Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33
It's 3:00 in the morning,
We've danced the whole night through.
It's 3:00 in the morning,
Just being here with you.
Some of you will recognize the lyric.... and the sermon title.... as coming from a song of another era. I can't remember all the words. And I can't quite finish the tune. But the image sticks. 3:00 in the morning... late time.... good time.... dancin' time.... romancin' time.... arm in arm time.... cheek to cheek time.... stars in the eyes time.... I could have danced all night time. I've been there. So have you. How sweet it was. And is. And could yet be again.
But when most people think about 3:00 in the morning, they are not thinking about the best of times, but the worst of times. 3:00 in the morning is an hour often associated with insomniacs, worry warts and social deviants. If you can't sleep, 3:00 in the morning is the worst of all times to be tossing and turning. If someone isn't home by 3:00 in the morning, it becomes floor- pacing time. If the telephone rings at 3:00 in the morning, it's palm-sweating time. If people are out in the street, running around at 3:00 in the morning, it's safe to assume that (for some of them) it's up-to-no-good-time. And 3:00 in the morning is no time to be awakened by that quartet of disturbing sounds which include rumbling stomachs, dripping faucets, crying babies, and four-legged furry things crawling in the walls. In short, 3:00 in the morning is a terrible time to be sleepless.... a terrible time to be sick.... a terrible time to be lost.... and a terrible time to be in danger.
In our text of the morning, it is 3:00 in the morning.... on the sea.... in a boat.... in a storm.... with things not altogether comfortable for the friends of Jesus who find themselves there. We know the hour, given that the text indicates it is the fourth watch of the night. The night is defined as beginning at 6:00 p.m. and concluding at 6:00 am. Romans divided the night into four watches of three hours each. Therefore, reckoning by Roman time, it is now the beginning of the fourth watch, or 3:00 a.m.
The sea is actually a large lake. Galilee is its name. Eight miles is its width. Fourteen miles is its length. It is configured not unlike Crystal Lake near Frankfort. But it is a lot rougher, given the manner in which wind currents from the Jordanian plain occasionally, and quite dramatically, buffet its surface. If you want to paint a picture of rolling waves and contrary waves, defying even the best efforts of arm-weary oarsmen to hold a boat on course, paint away. Throw in some rain, if you like. A little sleet, if you like. No stars, if you like. Men retching over the side, if you like. Feel free. Matthew won't object. But don't put down your brush without finding some way to paint fear in the eyes (so obvious that you can see it), or fear in the throat (so obvious that you can taste it). Then you will have a picture that is worthy of the story and the scene.
Then ask yourself: "Why are these men in this predicament?" For if you read the story, you will recall that they are out in the storm because that's precisely where Jesus sent them. Verse 22 (with which the story begins) reads: "Then Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side, while he, after dismissing the crowds, went up into the mountains to pray."
Don't let that slip by. Jesus sent them out there. "Made them go," says the text. Actually, the word "compelled" is an even better translation, as in: "Jesus compelled the disciples to get into the boat and precede him to the other side."
Sometimes it is the obedient church that experiences the storm. Sometimes it is the obedient Christians who, in response to the leading of Christ, find themselves in the deepest waters and the most troubled seas. Sometimes it seems as if Jesus has no concern for the climate he is sending us into, but is only concerned with the climate of the souls who are being sent. A good Jewish mother would say: "Surely you're not going out on a night like this." My mother used to say that. And she wasn't even Jewish. But Jesus was no Jewish mother, believing (as it seems he did) that storm centers, rather than safe harbors, are where his followers ought to be.
Harold Bales, who was appointed to serve venerable old First United Methodist Church in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, found himself in something of a storm center when he launched several outreach programs to the poor, who inhabited the fast-changing neighborhood around First Church's building. One day, Harold was confronted by one of his better-dressed, better- educated, and better-cultured members who had just passed several street people in the corridor of "her church."
"What in the world are you doing?" she asked her pastor, making obvious
reference to the very-dissimilar people she had just passed in the hall.
"I am trying to save people from Hell," replied Harold.
"Oh," she answered. "That's good. We should be trying to save them."
"Not them," Harold said. "Us. I'm trying to save us from Hell."
And whatever you believe about divine judgment and whether there is any such "hellish" dwelling place for the repose of the damned, you get Harold's point. We Christians will be judged by what we do when things are difficult, rather than on the basis of what we do when things are easy. What's more, he is suggesting that faith will be measured (and often discovered) when, as the hymn writer says, "The storms of life are raging," rather than on those nights when we listen to our mothers and refuse to venture out, for fear that it might rain.
But back to our story. It's still 3:00 in the morning....in a storm....on the sea....once upon a time. Or maybe not-so-very-once-upon-a-time. For many of you, this is last night's story. Tonight's story. Or tomorrow night's story.
For some, it is 3:00 in the morning economically. There is not a day goes by when I do not read about people who are out of work. But it is becoming an all-too-common experience to have firsthand encounters (in this very congregation) with friends who are out of work. And what about all those kids... including many of your kids.... who are fast coming to the ends of their academic careers and wondering whether there will be work for the looking.
And painting with a broader brush, aren't some of you beginning to worry that it is pressing on towards 3:00 in the morning as concerns the future of school-finance reform, not to mention health care reform. More and more, these fragile (but oh so necessary systems) seem to resemble those old cars we used to dismantle as teenagers.... always promising anybody and everybody that we could get them back in running order before somebody in the family needed to drive them, yet never really knowing if we could or would.
For others, it's 3:00 in the morning emotionally. Bruised and battered.., downed and defeated.... guilty and grieving.... use whatever brace of adjectives you like. And when you're feeling such things, it's always worse in the middle of the night. That's because at 3:00 there is no light by which to put things into perspective, and very few people to whom pieces of burden can be given.
A man on a stool hears the bartender announce: "Last call." As he pushes his glass toward one final refill, he is heard to say: "I came in here to drown my sorrows, only to discover that they've learned how to swim." It calls to mind that wonderful word- picture in the novel Hotel New Hampshire. "Sorrow" is the name of the old family dog that dies. Not quite knowing what to do with the carcass, they row out from shore and (in a comic parody of a burial at sea) throw him overboard. The next morning, one of the family's children stumbles over the old dead dog while searching for shells on the beach. Which causes him to come home and announce over a breakfast of pancakes and sausage: "Guess what? Sorrow floats." Indeed it does.
For still others, it's 3:00 in the morning ethically. Have you discovered that people don't always exhibit the clearest thinking, or make the best choices, when the rest of the world is sleeping? The anonymity of the post-midnight hours covers a multitude of sins. In the middle of the night, people feel cut off from the normal moral framework in which they live out their daylight hours, to the degree that anything desirable becomes acceptable, and anything rationalizable becomes justifiable. At 3:00 in the morning, our guard is down, and most of us can talk ourselves into almost anything. Temptation is incredibly nocturnal.
I see that as of the very-late-hours of Friday night.... or the wee-small-hours of Saturday morning....William Kennedy Smith is in trouble again. One wonders when Billy will ever learn one of life's elemental lessons: namely, if you can't leave a place sober, at least leave it early.
My favorite 3:00 in the morning song speaks to the ease with which moral compromises are made at that hour. It's a little but of a country-western song which, if it wasn't sung by Crystal Gayle, should'a been. Most of you will remember the lyric, even if I pick it up in the middle:
I don't care what's right or wrong,
I don't try to understand.
Let the devil take tomorrow,
For tonight I need a friend.
Yesterday is come and gone,
And tomorrow's out of sight,
And I hate to be alone,
Help me make it through the night.
And then there are those who fear that it is 3:00 in the morning ecclesiastically. These are the people who look at our denomination and argue that it will not come out of the storm intact... that numbers are statistically down.... that influence is significantly down.... and that faith is watered down. Many of you are here this morning as refugees of other religious institutions which, when you left, were more into survival than they were into ministry. And you are so glad to be here (in this place) that you could spit gold nickels while singing the doxology. Yet the fears that you first learned in other old familiar places, rise up to haunt you:
What if the same thing happens here?
What if we, too, fall on hard times?
What if present leadership fails us?
What is present leadership deserts us?
When I read our long-range planning document, prepared just a year or so before my appointment here, in a listing of responses to the question, "Name the overriding issue facing First Church in the '90's," at least one of you said: "Survival."
I don't know what time it is for you, this particular October morning. But I am willing to bet that I have hit one of your vulnerable spots somewhere in the last few minutes. I think that most of you know what 3:00 in the morning looks like for you.... feels like for you.... and when it was that such a moment last occurred in your life.
For that's when religion became more than an academic exercise, because that's when Jesus Christ became someone you hungered-after in your heart, rather than merely speculated-upon in your head. For the bottom line of the religious quest.... your religious quest.... my religious quest.... every religious quest.... is the raw edge of human need.
On an all-night flight from Melbourne, Australia to Athens, Greece, a professor of hydrology from India struck up a theological debate with Robert Fulghum (whose chief claim to fame has been a book telling us about all the really important stuff we learned in kindergarten). What was on the professor's mind was God. Specifically, he was troubled by why there are so many different names for God.... books about God.... routes to God.... and why one group of God's followers will gladly kill another group of God's followers, in the belief that they are somehow better serving or pleasing God.
Slowly the professor moved to the window and pointed down to the Indian Ocean, over which they were flying at that particular moment. Being a professor of hydrology, he began to speak of water.
Water is everywhere (he said). Water is in all living things. We cannot be separated from it. No water, no life. Period. It comes in many forms: liquid, vapor, ice, snow, fog, rain, hail. But whatever the form, it's still water.
Human beings give this stuff many names in many languages. But it's crazy to argue over what its true name is. Call it what you will, it makes no difference to the water. It is what it is.
Human beings drink water from many vessels: cups, glasses, jugs, skins of animals, their own hands, whatever. But to argue over what container is proper for water is crazy.
Similarly, while some like it hot, some cold, some iced, some fizzed, some mixed with coffee, tea, scotch, whatever, it still doesn't change the nature of the water.
Never mind the name. Never mind the cup. Never mind the mix. These are not important. What is important is the one thing we have in common. Namely, thirst.
And that's what 3:00 in the morning is all about. Thirst! Whether you're tossing on a bed or tossing in a boat. Whether the storm is without or the storm is within. Whether you're rowing like hell, or toward it. The only thing that will satisfy is the one who, in our tradition, is called "Living Water." Which is precisely what we get.... or who we get....if our story is to be believed. For, in the fourth watch of the night, when everything seemed contrary, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea. Don't ask how. That's an unanswerable question. It's also the wrong question.
That whole debate (about how Jesus could possibly walk upon the water) misses the point of the story. I think the miracle has less to do with a Jesus who comes by impossible means, than with the Jesus who comes at impossible times. When it is darkest, he comes. When we are weariest, he comes. When the sea is so wide and our boat is so small.... when we are a day late and a dollar short.... or a month late and a rent payment short.... when the storms of life are raging.... when we're up a creek with no paddle, and our arms are too tired to hold a paddle if we had one.... when it's too dark to see by.... or (worse yet) when it's too dark to hope by.... Jesus comes 'round.
I don't know many composers of church music personally, but one with whom I have had a chance to break more than an occasional crust of bread is Walter Schurr. He has written so many beautiful things.... some of them intricate.... some of them complex.... all of them melodic. But none more elemental than a little spiritual he wrote (for 3:00-in-the-morning people), that I first heard seven years ago.
Jesus, won't you come by here, Jesus, won't you come by here, Jesus, won't you come by here.
Now is the needin' time, Now is the needin' time, Now is the needin' time.
