to help the teen whose car is broken down by the side of the road—then I’d become responsible for it.

My main reason for reflecting on it here is because I see a connection to this Sunday’s scripture and sermon. I’m sure that my sermon will include words about “answering God’s call,” just as Gideon answered the call. As a recently ordained pastor, I’ve been forced to think and write a lot about answering God’s call. The United Methodist Church is intensely interested in the subject when it evaluates candidates for ordination.

But the church also believes that everyone is called by God to Christian service, whether we’re clergy or laypeople. Answering God’s call, therefore, isn’t just for the chosen few. God doesn’t simply call big and important people to do big and important things. If that were so—as Starbuck says—that would be very convenient for most of us. Most of us would be off the hook. As she writes, “If I make engaging with a world in need a really big thing, then it’s kind of like I’m no longer responsible for it.  Which really works for me.”

This Sunday’s scripture doesn’t necessarily prove her point. God did call Gideon to do big things. But as I’ll make clear on Sunday, it certainly wasn’t because he had any special qualifications, talent, or aptitude for the job. He was no conventional hero. In fact, he was kind of a dork.

That should serve as some encouragement, I hope.

Christians, in general, don’t like the book of Judges. It is at times disturbingly violent. (Judges 19:22-30 would earn any movie version an NC-17. Some of you are like, “I need to read that!”) Years ago, I stumbled upon something at a Christian bookstore called the Precious Moments Bible, whose stories were illustrated with depictions of those sappy, waif-ish figurines that used to be popular nicknacks. I thought, “What are they going to do with Judges?” Nothing about the book says “Precious Moments.”

We’re so squeamish about Judges that it rates exactly one appearance in the Revised Common Lectionary (concerning the prophetess Deborah), giving the lie to the oft-repeated claim that if we preachers follow the Lectionary we’ll somehow preach or at least hear the “whole Bible” in three years. Please! Not even close. The Lectionary, Protestant or Catholic, omits many of the most troublesome passages of scripture.

Preachers, in my opinion, have an obligation to preach these neglected passages from Judges, including Jael and Sisera, Samson, and, indeed, what I’m preaching this Sunday, the call of Gideon in Judges 6.

Not that I’ve ever done it before, lest you think I’m sitting too high in the saddle of my high horse!

† J. Clinton McCann Jr., “Judges” in The Life with God Bible, NRSV, ed. Richard J. Foster (New York: HarperOne, 2005), 341.

[The Scriptures] were not “old” in the sense of antiquated or out-of-date; I sometimes like to refer to them as the “First Testament” rather than the Old Testament to make that point. For Jesus and the New Testament writers, they were a living resource for understanding God, God’s ways in the world, and God’s ways with us. They were “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person who belongs to God can be proficient, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). They were for everyone, in fact. So it’s strange that Christians don’t read them very much. My aim in these volumes is to help you do that.^†

Of course the church rightly applies Paul’s oft-quoted words about scripture to the New Testament, but when Paul wrote them, he was, in fact, referring to the Old Testament. Hmm…

Do our actual Bible reading habits (not to mention preaching habits, Brent) reflect Paul’s perspective?

† John Goldingay, Joshua, Judges & Ruth for Everyone (Louisville, KY: WJK, 2011), 1.

The story of Peter’s walking on water, however briefly, in Matthew 14 is one of the most beloved in the gospels. The lesson we often draw from it is that “if only” Peter had enough faith, he could have walked on water successfully. At the same time, we admire his courage. We say, “Unlike the other 11 disciples who stayed behind in the boat, at least Peter had the guts to take that first step.”

What if this traditional interpretation is wrong? As I argue in today’s sermon, Peter’s faith problem didn’t start after he took those first few steps on the water; his problem started before he left the boat, when he failed to believe Jesus’ reassuring words: “Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

Can we trust that Jesus is with us even in the midst of hard times?

Sermon Text: Matthew 14:22-33

The following is my original manuscript.

It’s that time of year. You know what time I’m talking about? It’s the time of year when many of us resolve in this new year to lose some weight. Thanks to parishioners making wonderful holiday treats for me like “haystacks” and chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies, combined with my own lack of willpower, I gained some weight over the holidays that I want to now lose. And so I listen with interest to all these ads that bombard us on radio and TV, telling us about some new weight loss plan or pill or product or program. They make losing weight seem so easy, so long as we spend a little money first.

Did you hear about Charles Barkley? He’s struggled with weight over the years, and now Weight Watchers is paying him to lose weight on their plan. He’s lost 38 lbs. in three months. The other night, while he was in the broadcasting booth for a Hawks game, Barkley was accidentally caught on mic saying that he thought getting paid to watch sports, as he does, is the biggest scam. But now he realizes that Weight Watchers is the biggest scam. I looked at his words in context, and what he meant was, “I can’t believe they’re paying me to lose weight, something that I would try to do—something I ought to do—anyway.”

If Weight Watchers or some other weight loss program or plan or home-gym company wants to pay me to lose weight and get in better shape, let me go on record saying, “I accept!” Getting paid would certainly give me that extra incentive and make it easier. But “making it easier” is what all these plans, pills, programs, and products promise. When are we going to learn—when will we ever learn—that there are no shortcuts in life? If something is worth having or achieving, there are no shortcuts. There are “longcuts,” to be sure. If you’re trying to lose weight, eating those Munchkins in the back of the chapel are counterproductive. But there are no shortcuts.

One of the themes of this sermon series, and of today’s scripture in particular, is that there are also no shortcuts to living as a faithful follower of Jesus.

Please notice at the beginning of today’s scripture: There were no shortcuts even for Jesus! For what do we find our Lord eager to do, as he sends his disciples away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee? Jesus is eager to pray! By himself! He had intended to do that earlier in Matthew Chapter 14 but had to put his plans on hold as these crowds followed him—so he  instead spent the day teaching, preaching, healing, and eventually feeding the multitudes.

If Jesus is so in tune with God that he has the power to heal the sick, give eyesight to the blind, make the lame walk, and miraculously feed thousands with only five loaves and two fish—not to mention to preach with such great authority—we might be tempted to imagine that Jesus had some high-speed wireless, broadband connection to his Father and could skip the basic and mundane spiritual disciplines like prayer, which so easily elude us in the midst of our busy schedules. But no, there were no shortcuts for Jesus, either.

Jesus is able to be successful in his mission the same way we’re able to be successful in ours: in large part because he prayed. It’s as simple as that. And as difficult as that. There’s no easy way to follow Jesus. There are no shortcuts.

Just in time for today’s scripture, we heard news yesterday of this Italian cruise ship running aground and capsizing off the Tuscan coast. I went on a cruise last summer, and truthfully I didn’t pay much attention at the mandatory safety training, and now I feel guilty about it! You get this false sense of security from being in such a large boat that it’s not going to sink! Clearly it can! And it can sink fast! Did you read about the mad and chaotic scrambling for the life boats? The panic that set in instantly. There were 4,200 people on board, and so far only a few known deaths and, as of this morning, 41 still unaccounted for. It could have been much worse. But these people were scared for their lives! The power went out. People were in the dark. The boat was tipping over. It was all happening so fast.

I’m sure the disciples were experiencing this same panic as they battled wind and wave in the darkness of night.

Do you think they also experienced some disappointment with Jesus? They surely thought about the last time they were stuck on this boat during a life-threatening storm. Jesus was with them back then. He was sleeping in the stern of the boat, but at least he was there. They could wake him up, and he could save the day by calming the storm. Where was Jesus now? Safe on the shore… dry, warm, and so far out of reach.

To make matters worse, the disciples are only in this predicament to begin with because of Jesus. He sent them here, into danger, into death. Matthew writes that the waves were literally “torturing” the boat. If so, they were experiencing this torture because of Jesus. Think about it: Just as the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested, so Jesus led these disciples into this wild storm to be tested.

Do you see the challenge here? What if Jesus doesn’t protect us from the storms of life? What if Jesus doesn’t steer us around them or away from them? What if Jesus doesn’t enable us to face them from the comfort, safety, and security of a well-armed aircraft carrier? What if we only have a small, rickety, leaky fishing boat?

I counseled with someone recently who got a troubling diagnosis from the doctor. I asked him where he was with it spiritually—where he saw God in all of this mess. He said, “Well, I don’t believe that God gave me this disease. I nodded. “Mm-hmm.” I nodded. Good theology. God doesn’t cause evil. But I think I heard the unspoken words he wanted to also say… I think he wanted to say, “I don’t believe God gave me this disease, but he certainly didn’t protect me from it, either.” If he had said that, all I could say in response is, “Yep.”

The Lord didn’t protect him from this illness, just as the Lord didn’t protect the disciples from this life-threatening storm, just as the Lord so often doesn’t protect us from the hardships we face. There are no shortcuts to being a faithful follower of Jesus.

And then we have Peter… His actions, as are so often the case, seem impulsive. Peter is a “ready-fire-aim” kind of guy. Some theologians compare his actions to Satan in the passage we looked at last week: Just as Satan asks Jesus, “If you are the Son of God” and tempts Jesus to put God to the test, so Peter says, “If you are the Lord” and then puts Jesus to the test. As Jesus tells Satan, we’re not supposed to put God to the test. But if Peter is putting Jesus to the test, he’s doing so in a very strange way! Because here’s the test: if this ghostly figure on the water is really Jesus, then Peter should be able to walk on the sea with him. If not, then what? Peter drowns! So if Jesus fails the test that Peter constructs, then Peter pays the price! It’s hard not to admire Peter’s courage here, if nothing else.

It’s easy to admire his courage but not his faith… But not for the reasons you think!

See, one lesson that we often draw from this passage is that “if only” Peter had enough faith then he could walk on water successfully. And at least Peter, unlike the other disciples, was willing to take that step of faith to begin with. If you’ve heard sermons on this passage, you’ve heard that sermon. Heck, I think I’ve preached that sermon! I remember going to church youth camp one summer when I was a teenager, and one of our adult leaders said that if we only had enough faith we could walk on water, just like Jesus. I wanted to say, “Well, there’s a lake right over there, and a swimming pool over there… Why don’t we just give it a shot? It would be more fun that sitting here on this hot summer day reading the Bible!”

“If only Peter had enough faith, then he could walk on water.” If only Peter had enough faith, then storms like this one would no longer be a problem; he could simply walk to shelter and safety. What else could Peter do if only he had enough faith? What could we do if only we had enough faith? We might infer from this story that if only we had enough faith, then life wouldn’t be much of a struggle for us. If only we had enough faith, we could just snap our fingers and have God work a miracle to get us out of any jam. If only we had enough faith, then we could overcome all our problems in spectacular ways. If only we had enough faith…

And then we feel guilty because we don’t have enough faith—because, let’s face it, life is often a struggle. But the hard truth is that God sometimes want life to be a struggle. It’s part of the plan. It’s good for us. We learn and grow and become better people because God doesn’t allow us to “walk on water.” There are no shortcuts! Later in Peter’s life, as recorded in the Book of Acts, we see Peter and the other apostles suffer persecution, imprisonment, and beatings. In fact, Luke tells us that the apostles “rejoiced” because they had been regarded as “worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of the name” of Jesus. We know from history that Peter himself was crucified upside down.

Hard times and suffering were part of the deal for these first disciples and hard times and suffering are part of the deal for us present-day disciples. There are no shortcuts when it comes to following Jesus. 

The problem with Peter’s faith was not simply that he took his eyes off Jesus, that he doubted, that he became afraid and began to sink. His problem started before he left the boat, when he failed to believe Jesus’ reassuring words to him and the other disciples in the midst of the storm: “Be encouraged! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”

If we only had enough faith, we could trust that no matter what happens to us, God loves us with a love from which no crisis, no failure, no hardship can ever separate us. If only we had enough faith, we could trust that Jesus is right there with us in the midst of life’s storms. If only we had enough faith, we could trust that Jesus will always take care of us, in our life on this side of death, and in our life on the other side.

If only we had that kind of faith, how would that change the way we live now?

Later in Peter’s life—after many more tests and trails and failures—Peter would finally have that kind of faith.

Brothers and sisters, we will never learn to walk on water, but if we keep on trusting Jesus we can have that kind of faith, too. Amen.

I’m sure the commentary is great. (I just removed it from its Amazon box.) But get a load of this cover! Is it really the Old Testament for everyone, or just really attractive young people?