Matthew 14:22-33

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.

When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."

Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."

You might be familiar with today’s gospel story by many different titles: "Jesus calms the storm," "Jesus walks on water," "Peter walks on water," "Peter fails to walk on water," etc. This morning I invite you to think about this as the story about Jesus who miraculously appears in the midst of fear.

Fear of the sea was a prevalent phobia in the first-century middle east. There were no swim lessons at the YMCA; no coast guard speeding to rescue ships in distress; no posted signs warning of the absence of lifeguards or the dangers of rip currents; nor was there a team of action alert weather forecasters warning of the next disruptive sea storm. The sea was a place of provision and destruction, life and death.

The first century audience would hear the storyteller speak about a boat being battered by strong waves and feel the same sense of dread and foreboding as we feel when we pick up a Steven King novel or listen to a story by a campfire told by someone holding a flashlight casting ominous shadows onto the storyteller’s face.

This gospel story is a story about fear – how it affects us and how it does not overshadow the ways and promises of God.

In order get in the right mindset, I encourage you to think of an experience in your life where you felt terrified. Recall an experience in your life where the talons of fear took hold of your heart. Perhaps it was a diagnosis, an accident, being let go by your employer, being let go by a loved one, a near-death experience, losing someone you loved, or stepping into something completely unknown.

My moment of greatest fear was almost three years ago, when my youngest son endured his first seizure. It happened without warning. One minute I was coaching my oldest son’s soccer team, with my perfectly healthy youngest son watching on the sidelines; the next minute I heard people yelling my name.

A crowd had formed around my son as he had fallen from his chair. He was lying on the ground, convulsing, and turning blue. I had never witnessed anything like it; I had no way to be prepared for it; I had no understanding of what was happening; and I have never felt so helpless. I thought I was watching my son die.

I found a medical article quite helpful in explaining what is going on neurologically when one feels fear. Essentially, the amygdala activates a series of physiological systems but the “brain basically shuts down as the body prepares for action. The cerebral cortex, the brain's center for reasoning and judgment, is the area that becomes impaired when the amygdala senses fear. The ability to think and reason decreases as time goes on, so thinking about the next best move in a crisis can be a hard thing to do. Some people even experience feelings of time slowing down, tunnel vision, or feeling like what is happening is not real. These dissociative symptoms can make it hard to stay grounded and logical in a dangerous situation.”

We now have the medical insight to verify something people have anecdotally known for centuries: When you’re scared you can’t think straight.

One of the important truths in a gospel story like today’s is that God comes to us when we’re scared and when we can’t think straight.

Whatever sense of fear the disciples were feeling on that boat battered by the waves, their fear actually intensified when Jesus came to them. Jesus was doing something so unprecedented, so unnatural, so unbelievable, that they couldn’t even recognize him at first. After all, they were so scared they couldn't think straight.

The disciples cry out in fear and a sound cuts through the roaring of wind and wave – the voice of Jesus saying, “Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.” With this sentence Jesus makes it clear that God remains present with us in the midst of fear.

I don’t believe Jesus is making light of their predicament or their fears. He’s not saying, “I can’t believe you scardy cats let a couple big waves rattle you.” Instead, he’s saying, “I understand that you are afraid but right now you are not thinking straight. Take some deep breaths, keep your eyes on me, I am coming to you.”

Peter responds with something you could interpret as faithful confidence or the irrational action of someone with a compromised cerebral cortex. He asks Jesus to command him to go to Jesus. Jesus obliges. Peter takes one step onto the choppy water – the very thing he is most afraid of. Then goes the other foot. Each step lands firmly on the water without sinking.

Despite a successful beginning to his water-top journey to Jesus, a strong gust of wind once again ignites Peter’s amygdala and it asserts control, convincing him that his fear of the wind and water is more real than his dry ankles; more real than the Jesus whom he has nearly reached. His mind is once again compromised by fear and he begins to doubt himself and sink.

This story is both a promise and a warning. The two-fold promise is that God is with us in our fear and equips us for incredible acts of faith. The warning is to be aware of the fact that when we’re scared our brains are hard-wired to look for solutions anywhere but the God who is present in our suffering.

Recall again that life experience I asked you to think of earlier. Was God present in that experience of fear?

If you were able to feel God’s presence, I am grateful along with you. You witnessed something truly remarkable; something which hopefully gave you hope and peace.

If you were unable to feel God’s presence, I lament with you and I know how you feel. In my moment of pure terror around my son’s seizure I did not bother looking for God. It was only through hindsight that I recognized God’s presence:

in the crowd that was praying for my son;
in my wife who, thanks to medical training, knew what was happening and responded with decisive action;
in the presence of my parents who happened to be in town that day and were able to be with Nolan and provide a sense of normalcy while we rushed his brother to the hospital;
and, of course, in the care of the first responders and emergency room staff.

My hope is that this amazing story from Matthew’s gospel convicts you to learn enough about yourself to know when you are operating out of a sense of fear. There is nothing wrong with feeling fear; however, the problem comes when we pretend that the fear is the most logical and accurate response and allow our fear to call the shots, ignoring God’s promises that remain within our field of vision.

This is not an abstract issue. Over the past few weeks pastors from Dallas to Indianapolis have pronounced God’s blessings on the potential action of our President launching a pre-emptive nuclear weapon strikes on the people of North Korea. This is just the latest example of Christ-followers affixing a self-righteous label on their fear-based assumptions.

The White House is not looking to me for theological advice. They have their own echo chamber for that purpose. And, truth be told, maybe you don’t think a pastor should have anything to say about the possibility of nuclear annihilation nor anything else that falls under the realm of “politics.” Regardless, know that as a Christ-follower others are looking to you to teach them the ways of truth, peace, hope, and love. And these things are impossible to manifest if your attitudes and decisions are rooted in fear rather than faith.

I’m not telling you to avoid being afraid; that’s impossible. I am, however, praying that you would understand the difference between fear and faith. One has the potential to destroy this world. The other has the potential to save it. When we are afraid, the ways of peace and love look as absurd and unrealistic as a man walking on water. And yet, this man beckons us to step into the heart of our fear and be with him. May we be so courageous.

Amen.

Matthew 13:31-35

He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.’

He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:

“I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.”

In order to put yourself in a better position to understand this parable, I’d like you to imagine you were part of the crowd to whom Jesus was addressing this parable. You, a Jewish man or woman in the first century, have a lot of questions and high expectations for this rabbi who has been wandering around from village to village astounding crowds with his teaching and performing miracles.

You have been listening to Jesus for a while now and he keeps telling stories – stories about things you encounter on a daily basis. There was the story of the sower who wasted his seeds by scattering them without any care for where they would land and yet still ended up with a miraculous harvest. That story made you think about God differently, imagining God as something that plants seeds of grace in every corner of creation

Next came the story of the weeds and the wheat growing together. What a relief to hear that even though evil and righteousness exist together right now, God is in control of separating them and will do so at the appointed time.

Now Jesus tells two more stories. The first about a mustard seed that grows into a large bush which birds can use for shelter. The second about a woman who hides leaven in three measures of flour and watches as the glob of dough rises.

You know what both of these things are. In fact, they’re so common to you that you probably don’t spend much time thinking about or appreciating them. Those mustard bushes are all over the place. They are quite pretty plants, with those yellow flowers, and you know that its seeds and leaves are used in cooking and medicine. Come to think of it, you have seen birds nesting in these bushes, just as Jesus pointed out.

And of course you know all about leaven (*what today we would call "sourdough starter"). You have a jar of it in your home. A gelatinous goo with a sour, earthy smell. It’s the key to making bread. Every day you reach in and take a portion of it out, mix in into your flour, and watch the dough rise to three times its original size. You also add more flour to the jar of leaven each day so that it will be ready to be used the next day and will never run out.

And did Jesus say that leaven was going into three measures of flour? That is an absurd amount of flour. It would make over sixty loaves of bread. That’s enough for a wedding party. And then you remember why that phrase “three measures of flour” sounds familiar. That was the amount of flour Abraham instructed Sarah to use to bake the cakes for the three mysterious visitors who would then announce she would give birth to a son in her old age. You wonder if Jesus meant to make a connection between the kingdom of God, your kitchen, blessing, and new life.

With that little imaginative exercise I hope you were able to see that the things that Jesus spoke about in his parables were things you would encounter on a daily basis – things that are so common that you might even fail to pay attention to them. Such things are the key to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven.

In the parables, the leaven and the mustard seed are not really metaphors for more noble truths or difficult concepts; instead, they are reminders to be aware of the miracles of daily existence.

If you are looking for the Kingdom of Heaven, look no further than the parts of God’s creation that you encounter in your daily life.

The kingdom of heaven is in the fermentation of yeast and the photosynthesis of plants – both are processes of transformation and new life that take place without any work of your part.

Jesus reveals this truth in the context of a group of religious people who had asked Jesus for a sign to prove he was the Son of God. Rather than do something they would have understood as otherworldly and miraculous, Jesus directs their attention to God’s ongoing activity in the world – in and through things as common and unremarkable as leaven in every home and mustard plants in every garden.

Jesus points to the God who is incarnate in every natural process and creature in the world, and invites the crows to see every daily encounter and action as a way to experience the God of all creation.

I took my boys golfing this week – something they wanted to do before the school year started. Upon completing the front nine we had to stop by the clubhouse both for bathroom break; but also so that I could buy more golf balls since we lost quite a few to the various ponds and heavy brush out-of-bounds areas.

As I was paying for the golf balls, the older man running the register told me, “That’s a special gift you’re giving those boys.” My first thought was that he was talking about the sleeve of the cheap golf balls I was buying. Perhaps sensing my confusion he continued, “I was a great athlete in high school. I set records in wrestling and baseball…and my dad never came to see me play, not even once. He was too busy drinking. I see kids playing golf with their parents here and I just know that’s a special gift. When they get older they’ll spend time with their kids because you did something special for them.”

I thanked the man for his observation – for reminding me of the gift it was to spend time with my children. I don't tell that story to make it look like I'm the hero of this story. The man in the clubhouse is the hero of this story because he is the one who was able to look at something ordinary, something he has seen countless times in his time at the golf course, and call my attention to its sacredness.

The key to understanding the kingdom of God is to make an effort to notice God’s limitless presence and grace in even the most common and unremarkable things. As with yeast and tiny mustard seeds, these common everyday things are packed with kingdom potential.

The Christ-follower’s call is to go around calling attention to the grace inherent in common and unremarkable things, responsibilities, and people.

Amen.

"A Water-Top Jesus Journey" – Matthew 14:22-33

"The Miraculous Mundane" – Matthew 13:31-35