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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Anger

For the past few days I've been reflecting on the emotion of anger. And the more I ponder it, the less I understand it.

I think being angry is a perfectly acceptable reaction, and sometimes it is even warranted. However, we need to have some true thought go into how we express our anger.

When I was in elementary school, the girls who got angry with each other, gossiped about one another behind their backs. As I grew older, friend who were angry with each other ignored one another. And we are not much better as adults. We have not learned how to deal with our anger well. It is as if we strive to hurt one another, just so someone else can feel a fraction of how we do.

When I was in high school and through most of college, I dealt with my anger by ignoring the person I had an issue with. I wanted them to know, through my absence, that they had hurt me. When I reflect on why I acted this way, it occurred to me that I learned it from a close friend who taught me, through his own actions, that ignoring people was a way to painfully punish them.

In graduate school and beyond, I've found myself shifting how I deal with my own anger. It has become impossible for me to be mad for more than 24 hours. If I'm mad, I ask to be excused from the situation to collect my thoughts. Sometimes I have a private outburst of crying or expression, but by the next day the issue can be discussed clearly. When I asked to be excused, I clearly state that I need to gather my thoughts so I don't speak with too much haste.

Recently a friend revealed to me that he deals with anger the same way. Neither of us can pin point who modeled this behavior for us, so perhaps we matured into it. However, it can also be clearly seen as avoidance, which neither of us believe that it is, but others who do not understand want something more from us - a verbal outlast in the moment or a prolonged seething attitude.

But what we've both realized is that life is too short to spend it angry. We discuss what makes us upset in our relationships so they can grow, not so we can yell at or punish another. And a lot of times, 24 hours is more then enough time to see our fault in the situation and to pray and have self-reflection so a more complete conversation can take place.

However, when the way you deal with anger doesn't match how another deals, friction can arise. Perhaps there are stages of dealing with anger that are like the stages of development. Perhaps they are learned or perhaps they are part of the temperament of our personalities, but whatever the case when people deal with conflict differently it is an uncomfortable situation.

Example: someone became angry with me recently because of an intrpertstion of what I said. I sincerely apologized. I did not make excuses for my behavior, but I did strive to put myself in her shoes to understand where she was coming from. But all she could do was repeat over and over again that she was angry and this is why. It was as if she wanted to argue or she thought I didn't respect the intensity of her anger. We weren't in conflict well because we didn't deal with it the same way.

When someone is angry with me I try my best to just listen. I do not make excuses for my behavior, because often when someone is yelling at me, I find that explanations cannot be heard. Plus by listening, I can fully take in another's perspective and learn something about them, and often something about myself as well. I can strive to examine how their criticism reflects an area of my life that needs growth. Often I am just quietly absorbing until I apologize, sincerely, and honestly promise to try better in the future. Then if an act of recompense is warranted I will act upon it.

But that's just me. I want to make sure not to transfer how I deal with conflict onto another in such a way that they cannot express themselves or they feel that their emotions are being diminished. Emotions are as uniquely expressed as the people who feel them. So the question becomes, how do we help each other express anger in a constructive way that benefits relationships and keeps us healthy? Do we need to change the way we deal with anger to appease another person? How can we, as a culture, learn how to make conflict constructive and express emotions for a specific purpose instead of simply to express them? And for my friend and I who try to deal with anger towards us and anger we feel with gentle hands, how can we help people understand that our calmness comes form a sincere place, not one that is ignoring the severity of the situation the other person feels?

Emotions are such a tricky thing, yet we have them and have to learn how to be in relationship with ourselves and others around them. Further, our emotions are so tied into our stories, what we have dealt with in life before, how we perceive the world, and what we view as important. So how can we be in authentic, grace filled conflict, without knowing each other well enough to know our stories that undergird what lead to this place?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Monday, August 22, 2011

Disciples Proclaim the Word! - Matt 16: 13-20

When I look at today’s scripture lesson, I think it can be best be broken up into two parts who is Christ and how does our identification of who Christ is impact our daily lives.

On the surface it looks pretty simple doesn’t it. Christ asks his disciples who he is and through our 21st century eyes, and ears that I have heard about who Jesus is and what he has done, we just want to cry out “Of course, Peter, Christ is the Messiah.” But really it wasn’t that simple of a conclusion to draw. Each of Christ’s activities could be traced back to another person, in other words, what he has been doing up until this point in the gospels wasn’t unique. Of course, we know that Jesus would did on the cross, sacrificing himself for the absolute and vital unique act of saving us. But up to this point his actions and words reflected those of other prophets. Like John the Baptist, Christ has followers meeting the needs of those who have been forgotten and ignored. John also preached a similar gospel of repentance, or turning from their old way of life in order to fully experience the reality of what God made earth to be. Recall that Elijah preformed miracles and it was passed down orally from generation to generation that Elijah would return before the coming of the Messiah. Jesus could have also been identified with a prophet because of the radical things that he was saying, like Jeremiah people rebelled and tried to kill him over his message.

So here in the midst of all of their travels the disciples have been hearing who Christ is and maybe they even share the same opinions as those listed for some of the similarities just mentioned. But then Peter, always the bold one, puts words to his own opinion. “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” Remember that up to this point in the gospels, Jesus hasn’t been forth coming with the fact that he is the Messiah. In fact if we look at this gospel story in Mark we would find Jesus’ response to be a tad different, essentially, yes you are correct but I don’t want you to tell anyone. It is not time. A command similar to what we find at the end of this lesson, but without the blessing in between.

What exactly was Peter saying when he proclaimed one of the greatest Christological affirmations found withing the gospels., that Jesus is the Messiah. Essentially you are the one that we have been waiting for! Finally, the people of Israel who had been in captivity for so long would be redeemed. The Christmas hymn, O Come O Come Emmanuel coveys the spirit of longing and desperation for a savior when it says “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. And ransom captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appears.” The people of Israel are getting desperate. They want someone to come and free them from their current imprisonment by Rome. But that isn’t what Jesus came to be. He came not to save people from an earthly prison, but to free them from the captivity of Satan. He is freeing them from the bondage that Satan brought about in the Garden of Eden so that people could fully become who they were intended to be.

And for this affirmation and realization Jesus rewards Peter by saying, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in Heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church..” Peter was speaking the utterance of God because there is no way that he even understood all of the implications of calling Jesus the Messiah. Or how far being a Messiah extended past his Jewish expectations.

So who is Christ? Do we even know today? Are we like the other disciples spitting off second hand accounts of knowledge of who Chris could be? Or are we standing with Peter beaming with excitement as we proclaim, “You are the Son of the Living God!” In order to answer this question like Peter, we cannot rely on secondhand knowledge. We can only say this if Christ dwells in us, if we have a relationship with him. There is a difference between knowing something about someone and knowing someone. When I know something about a person I know a random fact that may or may not reflect who they are. But if I know someone, I have a relationship with him or her. I know their character, beliefs, values, and life experiences. I know them well enough to say not I recognize this person, but that this person and I are intimate. And I don’t know about you, but I want to say that I intimately know Christ and not just recognize him, because if I only recognize a person, there is no guarantee that they will be able to equally recognize me.

For example: I once was at a wedding where I had a women pull me aside after the service and address me by name saying something to the effect of “I was wondering who was singing in front of me so beautifully, and then I saw that it was Michelle Bodle.” I literally had no idea who this woman was or how she knew me. I in fact was a tad freaked out that she knew my name and I didn’t even recognize her face. It later turned out that she is the mother of one of the kids I graduated high school with. She recognized me from the yearbook, I had never met her.

But at that same wedding, I knew the bride. She has been one of the people I have been close to since high school, keeping in contact the whole way through college. She is one of the only people whom I made sure to see every time I was home on break. I could tell you her story, and why this wedding was so special to me as she had battled cancer just a few years prior. Because I knew her and she is so dear to me, her dad ushered me into where she was getting into her gown, as soon as I arrived. He knew that his daughter and I were close friends and he wanted me to share with her all of the excitement of her special day, because our stories and lives were so intricately connected.

Which story better describes your relationship with Christ? Would he know you deeply enough, because of your relationship, to share in all of the joy of your wedding day, or would he just stare at you blankly saying that he didn’t know you, if you pulled him aside to chat. May we know who Christ is intimately and personally.

After Christ blessed Peter for this deep knowledge of who he is, he went on to saying, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven.” Here is Peter, the same Peter who has screwed up and will still screw up in the future, and Jesus is giving him a huge responsibility, to bind and loose things in Heaven. Here’s the scary part, as Christ’s disciples, and part of the Church, we have the same command today. When we exclaim with Peter “You are the MESSIAH!” we have a task before us. But what does this binding and loosing look like in daily life? Essentially this means that we decide how the teachings of Christ apply to our every day lives and giving those teachings in such a way that we don’t judge people.

Being given keys is a very scary thing. As we grow older I think we forget how thrilling and nerve-wracking it was to be given the keys to the car for the first time when we were learning to drive. At least not until we live long enough to become parents and have the same feelings on the opposite side of the transaction. But some memories about being handed keys become so embded into our memories that we can understand the weight of the responsibility that Jesus is giving Peter and us. I celebrated my 21st birthday one of my first weekends abroad in Melbourne, Australia. It was my first weekend at a church that would eventually become my home away from home. When the congregation found out it was my birthday they immediately celebrated, singing happy birthday and promising to be my family in their absence across continents and oceans, but it was what happened next that stays with me as vividly as the day it first happened. The pastor then explained that in Australian culture that the age of 21 was when people truly become adults and they are given the keys to their own life. At this time I was given total responsibility for my own life, know that I would have to live into the greatness my family had prepared me for and accept the consequences the times I stumbled. What a gift and what a daunting reality! Brothers and sisters, we have been given the keys to Christ’s kingdom and we are called to live into the greatness Christ has formed us for as the church, while accepting responsibility when we stumble along the way. We are the ones who are the face of Christ’s kingdom currently.

The fact that we are the tangiable hands and feet of Christ today that bind and loose for the kingdom of God is daunting and hard to understand at times. Perhaps the best example Biblically of binding and loosing can be found in Christ’s teaching from the Sermon on the Mount in the phrases that say, “You have heard it said… but I say unto you.” For example in Matthew 5 verse 21 says “You have heard that it was said to those on ancient times, you shall not murder and whoever murders will be in judgment, but I say unto you if you are angry with a brother or a sister you will be liable to judgment and if you insult a brother or sister you will be liable to the council and if you say ‘You fool’ you will be liable to the fires of Hell.” This is an example of binding, or making something tighter, an example of loosing would be when he allowed healing to take place on the Sabbath, something the rulers of the law looked down upon because he was redefining the restraints in order to make them less stringent.

So what does all of this binding and loosing mean for us? Well as the church it means that we need to apply scripture to people’s daily lives starting with our own. Let’s go back to the text for a moment: “I give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” In the Greek the word bind actually means “whatever I have already bound you will bind on earth.” So how are we going to know what Christ has bound or loosened? By reading the scriptures through the eyes of the Spirit. But be forewarned, the Bible is not meant to be bent to reach our agenda or feelings. It is not meant to be interpreted in a way that keeps people from knowing Christ. It is meant to be preached with grace and love. And we cannot decide on our own how the Bible should be applied. That is meant for the Body of Christ, the collective church, to decide. I for one, don’t want to be falsely binding and loosing things on earth, that result in people being judged or looked down upon, when God is inviting them to be part of the kingdom!

We, as the church need to get our priorities straight. We are meant to bind and loose in order to bring glory to Christ and not to just make rules to make ourselves into an elitist organization that looks better. We don’t exist to make it harder for people to get into Heaven. We exist to shine Christ into the lives of people. And, no, this won’t be done by ignoring the sins of others, but it will also not be done by bringing needless guilt upon them time and time again after Christ has forgiven their sins. Do you catch the drift here? We should exist to help people find answers and grace to the questions that plague them, about how to apply the Bible to daily life, because sometimes the teachings a vague. And this helping and leading people is best done through discipleship, or collectively coming along side one another to discuss how the Bible intersects with our lives. The Bible is not just meant for Sundays, brothers and sisters. It is meant to be our guiding tool lived out every day.

When John Wesley was alive and in the many years following his death people following the Methodist tradition would gather several times a week for different celebrations and small groups. At least once a week, in these small group settings, people would be asked tough question to assess if it was well with their soul. And people honestly answered. And when they had questions about living out the faith others would surround them and lead them on. This is discipleship. We need to get back to asking the hard question, is it well with my soul, and then guide others as they answer this same question, giving them encouragement and rebuke.

I have a friend who knows me very well and I know him. Because we are so close, we are able to see points of sin or places that need to be improved in each others lives. More then once we have told each other “you are not living very biblically” and have explained why. More often then rebuke we are there for each other when we question what something in the Bible looks like practically. We shine light and bring about understanding when we miss God’s movement of grace in our individual lives. We are binding and loosing the scripture for each other, but it is always done in love. And we never say anything to each other without praying for the Spirit’s guidance. Because we care so much about one another we want to lead each other to blossom into our full beauty that God intended.

Brothers and sisters, may we be like Peter in this passage, proclaiming the word that Christ is Lord, out of our own authentic and deep relationship with Jesus. And may we seek to lovingly disciple each other, making the scriptures be lived out first in our own lives and then the lives of those close to us, as a response to proclaiming Christ to the Messiah, the liberator of our lives. For truly we are given the responsibility of binding and loosing that comes with the keys of heaven. May we bless other through this gift and our proclamation, with God’s help. Amen.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Last Post

So the last sermon I preached (see the previous post) created a bit of controversy in the church. Some of the congregation members didn't like how I presented Jesus in the sermon - but it's the post. They tried to present alternative ways that I could have preached the text including:

-> Jesus said what he said to teach the disciples a lesson.
Okay this is a possibility, but at what cost? Is it okay for Jesus to speak to the woman seeking mercy from him in that way in order to teach the disciples? What lesson would that give them and us - that we can humiliate people or speak to them in way that denies their humanity in order to teach a lesson?
-> TD Jakes preached a sermon based on this text that Jesus's point was that "the kingdom is going to the dogs".
In a way I can agree with this statement, but once again at what cost to the woman who I'm sure didn't appreciate being compared to a dog, which was not and still is not a term of endearment.

The problem with this text is that Jesus isn't the way that we want Jesus to be. Jesus doesn't fit into the image of the son of God that we have constructed in our heads. So when we preach that truth or read this text we feel the need to defend Jesus. But we are still left with the question of what this text means to us (and in a way that honors the text).

And at the end of the day - we aren't going to like or agree with every sermon we hear, especially ones that challenge us. I'm okay with that - are you?



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Disciples Don't Judge/ Watch Your Mouth and Examine Your Heart - Matthew 15: 10-28

The passage that we are presented with today is hard to read and difficult to hear because it doesn’t present the Jesus most of us like. Jesus is not gently hold a lamb or ushering children onto his lap. He speaks words that cut like a knife into the hearts of those around him. His tongue is sharp and he seems to lack compassion. And yet, this is the Jesus in today’s passage.

What are we to make of this Jesus? What does he have to teach us about who we are called to be as his disciples?

Sometimes I think that we have made the Bible a much harder book to understand then perhaps it needs to be. We’ve complicated it because we’ve taken what is essentially a book of stories and have dissected it. We take pieces out of context and try to make them applicable to our lives. And this is not to say that they don’t have meaning for us today – but we can’t just lift a passage out of scripture before looking at what precedes it in the story.

Last week we heard of Jesus walking on the water to the disciples in the midst of a storm after retreating to be by himself to grieve the death of his cousin, John. The story continues that the disciples and Jesus made it across the lake and made it to their destination, Geennesart. Here they were greeted by people from all over the region who begged to just touch a piece of Jesus garments and be healed. In the midst of all of these people believing and being healed, a group of Pharisees from Jerusalem approached Jesus and asked why the disciples disobeyed the laws that Moses had clearly laid out for them and that generations of their ancestors have followed. They cited specifically that the disciples did not properly wash their hands. But Jesus flipped the tables on these teachers of the law and accused them of not holding other people accountable to some of the most vital laws about human relationships, further he accused the Pharisees of not following these laws themselves. Rather they flaunted their own knowledge of the law instead of responding to the law out of love for the Lord.

And in this context our story today is placed. What Jesus is teaching those he called and gathered around him is directly related to his encounter with the Pharisees. They had accused his disciples of not washing their hands, thus defiling everything they touch, including the food that enters their body. But Jesus teaches that those words that exit our mouth make us unclean, and unfit to worship God. Those who are teaching about this like uncleanliness of the body, instead of the state of the heart and soul, are nothing more then the blind leading the blind until they fall into a ditch they cannot perceive or weeds that will be plucked by God.

What is Jesus really saying here? What are those things that truly make people unclean? I think Jesus is telling us to guard our human relationships. What are the things that you and I say that hurt others the most? Lies. Gossip. Speaking before thinking. Unfounded accusations. Our tongue can be the biggest enemy to our relationship with others and our relationship with God. For we cannot have one in order and not the other. We cannot have a good relationship with God while speaking ill of our neighbor, and we cannot be in good relationship with our neighbor if we do not know God. The heart and the soul and the mouth are linked. Jesus is asking us to examine what is exiting our mouths and to look even deeper into where it is coming from in our hearts – greed, envy, jealously, lust, pride, and wrath have a way of creeping into our hearts and damaging our relationships with others. And those words that we speak from the overflow of our hearts, linger with their sting far longer then any unclean thing we place into our body will.

See, the Pharisees were so concerned with following the letter of the law, that they forgot why it existed – to lead to deeper relationship with God and neighbor. We become unclean when we forget who is at the center of all of our relationships. Would we speak of God the way that we speak about others? Would we judge God the way that we judge other – labeling them as being unfit or unclean, when God calls them primarily, “my child!” The Pharisees quick judgments that passed their lips spoke of a much deeper heart issue – one that Jesus was calling them, and us, to address.

But what makes this passage so difficult is what happens in the story right after Jesus taught so sharply about watching our mouths – Jesus is approached by a woman from Canaan as he was traveling through cities bear Tyre and Sidon. This woman came up to Jesus frantically begging that Jesus have mercy on her and her daughter, who is plagued by demons. And Jesus ignored her. But she was persistent to the point where she was bothering the disciples and they wanted to send her away. The words that came out of Jesus’ mouth next were hurtful – “I was not sent to you. I was only sent to Israel”. He was effectively saying, you are not mine. Go away. But the woman inched closer and said, help me, have mercy on me. And Jesus replied, “It isn’t right to take food away from children and feed it to the dogs.” Jesus was effectively calling her a dog, an unclean one. A name the Jews used for Gentile pagans.

Can you imagine being told by Jesus to go away. That you weren’t his. That you weren’t worthy of what he had to offer and that you were no better then a dog? This was not one of Jesus’ finer moments. Yet, the woman did not give up. Her reply was one of dignity, grace, and respect as she replied, “Yes, but even the dogs get the scraps that fall from their owners table.”

Jesus spoke to the Pharisees not so long ago about how their words come from their judging hearts, and yet, here Jesus seems to be judging this woman. At first, he does not even show enough mercy towards her to acknowledge her humanity and speak to her. He ignored her. Then Jesus had to seemingly face his own prejudices towards Canaanites. He was forced by her to examine his own heart in this matter.

This woman understood something that Jesus had previously spoke to the Pharisees about – it wasn’t so much about following the law as it was about seeking mercy. And this woman understood that with an unshakable clarity. She believed that Jesus was the one who could have mercy on her, even if he just needed to be persuaded to remember. She wasn’t judging what Jesus had given to others or trying to say that he should take away from others in order to give to her. She wasn’t filled with greed or jealously. She simply believed in her heart that this was the one who could have mercy on her and her daughter. And that sentiment was echoed by the cry that crossed her lips.

Why do we need such a portrayal of Jesus in our scriptures? Because when we seek to follow Jesus we need someone who can hold us to lofty ideals but also someone we can relate to, and this is something the author of today’s gospel lesson understood well. Matthew was writing to an audience that was increasingly both Jew and Gentile coming together to be something new, a group of Christ followers. There were arguments about what was the right way to do things and who was better at following Christ – people were staking their claims and lines were being drawn. But when we look at today’s passage in its entirety, no matter how painful it may seem, it reminds us, and Matthew’s audience, that at the root of these claims and lines was a matter of the heart – a matter that needed to be examined because it can keep us from being the church, the ones who are to see the humanity of others and respond with compassion. When we get so caught up in people’s past labels and our quick judgments, we cannot extended the hand of mercy that is required to be relationship with others – the mercy that is a mark of our relationship with the God who has shown mercy to us.

Friends, at the end of the day this passage is difficult, but it reminds us that life, and the relationships in it, are messy. We aren’t always as careful with examining our hearts and our words, as we should be. We do not always extend mercy and grace. And more difficult, Jesus does not always give us the example to follow that we hope for and have come to expect. At least not in his words, which in this particular passage are harsh and have a tone of judgment. How are we going to respond to these difficulties?

I think a lot of our uncomfortableness with how Jesus responds to her is because we know that it isn’t right. We know that it isn’t right for us to treat other people that ways – ignoring them, judging them, and creating excuses for our lack of mercy – and it certainly isn’t right for the Son of God. Yet, in that uncomfortableness, can’t we see a bit of ourselves? How we’ve responded to others in the past. The deep heart issues that we still wrestle with. Our lack of control over the words we speak that overflow from and unchecked heart.

I have to wonder what the disciples learned at the end of the day from these two times of teaching – the words that Jesus spoke to the Pharisees about unclean hearts and then Jesus’ action and words towards this mother begging for mercy. Did they feel uncomfortable as well? They must of, because they begged him to send her away, so their situation could be comfortable again. The same disciples who had stood by and told Jesus that he was offending the Pharisees did not defend the honor of the woman before them. Yet, they had to have learned something. Maybe it took them years to understand, or maybe it was only moments before clarity struck, but I believe out of their uncomfortablness dawned an understanding of what ministry is really about – its about relationships. Not just the relationships that society says deserve our respect, but those relationships that make us feel the most uncomfortable. Because those are the ones that are going to speak the most about what’s in our heart and how our relationship with God is at that moment in time.

Brothers and Sisters, words come as quickly as passing moments. Do you think that Jesus wished that this story was never recorded? Did he see his words as a mistake that he could not take back? How often to we say things that we wish we could take back, especially in the uncomfortable moments. I don’t know about you, but the words that linger with me the most are the ones that others have spoken over me that were damaging and untrue. And the memories that bother me the most are the ones when I have done the same to others. Jesus may not be our perfect example in this passage of scripture, but he reminds us why we need to watch our words and make sure our heart is clean of judgments. What are your words saying about the state of your heart today and every day? Amen.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

How Will You Be Remembered?


When your time on this earth has ended, how will you be remembered?

Contagious smile, laughter, boundless energy, passion, words of encouragement, concern for others. And so much more.

Your life ended too soon. Rest in Peace, Esquire Holland.

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Missions

Missions have been on my mind lately. Particularly thinking how you can create a culture of missions when it doesn't exist. I never really thought about it before, but I grew up in a church that had an emphasis on missions - we gave money to the heifer project, food the food bank, collected Campbell's labels, and a host of other things.
If I wouldn't have grown up in that culture I may not have been lead to create a mission drive for one of my residence at the local women's shelter in need of baby supplies. If I wouldn't have grown up in that culture I may not have been inspired to lead mission trips.
So how do you create that culture in a church that has no interest or understanding of missions?

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Disciples Have Faith…Even When They Don’t - Matt. 14: 22-33

A popular song by the artist Jonah 33 has the following lyrics, “I want a faith like that. To see the dead rise. Or to see you pass by. I want a faith like that.” But what is faith really? And whom do you place your faith in today?

A lot of us were raised to immediately say that we put our faith in Jesus and faith is believing in what you cannot see, but know is true. This is all well and good, but it is not the example or the teaching that the disciples have for us in today’s scripture passage. We are told that Jesus insisted that the disciples get a head start to their next location. So they loaded into a boat to head to the opposite shore across the sea. They had just witnessed a miracle, Jesus, their teacher, friend, and master, had just taken five loaves of bread and two fishes and head over five-thousand families who had gathered to hear him. He had originally went their way, not with the intent on feeding these souls and stomachs, but to retreat away after the heart-breaking news that his cousin, John, had been beheaded. Jesus was still seeking solitude to mourn and pray. So he ushered the crowds away, after seeing to their needs and well-being, and sent the disciples off. Night fell and Jesus had not caught up with the disciples. The wind was picking up and the boat was caught too far from either shore to be safe in the midst of a rising storm.

As three am approached, the disciples saw a figment coming towards them on the lake and they were terrified. They cried out that it was a ghost. They did not recognize the one whom they had been following for quite some time now. They did not recognize the one who had just fed so many families and taught on the hillside. They did not recognize their teacher, friend, and master, the one whom they had been with day in and day out. Here, brothers and sisters, are men who saw Jesus in the flesh, yet they could not recognize him when they saw him. They had faith in Jesus, yet could not believe what was right in front of their eyes. Even as Jesus spoke to them words of greeting and peace, in “Don’t worry, its me! Don’t be afraid” only one of them stepped out in faith towards Jesus. Only one of the twelve.

I think we loose a bit of the intensity of what Jesus was saying to the disciples when we say, “it is me” in English. In Greek, Jesus simply states, “It is I”. But there is so much in that statement. For in it there is an inherent question: don’t you know who I am? Don’t you recognize the one whom you have lived and moved with for all this time? Yet, only one disciple recognized Jesus. And Peter’s response of standing up and speaking back to Jesus, asking Jesus to command him, was an act of faith.

Peter tends to get a pretty bad reputation in this passage of scripture. Just like Thomas in the passage about yearning to see and touch Jesus’ wounds from the cross, Peter is labeled a doubter in this passage. But really Peter was the only one who had the faith to get out of the boat. He was the only one who had faith that this one that everyone else was referring to as a ghost, was truly the Jesus he knew. So he made a bold statement, “If it is really you, tell me to come to you across the water.” And when Jesus said come, he got out of the boat and started to walk towards Jesus. It wasn’t until he took his eyes off the Lord and started to focus on the things that scared him, his own inadequacies, the audacity of him walking in water, and the growing intensity of the wind and the waves, that he began to sink. But brothers and sisters, he still had faith in Jesus for he cried out. “Save me!” and Jesus immediately stretched out his hand and he caught Peter.

Here is the part of the scripture that has lead to the miss-creation of the Christian mantra about what faith is. Jesus said to Peter as he caught him, “You have so little faith. Why did you doubt?” A history of Christian interpretation has led us to believe that Jesus is chastising Peter for not having enough faith in him as God’s son. As if he doubted Jesus. But Peter believed in Jesus, friends. He believed even in the midst of not having faith in anything else, because when he started to sink he still cried out to Jesus, the one whom he trusted enough to get out of the boat, to save him, knowing that he would. No, Jesus was not asking Peter why he doubted him, as the Lord, this one whom Peter was so close to. Jesus was asking Peter why he doubted himself. Why he became so caught up in his circumstances, that he didn’t have enough faith to continue his journey to Jesus. He got caught up with the water and the wind and forgot to believe in himself in such a bold way that he could walk across water.

And let’s be honest. Peter had ever right to be afraid. In his culture it was taught that water was the very source that not only gave life, but that which could take it away. When God became angry with the people around Noah, he sent floodwaters to destroy the entire world, all of creation, except what was in the ark. When Pharaoh’s army tried to catch the Israelites as they escaped captivity in Egypt, the waters swallowed them whole. Water had the ability to nurture and sustain life, but it also has the ability to choke away life. Peter started to doubt the authority that Jesus had bestowed in him. The power and freedom to not tame, but move with, the force of nature found in the waters. That was just too much for Peter to trust himself with.

Friends, if we would be honest with ourselves for a moment, I imagine that we would see a lot of Peter inside of ourselves, but even more so we may see those other eleven disciples. Jesus had sent the disciples on ahead of him. They had a mission – to get to the other side, presumably to set up for Jesus to arrive later and join them. But when the storm came, they quickly forgot their mission about preparing for Jesus’ coming and simply went into survival mode, and they were so intensely focused on their present circumstances that they could not even recognize Jesus when he came to be with them and could not hear his words of comfort, to not be afraid.

From the eleven disciples who stayed in the boat we can learn an important lesson about discipleship. Faith is not always as simple as believing what we cannot see or trusting Jesus. It is having faith that God will deliver us to the place God has called us to. Where is God calling us to go, Albright-Bethune? What is our mission? Where are we to be examples of the hope and life Jesus has to offer? Where are we making spaces for people to hear and experience Christ in their lives? And are we truly focused on this mission God has given us? Or are we more worried about the day-to-day nature of surviving. Because Church, if we are more focused on surviving then the mission, then we are going to be just as confused as the disciples, unable to see Jesus coming towards us to be our comfort and strength. When we take our eyes off the shoreline of where we are going and who we are called to be, then we are simply stuck in the middle of the lake, with no where to go. But know this. Even if the other eleven disciples lacked faith, they were still able to recognize the immensity of what they saw Peter doing.

They may not had been able to have faith in Jesus as he walked towards them on the water, but they knew who he was after he saved Peter, as they worshipped him and cried, “Truly You are the son of God.” These disciples remind us that to worship is an act of faith, it is an opportunity to remember all the times God has brought us through in the past, so maybe, just maybe, we can recognize Jesus coming towards us in the future, calling to us, and ushering us on in our mission for the kingdom of God. This, my friends, is why we gather here week after week. Not to be entertained, to do the same thing, or even to hear a good word. We gather together to remind each other that we have a mission that is greater then any present circumstances we may find ourselves being distracted by and that even when we loose sight of our faith, God is faithful to us.

But what about those times that we recognize Peter inside of ourselves? The times when we leap forward in faith, only to doubt ourselves or our decisions later. Peter recognized the Lord and wanted to answer the call to discipleship so he crossed the raging waters, he had faith to do what no one else in that boat did. When we have the boldness of Peter in this passage to move outside of our comfort zones, we often start to doubt ourselves. We think that something is too difficult or dangerous. We wonder what others will think of us. We fear for our safety. We wonder if we even heard Christ’s call correctly. We think that we are not strong enough or good enough. That we don’t have enough time or faith. That doubt my friends, is not from the Christ that called to Peter from the waters. Those are the mocking cackles of our own personal demons. And nothing will make us sink faster then to doubt that we are good enough to be the children of God and to be called forth on a mission. For to doubt that fundamental piece of our identity is to simultaneously doubt Christ’s presence along our journeys.

Our faith may waiver my friends, but do not let it be because we doubt ourselves. Do not let it be our lack of certainty about getting out of the boat. And do not let anyone tell you that you did no have enough faith in Christ to succeed. Because at the end of the day, Peter still knew who to turn to when the waves of his own doubt started to pull him under, and Jesus was faithful to catch him, while gently asking why Peter doubted himself.

Brothers and sisters, Jesus asks Peter why he had so little faith. But this is nothing short of an affirmation that Peter did have faith. He had enough faith to start the journey, just not enough to reach his perceived destination. Do we have a faith like that? A faith to get out of the boat. It may not be the faith of seeing the dead rise or seeing Jesus pass by, but it is still faith, friends. It is his act of faith that lead to the others proclaiming that Jesus was Lord. Today as we come to celebrate communion, I would invite you to think about your own faith journeys. Think about if what you proclaim with your lips is true in your hearts. And think about a time when God has been faithful to you. We will conclude today’s service with this act of worship: to share with each other those times of God’s faithfulness, maybe even when we lacked faith, and to remind each other of that. For there may be times when we have a little faith, like Peter, and there may be times when we seemingly don’t have faith at all, like the disciples at the beginning of the passage, or times when we have an abundance of faith that it leads us to step out on the waters like Peter or proclaim Jesus is Lord, like the disciples at the end of the story. But through it all, God is God, the one whom is always faithful, and the one whom has faith in us, as the children of God. Amen.