Cory Rice—Year A Proper 14
Anthony: All right. Yeah, let’s transition to our next pericope of the month. It’s Matthew 14:22–33. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 14 in Ordinary Time, which is August the 9. Please read it for us, Cory.
Cory: Yeah.
Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Anthony: Lord, save me. And what did Jesus do? He did it. Too often I’ve heard this text preached in such a way that Peter is the focus as maybe initially a hero and then a zero. What I want to know is what this text shows us about the goodness of the triune God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Cory: Man, I kind of like that hero or zero perspective. I think we don’t hear enough about how this story, however, reveals a God who moves toward people in fear and doubt, not away from them every time. Even the story of Thomas, he shows up. We don’t oftentimes talk about that. I hate that Thomas is even known as Doubting Thomas because he asked a question that he wasn’t around for, and Jesus shows up, without shame. And isn’t that the gospel, how God continually moves towards people that have fear and doubt?
Praise God, because that’s me all the time.
Anthony: Yes, me.
Cory: And people are terrified. They are overwhelmed, battling whatever it is that they’re battling, and Jesus shows up in the middle of that, walking on the water. And so, the Gospel reveals, to me at least, a God who’s not afraid to enter our chaos, enter our suffering, enter our human weakness and human experience.
And so, what stands out to me the most is not Peter’s failure or success, which by the way I’m going to steal that hero or zero line because that’s pretty funny. But in my opinion, I think it’s Jesus’ steadiness in all of it. Like what you already said. He reached out his hand. And so, what is the Trinity like? Restorative in every possible way.
Anthony: Let’s talk about Peter and the 11 left in the boat. Again, kind of going back to this topic of participation, or in some cases the lack thereof. But I’m struck by this, Cory, before you answer, that the 11 still witnessed this miracle …
Cory: Right …
Anthony: … and shared a testimony. And so, there’s a lot to be said about the participation in this. What do you have to say?
Cory: So much. Truthfully, I think that Peter gets criticized totally unfairly here. Like you just said, there are 11 dudes witnessing this …
Anthony: That’s right.
Cory: … scared in the boat. Where are they? They’re scared in the boat. They didn’t do it. Peter at least walked on water. And what I tend to think on this specific instance is, even it can come off even how Jesus is confrontational with Peter when he says the phrase, “You of little faith,” or, “Why did you lack faith?” Whatever translation you’re looking at.
Honestly, that phrase isn’t a story of try harder, because there’s actually four times in the Scripture where Jesus says this phrase, and he never says it to anybody except his disciples, which is wild to think about. Actually this, “You of little faith,” if, when you look it up in Greek commentaries, they talk about this idea that this is a metaphoric phrase, and literally it gets translated as dull of hearing or disinterested in walking intimately or lacking confidence.
And so, in other words, it simply means, “Do you really not understand?” And I think it’s fair that they don’t understand, because even after the three years, Jesus is about to send them out on the Great Commission, and it says, I think it’s Matthew 27:17, I think. That’s one of my favorite verses where it says, “Some worshiped and some doubted.” This is after the resurrected Jesus, right?
Anthony: Yes. Yes.
Cory: And I think it just reveals the humanity. And when we ask questions like, “Didn’t the disciples, didn’t they understand?” we’re reading from a 21st century lens, and we have the whole story, right? And so, for them to not fully understand, I think is totally fair, because Peter sinks when he does something that we all do as humans, when we focus on what’s going on externally instead of the presence of God internally within us in Christ.
And then, when Jesus grabs him, I think it reveals another aspect of the Gospel. This security is not found in the strength of our grip on God. It’s found in God’s grip on us, which is eternal and everlasting, thank God.
Anthony: Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Peter often gets shamed, and I’m thinking, wait a second. In human history, only two people have ever walked on water that I know of. Peter’s one of them. Before he sank, he walked on water. There is something about joining Jesus in the unknown, and there was so much unknown to getting out of the boat. And it seems to me, Cory, that’s what participation often looks like. We, we only have so much vision to see around the bend. And if we could see more, where’s the need for trust, right?
Cory: For sure.