Save Me, O God, for the Waters have come up to my Neck

If I had been one of the 12 disciples in that boat on the lake in the storm, I would have been the one cowering at the bottom with my eyes squeezed so tightly shut that I never even would have seen Jesus coming toward us on the water. I would have missed the whole thing. I have a deep, inborn mistrust of waves and water that no amount of rational explanation can eliminate. As a child, it took me three whole summers of swimming lessons before they could coax me off of the steps in the shallow end, and even then, I refused to venture out where I could not touch bottom. I do swim now, but boats that bob and twist on the waves still scare me to death. Even airplanes, floating on an ocean of air, cause this white-knuckled flier to panic when turbulence pushes the plane around even a bit. I understand all too well the chaotic power in waves of water and air that threaten to submerge us without warning. I know the perilous uncertainty of floating, without firm footing, on billows of insubstantial shifting matter, with chaos looming just underneath the surface.

Chaos is indeed a terrifying thing.  Our Gospel lesson for today is full of its frightening power over us. In the Bible, water often represents the primeval chaos itself, full of all of the dark, dangerous forces that threaten the very order of creation. Personified in ancient Canaanite myth as Leviathan, the monster of the deep whom God has battled and destroyed, the menacing waters constantly churn up around us. The disciples are out in a boat on chaos itself, alone in a boat that is being violently battered by dangerous winds, alone on a vast lake in the dark before the dawn, far from where they last saw Jesus. And they are terrified. Terrified just like we are, in the chaos of our relativistic, materialistic, rootlessly urban existence in modern America.

Did you know that you are also in a real boat right now? Well, you are. You are sitting in what is called the nave of the church, and “nave,” like “navy,” comes from the Latin word for boat. And our boat is indeed “assaulted by the waves” and tossed to and fro by chaos, is it not? We are all especially afraid of the chaotic waves of economic uncertainty right now.  Real live storms this year have heaped up destruction and death and have thrown on deck before our eyes the chaos churning in natural disasters. Private storms rip at us from within, as well, as our own personal chaos or the chaos of disease, threatens to overwhelm us. It can indeed seem as if the powers and principalities of the deep are undoing creation, while we voyage alone in a very small boat on a very large sea. 

In our Gospel lesson, there is good news for us in our little boat. After a night of struggle, the disciples see Jesus, walking toward the battered boat upon the lake. Jesus’ appearance on the turbulent waters is more than just a miraculous magic show. Jesus calls out, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” These words from Jesus are not just personal words of identification and comfort for his friends, these are words of divine disclosure. “I AM” is the name of God, revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush. Jesus says to the disciples in Greek, “Take heart, I AM.” I am the Lord God, master of the waves, do not fear.

Moreover, for the disciples and for Matthew’s readers, Jewish Christians whose daily Prayer Book was the Psalms, Jesus’ stroll on the dangerous waters of the lake had deep theological significance. The God of the Psalms, the God of Jonah and of Job, is a mighty God who controls the chaotic waters of the earth, who makes the powers of the deep submit and bow before him. Listen carefully to the voices of the Psalms: “God of Hosts … you rule the raging of the sea, when its waves rise, you still them” (98).  “The waters saw you, God; the waters saw you and writhed; the deeps, moreover, trembled … Through the sea was your way, your path through the many waters yet your footprints left no trace” (77). “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me” cries the Psalmist (69).

 Jesus sends his disciples out into the storm and then comes to them as God, as the God who saves us, who turns chaos into order, who created the universe and is still upholding it against all the chaotic powers that would tear it to shreds.  When we cry out to God in our trouble, God comes to us. God, the Creator, the great I AM, sends peace into unruly Chaos, meaning into despair, calm into frenzied activity. Psalm 107,  a Psalm that must have influenced Matthew’s telling of this story, describes how our salvation from the waters of chaos happens:

“Some went down to the sea in ships… they saw the deeds of the Lord, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea … their courage melted away in their calamity; they reeled and staggered like drunkards, and were at their wits’ end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love … Let them extol him in the congregation of the people.”

As a water coward, though, here’s my question for this scenario: how are we supposed to keep calm in the boat when Jesus is way over there on the other side of the lake? Is our faith supposed to be unwavering if we are good Christians? What if we're still scared? If we start to drown, is it because we didn’t believe strongly enough?

          Matthew answers these questions by adding Peter to the mix--Peter, that wonderful disciple, that Rock of the Church … well, that coward like you and me, the one who denies Jesus three times to save his own skin. Poor Peter. Peter is often used as example of insufficient faith in this story because he couldn’t make it across the water. "Aha," some interpreters say, "Peter doesn’t trust Jesus enough. If Peter had enough faith, if he closed his eyes to the external evidence and believed only the miracle, then he wouldn’t have faltered in the water, he would have walked safely to Jesus, he would have shown the others what true, spectacular faith looks like. Peter didn’t keep his mind focused on God’s Truth," they say. "If you keep your mind focused on Truth, if you refuse to think about the scientific laws that prevent us from walking on water, then you are on the path to Jesus. If you fall down into chaos on your journey," they scold, "then your faith wasn’t sufficient. If you start to drown, then you don’t really have the answers."

Actually, if we look closely at the text, we can see that such a reading is a significant misinterpretation. Peter’s great lack of faith does not suddenly occur as he crosses toward Jesus on the lake. Peter’s problems begin long before he sets out on the water. I believe that Peter actually goes astray when he wants to be sure that he has a firm grasp on Truth, with a capital T. Peter’s problem is not that he keeps an open mind; it is rather that he tries to pin down God too tightly. Before he sets out, Peter tries to bargain with Jesus, “If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” We have heard bargaining like this before, coming from our own mouths:  “If you are real, God, save my loved one right now, and then I'll be the best Christian ever.” “If you are real, God, get me out of this mess.” Goodness, I start my silent bargaining as soon as I get on the airplane or in a boat! We also hear this kind of bargaining in the New Testament from the evil one himself: “If you are the Son of God,” says Satan to Jesus, “command these stones to turn into bread.”  “Prove to me that I have a firm hold on Truth,” we throw out at God, “send me a sign, and then I will be able to do marvelous things for you in my faith.” Scholars point out that the word used by Jesus in v. 31, when he asks Peter why he doubts, is a word used only one other time in the whole New Testament. It isn’t the usual word for the wary skepticism that we often call doubt. It is a word meaning “vacillation.” In wanting everything pinned down, Peter begins wavering before he ever gets out of the boat. Peter thinks that the way to escape the terrors of chaos is to walk to Jesus with celestial trumpet fanfare, with the banners of certainty waving behind him. But in reality, Peter only escapes the chaos of the deep when Jesus pulls him spluttering and dripping from the depths.

No matter how deeply we bury our heads in the sand or how we shore up the sides of our ship, we are disciples who sail on seas of chaos and uncertainty in this world. Through the fog and across many high waves, we Christians can feel God’s miraculous and powerful presence with us, we can see Jesus as Lord of the Turbulent Waters, but it is not the kind of knowledge that we can put under a microscope or use to balance a mathematical equation or hold as a bargaining chip with God. When it comes down to it, I think that a lot of our fear of chaos, like my fear of water, comes not from a rational dread of the chaos itself, but from the irrational fear that, deep down, I am not worth saving, should I start to go under. Our story shows us that such a fear is unfounded. We, like Peter, are saved from the depths, not by any fantastic feats of faith, but by the grace of God’s hand, that loving hand that reaches down into the dark, deep waters and pulls us up, kicking and coughing up water, often quite worse for the wear, and that places us back into the little boat with the others. Jesus is calling to us, begging us to come, to get out of the safety of our church boat and to venture out through chaos without the comfort of certainty, without waiting for a divine insurance policy, without a copy of The Answers in our back pockets, our only certainty the knowledge that, if the waves submerge us, Jesus, the Lord of Creation, will take us by the hand and pull us out, worthy or not.