Sermon: If you want to walk on water, you better get out of the boat!
1. Introduction:
I would like to focus on two particular verses from our Gospel reading today.
They occur in the middle of the story of Jesus walking on the water.
The disciples have run into a storm on the middle of the Lake of Galilee – and Jesus comes out to them – walking of the water.
Peter sees Jesus and asks him if he can come out join him. And Jesus replies:
“Come”
Then Peter got out of the boat, walked on water and came towards Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and began to sink.” (Mt 14:29-30)
When people preach on this passage they almost always seem to focus on Peter’s lack of faith.
But I want to talk about Peter’s faith because I think Peter gets a bad press on this.
I’d like to look on Peter’s actions in a more positive light.
I know of ONLY two people who have walked on water – and one of them was Peter.
PETER WAS PREPARED TO GET OUT OF THE BOAT AND WALK ON WATER.
2. Peter’s Experience of Walking on the Water
When I think about it - what amazes me was that Peter had faith to get out of the boat IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
Having been on the Lake of Galilee in a squall, I know I would not have wanted to get out the boat in a gale.
I know I wouldn’t have the guts – but Peter did.
NONE of the other disciples joined Peter on the Lake!
3. Are we prepared to get out of the boat?
The question I would like to ask today is:
If Jesus called you to walk on water in the storm, would you be prepared to get out of the boat.
Now for the Anglicans here – that’s what I call Apostolic Succession!!!!
John Ortberg wrote a book with the wonderfully intriguing title:
“If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat”
Story: On 28th August 1963, Martin Luther King gave his famous speech “I have a dream” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
Who then would have dared to dream that 50 years later we would have had an African American President.
Yet Martin Luther King’s dream, I believe, had much to do with Barak Obama becoming the 44th President of the United States.
We need people who are willing to swim countercurrent to the popular mood, when inspired by God.
We need those who dream of God’s Kingdom coming here on earth.
Quote: It was the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who wrote:
"If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away. "
Who is the drummer that WE are listening to?
Dreaming dreams is quite biblical actually
God often gave new directions as a result of dreams in the Bible.
1. Jacob
Jacob had a dream after he has duped his older brother and is fleeing for his life (Gen. 28:10-22).
He is alone, running to his mother’s relatives. But he must stop to sleep.
In this condition, he is a good candidate for an intrusion from beyond.
He dreams of angels coming and going, messengers and promise-makers.
He hears God’s voice of promise.
The God rooted in his family promises land.
This odd holy voice of the night also promises to be with this fugitive and to bring him safely home.
2. Pharoah
Pharoah, the mighty king of Egypt had a dream that troubled him(Gen. 41:14-24).
Who would have thought that this powerful king would be so vulnerable?
His dream involves a confusing scenario featuring cows and shocks of grain.
He has no clue to the meaning of the dream.
After Pharaoh’s magicians and wise men, his "intelligence community," fail him, he summons an outsider, an Israelite, someone with no credentials at all
As we know Joseph tells Pharaoh the meaning of his dream: there will soon come a time when the empire will be destabilized.
Truth in the night is spoken to the one who has power in the daylight.
3. Nebucadrezzar
In a similar way, Nebucadrezzar had a dream that Daniel interpreted (Dan. 4:19-37).
4. The Magi
Perhaps the best-known biblical dream appears at the conclusion of the visit by the Magi to Jesus and his parents:
St Matthew records that "having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road" (Matt. 2:12).
Jesus life is threatened by Herod’s power and so in order to secure a future for the child, the voice of the Holy One intervenes in the night when the royal menace is at rest.
(with thanks for these four examples to Walter Bruggemann)
5. Acts 2
We read in Joel 2:28 that dreaming dreams is part of the Christian community
"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
And it is to this passage that St Peter alludes when explaining the Acts 2 phenomenon.
The Church needs people who will dream dreams.
Today, we live at a crossroads in our society
It seems that a storm has broken out on our little lake and the waves seem to be lapping up all around us.
We see waves such as
- Medieval buildings and their maintenance
- Parish share
- Aging congregations
- Falling numbers in church
Yet, in our Gospel today, it was the very waves that caused Peter to look to Jesus and to ask Jesus if he could come to him on the water.
I think it is these very concerns that should cause us to turn to Jesus for advice as to what to do next.
It is these very concerns that should drive us to back to mission in our communities
We just have to see these waves as positives rarther than negatives.
Martin Luther King had a dream that black and white would work together.
Do you have a dream of Methodist and Anglican working together in our Deanery and Circuit?
Can you see us one day forming the
“Deanery Circuit of Melton cum Framland”
where the Christians in this area will work together EVEN MORE than new do to explore how best to use their resources to reach our rural communities.
May I suggest some areas to consider?
1. How can we best use our Anglican and Methodist paid ministers.
Why shouldn’t each rural community have a focal minister – be that person Methodist or Anglican – to be the hands on “face of the church” in that community.
That would leave the paid clergy (both Methodist and Anglican) to be deployed in an episcopal support role.
We wouldn’t need to have overlap of ministerial responsibility if we were one
Story: I wonder what my Bishop would have thought of Andrew Barker presiding at a BCP Holy Communion service in Kirby Bellars Church on Easter Day 2010 – I didn’t ask him!!
2. Should we be sharing our buildings in a village?
For example, why don’t we see more of Anglicans and Methodists across our Deanery and Circuit using our buildings better
For example, why don’t we form a single congregation in the Upper Wreake to hold joint services EVERY SUNDAY in the warm Methodist churches in the winter and the cool Anglican churches in the summer.
We need to share resources.
One of my great joys - having been the SWF Team Leader – has been the generosity of the Gt Dalby Methodists in allowing the SWF Cluster Office to be located in their Church. Thank you .
We’ve started working more closely together – let us continue to persevere and do even more together.
3. Do our services only need to be on Sunday
Another area I would want to question is
Should our worship services only be on Sunday?
What staggers me with the gathering of Anglican statistics each year is that the Diocese only wants to know how many people come to Sunday services.
They forget that the others in our Church Congregations come to church regularly midweek instead.
For example in the Upper Wreake Anglican church we have a midweek communion service at Frisby with up to 14 coming regularly (almost the same number as come to our 8.30 Sunday service).
Story: When I was in Switzerland, I heard the story of a minister in a town in the USA where only a few came to the Sunday service. So he asked his people why.
They told him Sundays was a bad day – so he introduced a Wednesday night service – to which he regularly got 500 coming.
We need to start thinking out of the box!
4. House Groups
And we have House Groups where people come regularly to that but not our Sunday services. They consider the midweek house group their church
Isn’t it a church?
I would love to see more Anglican and Methodists meeting in house groups – as we have with June Allsop’s Thursday house group in Hoby.
I certainly appreciate the Methodists who come to June’s group
5. Messy Church and ATN
Another area I think we need to encourage is non- traditional Church services and meetings.
It is good to see Methodists such as Janet Norburn in the Upper Wreake - and the Anglicans such as Susan Leighton in Thorpe Satchville - leading Messy Church meetings – where they get involved in mission in the local community.
We need as Christians to get alongside them and support them.
Another non- traditional outreach is ATN in the Upper Wreake, where Methodists and Anglicans are working together for mission in our monthly ATN. We call it an event not a service!
6. A surprising outreach possibility
One surprise area that seems to be growing in the SWF is the Anglican wedding programme.
It has become a cottage industry – with 43 booked in for next year alone, though about 2/3 are at Brooksby
We have a fantastic opportunity to reach young couples who have to come to our traditional and non- traditional services like ATN.
We get a shot at them ten times – and how we are with them will probably affect how they see church of the rest of their lives.
Here both Anglican and Methodist Christians need to get beside them to make them welcome.
How about inviting them around form lunch or dinner?
Don’t leave it to the Professionals (like Philip and Andrew) to do that!
And you don’t have to be an Anglican to do this!!
Conclusion
When we look at the waves crashing around our churches in SWF – both Anglican and Methodist - how are we going to respond?
Are we going to go on manning the pumps to try to keep our comfortable boat afloat
Or are we – when Christ calls us to get out of our boat – going to walk to him on water?
Do we follow in the footsteps of the great apostle St. Peter – or do we remain, like the other eleven in the boat bailing the boat out.
Because we will only do great things for God when we get out of the security of the BOAT.
God doesn’t just call the Good and the Great in the Church to get out of the boat and join him on the water.
I’d like to leave you with a story I heard last Sunday.
Story: A lady from Saltby Methodist Church, had not once spoken a Methodist Circuit Meeting for 50 years.
However, at one Circuit meeting, she stood up and shared a vision she had had about transforming Saltby Chapel.
This caused a major interruption to proceedings to the Circuit meeting.
Business was halted and the entire meeting went into prayer for Saltby Chapel and asked for guidance to realise this Vision God had given to her.
The result is that Saltby Chapel is still open and at the heart of its community as a community centre and a place of worship.
It shows us two things
1. the power of prayer and
2. that God’s will will be done in this place.
The Chapel has been transformed and changed totally, and God provided the money to fulfill the vision that he gave to the elderly lady at Saltby Chapel.
If it can happen in Saltby, why not here too in SWF
Jesus calls you and me too! And sometimes it feels as if we are walking on water.
You don’t have to be anyone special for Jesus to call you to come out of the boat.
God is calling his church to change, especially the rural church.
If we are going to be effective witnesses to Christ, we need to stop looking at the waves as obstacles and see them instead as a call to get out of the boat - as an opportunity for mission. Amen
