Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33
Let me redraw, from memory, a cartoon from some years ago. Picture an executive office, high atop an urban skyscraper. Picture a magnificent desk, as polished as it is huge, complete with a C.E.O. type seated behind it. Standing before the desk, picture a plain man dressed in work clothes, obviously representative of a menial employee in the organization. Then picture that man saying to his boss: "If it's any comfort, sir, it's lonely at the bottom too."
If we didn't know it before, we should surely know it now: no matter who you are.... no matter where you are.... no matter what you are... life can be both low and lonely. "Low," because the bottom has a way of failing out. And "lonely," because people have a way of falling away.
Last week, in our initial foray into this dramatic story of storm and sea, we talked about why it always seems darker at 3:00 in the morning than at any other time of the day or night. Several of you were kind enough to say that I had correctly captured your feelings associated with that hour, intimating that as a result of having been there once or twice, you remembered it well. One of you went so far as to research a couple of literary allusions to this biblical reference, especially F. Scott Fitzgerald's recollection that 3:00 in the morning and "the dark night of the soul" is one and the same thing. I like that, given my desire to have you understand that the 3:00 image in this story is not solely about how dark it can get outside, but how dark it can get inside. So let me take you back to Galilee (the sea, that is).....and the storm which, when last we left it, was battering boats and trying souls in the wee small hours of the morning.
As you will remember, last Sunday's sermon ended with Jesus walking toward the weary crew, high-stepping it across the waves. How? That's anybody's guess. But that's not the issue. You're not supposed to get all strung out over the question of "could he or couldn't he" (walk the waves, that is). The message of that part of the story is not that Jesus comes by impossible means, but that Jesus comes at impossible times. Jesus has this way of showing up (the story seems to say) just when you think that nobody can.... or will.
At any rate, the boat people see him coming. Or, to be more specific, they see someone.... or something.... coming. They are terrified. "It's a ghost," they say, crying out in fear. How strange, says Fred Craddock, that the Savior should seem like a spook. Perhaps it was the downpour. Perhaps, the delirium. It wouldn't be the first time that, in the middle of a crisis (or in the middle of the night), someone couldn't see or think straight.
Or perhaps they saw in him, not the harbinger of help, but the visitation of death. I can understand that. People sometimes view me that way. I will be talking with "good" church people (like you) about some unchurched people (known to you). The latter are temporarily sick and in the hospital. That seems to concern you. Thinking that you are fishing for my offer to make a visit, I express a willingness to trek to the hospital. At first, you accept my generous offer. Then you think better of it. To be sure, you'd like me to go. But you are worried that were I to go (meaning that if a minister were suddenly to show up), the patient would think he was dying. And you're probably right. Some people think that way. "If a minister comes 'round, I must be in a really bad way. There must be something that somebody isn't telling me. He wouldn't be coming in, if I wasn't checking out." And so I stay away, lest my help be misperceived as doom. Jesus reads that fear and decides to address it. "Don't be afraid," he says. "Courage, it is I." Which should have done it. But it didn't. For the next sentence out of Peter's mouth betrays how deep his suspicion really is. "Lord," Peter says, "If it is you, tell me to come to you across the water.”
I love that line, probably because (for so many years) I missed its meaning completely. Think, for a moment, about how you would identify your friend from an impostor, especially if it was too dark to see clearly and too stormy to hear accurately. You would probably look for something in the message itself that would seem consistent-with, and typical-of, the kind of thing your friend might say to you. So it is with Peter. Confronted with the possibility that what he is seeing might be both ghostly and ghastly, Peter is not about to trust a simple: "Courage, 'tis me." Instead, he says: "Lord, I'll know it's you if you ask me to come to you across the water." In reality, I think Peter is thinking something like this:
The Lord I know.... indeed the only Lord I have ever known.... is the one who asks more of me than anybody ever asked of me before. So if this is really the Lord (who has come at this impossible time), I'm going to know it by the fact that I'll be invited to respond in an equally impossible way. If it's really Jesus, he is going to step-into-the-breach by asking me to step-up-to the test.
That's just his way. That's always been his way. That's his trademark. If it's really Jesus (and not some ghostly apparition or figment of my imagination), the next word out of his mouth is going to be: "Peter, come."
My friends, that's how you know the real Jesus from the fakes. And that's how you tell the real Christian church from all of the ones that use the name and put a cross on the roof, but bear no resemblance to the real thing.
I know that the world doesn't lack for institutions claiming to be the "one true church." Customarily, they stake their claim on the fact that they hold one particular belief, affirm one peculiar doctrine, or baptize in one certain way. But if there is any institution even remotely on the right road to the truth about Jesus Christ, It is going to be that institution which (in the name of Jesus) asks more of you than it offers to give to you.
It is so tempting for the church of Jesus Christ to ride out the storms of our day by hunkering down with a good book and reading it in the fiery glow that is generated by friends who are tried, true and compatible. But that's not the church of the New Testament. Over the last several years, I have attended any number of "church growth" seminars, all of them purporting to know the secret of getting "baby boomers" to join up and become members. The theory is advanced that "boomers are consumers" who "shop" for churches like they shop for anything else. They like quality.... expect quality.... demand quality.... and (if attracted) are even willing to pay for quality. Music is important to them; it had better be good. Children are important to them; there had better be plenty of activities for them (and not in the basement, either). Given some other things that are important to them, there had better be seminars for growth, groups for friends, and parking that rivals the mall for ease and convenience. And woe be unto the church that doesn't realize that, for 'boomers," the crib nursery has replaced the ladies' parlor as the room that is second in importance, only to the sanctuary.
I understand that. I have modified much of my ministry to accommodate that. What's more, I have learned that it's not just "boomers" who are demanding greater and greater degrees of excellence in every facet of the church's life. It's everybody from little kids to the rocking chair set. The things against which the church must compete for the attention and assets of its members are so slick and professional that we have to offer twice as much, and do it twice as well, just to keep up.
But I still believe (deep in my heart and soul) that people want to be stretched as well as massaged, challenged as well as coddled, and confronted repeatedly with the biblical paradox that says you've got to invest in order to enjoy, serve in order to live, and give whole big chunks of yourself away if you ever expect to come upon a self worth finding.
Instinctively, I think we know this.... that the only Christ worth heeding and the only church worth joining is one that says: "Get over the side. Get your feet wet. Do what you don't think you can do. Go where you don't think you can go. And give what you don't think you can give."
So, you see, I don't apologize for the fact that we ask a lot of you.... and from you.... here at Birmingham First. I don't apologize for the fact that before next October rolls around, we are going to ask you to teach in a second Sunday School at the 11:00 hour, or take a leadership role in other growing programs. I don't apologize for the fact that, even as we speak, members of the Nominating Committee are buzzing some of your phone lines, asking you do accept positions in our church's officiary. I don't apologize for the fact that we ask some of you to perform great music, others of you to prepare hearty meals, while asking still others to pray for the sickly, visit the elderly, carry food to the hungry, repair flood damage in the valley, shelter the homeless occasionally, or lay down on a table and bleed into a plastic bag annually. Nor do I apologize for the fact that we sometimes ask some of you to head for the hills (as in Appalachia), or down to the Corridor (as in Cass), or, at the very least, dig a little deeper into your pocket in order to support those who do. And I am certainly not going to apologize for being the point man who asks you to step up to the financial challenges that this year's campaign will articulate.
Every non-Birmingham person I met last spring said: "Congratulations on your appointment; you're going to a great church." And every Birmingham insider I met last spring said: "Congratulations on your appointment: you're coming to a great church." And every one of you I have met (at every meeting I have attended since June 27) has done nothing to diminish the idea that I have arrived at a great church. But when I sift through reams of data about attendance and stewardship patterns.... pledge profiles and giving tables.... it is hard to escape the fact that this "great church" is also a slightly complacent church. To be sure, from out front it's hardly noticeable. But I guarantee you, if our response to this year's appeal continues the pattern of slippage evidenced in the responses to recent year's appeals; there will be little choice but to take the kinds of steps that will be noticeable. ... and perhaps even painful.
But it doesn't have to be that way. In Christ, we can summon the will. And in the mountains of written Information being shared with you, can be found the way. What's more, virtually very conversation I have with you reveals a sense of readiness on your part.... even a hunger.... to get on with whatever God has in store for us next. Stormy though it may be, and tired though we may be, I sense a collective readiness to hear the Gospel.
"Get out of the boat," Jesus said to Peter. And Peter must have said something like this to himself:
Hey, I've heard this before. I've done this before. And it worked before. Granted, my boat was tied up to the shore before. There was no storm before. And it wasn't the middle of the night before. But if it's really Jesus....given that I have already left my boat and followed Him once....why should I let a little deep water stop me now?
And with that, Peter was over the side. I like that in Peter. Heck, I like that in anybody. There are those who test the waters, a toe at a time. And there are those who jump right in. In a world filled with the former, I find that I increasingly relish the latter.
To be sure, there is always a time for prudence.... for caution.... for calculation. And there are people who are good at such things. I have always tried to keep a number of prudent folk around me. We have done some "careful work" together. But it has only been when I have widened the circle around me to include a few first-out-of-the-boat people, that "careful work" has occasionally become "great work," and church maintenance has begun to feel like Christian ministry.
Of late, I have taken to sharing with a few of my friends the highest compliment that I can possibly pay them. I tell them that, were I ever to find myself in great distress (or great trouble) and had but 20 cents and the opportunity to make one phone call, that I could (and would) call them. For I know that they would come first and ask questions later. They would come, whether I needed a lift or a loan.... a friend or a witness. I know that I could ring up their boat and it wouldn't matter as to the lateness of the hour or the severity of the storm. They would have one leg over the side while their hand would still be warm on the receiver. What is amazing is how many people I truly feel that way about. And what it equally amazing is that every one of those people is someone I met in church.
All of us know people like that. And, to some degree, all of us are people like that. There is not a one of us who wouldn't step out for somebody, or step up to something. None of us is so fat and sassy.... so lazy and lethargic.... so content and comfortable.... that we would rot in the boat forever. The question is; "How wet will we get for what, and how far will we go for whom?"
The danger, of course, is that we will hear the summons and wait to see what everybody else does first. Like a group of junior high girls trying to decide whether to attend some 8th grade dance, the church of Jesus Christ is often filled with people looking quizzically at each other, saying: "I'll go if you'll go.... I'll do what you'll do.... but let's not try anything until we're sure that we are all in this together." In this church, it often takes the form of people saying: "What we have to do is get more money out of all those people who don't give us anything." Which is not a bad idea, but which sounds (each time I hear it) less like your suggestion of how to proceed congregationally, and more like your deflection of whatever it is you are being asked to do personally.
Notice that our story is not about a request for everybody in the boat to swim two or three strokes for Jesus, but for one particular individual to step out into the fray in response to Jesus. And make no mistake about it, this story is not told for the benefit of the rest of the people in the boat. This story is told for you.
As I wrote in this week's Steeple Notes, this trio of sermons owes its inspiration to an anonymous admirer of our former Bishop, Judy Craig. One day he gave her a lapel badge which read: 'WALKING ON WATER IS A PART OF MY JOB DESCRIPTION." My friends,
That’s not only funny,
that's not only true,
that's not only mandatory,
that's possible!
