Sermon: Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 14:22-33, August 13, 2023 Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Sermon: Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 14:22-33, August 13, 2023

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Remember when talking about the weather was something for people who didn’t have anything important to say to each other? It used to be that weather talk was trite and superficial, a way of avoiding hard topics. Well, not anymore.

Because of climate change, global warming, or global weirding – whatever you want to call it – honest talk about the weather is one of the more consequential, profound, and important topics of conversation these days.

That’s certainly true in Phoenix, the hottest major city in the nation that is only getting hotter, and weather is also a hot topic in many parts of the world. Here and in Europe and Asia and elsewhere, much of humanity and indeed all living things have been enduring unprecedented heat waves this year, globally the hottest year ever in recorded history. And it’s a real shock that parts of the formerly verdant, tropical paradise islands of Hawaii have been devasted by terrible wildfires. Hawaii is one of the last places I think of as being vulnerable to wildfire.

This has been my first full summer in Phoenix and what a way to begin – a record shattering 31 straight days of temps of 110 or hotter. And there’s more to come. I must confess that it’s a bit unnerving to contemplate reports of a recent study that suggest that if Phoenix were to endure a multi-day power failure during a heatwave, half the population, over half a million people, would likely need emergency medical care. Let’s hope and pray that the electricity stays on so that air conditioning can protect most of us from genuinely dangerous, life-threatening heat. God pity and help those without air conditioning, especially those living on the streets and who have to work outdoors.

During my vacation in the mountains of North Carolina, I did some hiking. The mountains there are fully wooded so the trails are enveloped in a canopy of trees, amidst multiple waterfalls, as if we’re all protected in the living womb of mother earth.

Contrast that with hiking on the desert nature trails in the mountains of the Phoenix area where there’s no place to hide from the scorching sun. Hiking here is so strikingly different from hiking in the Appalachian Mountains. Both are compelling in their own ways and marvelously beautiful. But here I feel my vulnerability to nature in much more palpable ways in contrast to hiking out East.

Where is God in all of these climate extremes of nature when we experience our radical contingency and vulnerability in relation to the heat and scarcity of water and the astonishing power of the sun?

We get a good sense of the manner of God’s presence in nature in today’s first reading from 1 Kings. The prophet Elijah was instructed to stand on the mountain to wait for the appearance of the Lord.

First, there was the mountain splitting great wind, but God was not in the wind. Then, there was the earthquake. But God was not in the earthquake. And then fire. But God was not in the fire either. In what manner did the Lord appear? God was present in the sound of sheer silence.

This suggests that we need not seek the meaningful presence of God in tornadoes and hurricanes and earthquakes and wildfires. God is not so much intelligibly present in the extremes, but in the comparative gentleness of nature, the deep and abiding silence of the natural world. Peaceful silence is a more pervasive quality of nature than noisy extremes. In fact, even my cats, my taste of the wild indoors, spend the vast majority of their days in complete silence. In short, God is found and is meaningfully present in the sound of sheer silence.

But we get an even better sense of the qualities of divine presence amidst the extremes of nature in today’s gospel story involving Jesus and the stormy seas. Jesus had gone off to pray by himself in the mountains, seeking the sacred sound of sheer silence in contrast to the clamoring of the noisy crowds.

Jesus left the disciples on their own in the boat to cross the Sea of Galilee, a body of water prone to sudden storms coming down out of the mountain passes. Amidst all the tumult of the storm, Jesus appeared to the disciples walking on the water, a sight which terrified them. But Jesus reassured them: “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

This provoked Peter’s overconfident bravado: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water,” he exclaimed. Jesus played along: “Come,” he said. So, Peter got out of the boat into the heart of the stormy seas. He “noticed the strong wind” and naturally “became frightened,” lost his confidence and cried out, “Lord, save me!”

“Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him….” Where is God amidst the storm on the Sea of Galilee? Right there in Jesus’ outstretched hands, catching Peter in rescue.

Not only was Jesus present to the disciples amidst nature’s extremes of raging, windy waters, Jesus exercised divine command over those natural extremes. Again, he was walking on the water, a sign of his power over the elements in contrast to overconfident, mortal, merely human Peter who immediately began to sink into the deep.

And then Jesus’ command over nature was also evident when Jesus got into the boat with the disciples, and the wind stopped. Everything became quiet and calm again in the sound of sheer silence.

We confess with the early disciples that Jesus Christ continues to command the wind and the waves when we echo with them, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Boiling it down to the basics, that’s essentially what we confess in the creeds which we recite on Sundays: “Truly, Jesus, you are the Son of God.”

And here’s the thing: Christ’s hands extend in rescue to us even today. As we and our sins are drowning in the stormy waters of baptism, which immerse us in Christ’s very death and resurrection, Christ reaches out his hand to us to lift us up out of the water in rescue, our own personal death and resurrection.

And after this baptism, we board the boat of the church along with Jesus, a boat or a ship being an ancient symbol of the church. Right now you all are sitting in the nave of the church, a word derived from the Latin meaning ship – as in naval and navy. In fact, in a lot of Scandinavian churches, models of ships hang from the ceiling of the nave.

So, here we are, all in the same boat, battered by the wind and the waves of our increasingly extreme world, weather-wise and politically and economically, and more. But here’s the good news: when Jesus enters this boat with us via his word and present in his sacraments, everything tends to calm down on Sunday mornings, our oasis amidst all the craziness. And we discover Christ here in the sound of sheer silence once again and worship Christ, extolling him as truly the Son of God.

And we discover the truth of what Paul says in Romans, today’s second reading: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved…. For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (Romans 10:8-9, 13) In the calm of this place during this hour, we rediscover the divine word that is so close to us, in us, and among us, in our hearts, on our lips when we sing and when we speak throughout the liturgy, calling on the name of the Lord, who rescues us yet again.

And this saving peace of God in Christ which surpasses all human understanding is forever available to us. That’s what I discover in my forays into contemplative prayer when the layers of anxiety and stormy noise are peeled back to reveal a state of absolute peace in Christ which is always there, available when Christ dwells deeply with us in his word which he incorporates into us in proclamation, and when we eat and drink that word, becoming what we eat, the body of Christ, the church, in the sacrament of the altar.

And in these sounds of sheer silence where God’s word can be heard, like Elijah in today’s first reading, we hear the divine call when God gives us instruction to get out of the relative comfort and safety of this boat, which unlike Peter in today’s gospel story, we can now do because Christ dwells in and among us in faith.

And once out of the boat, God in Christ sends us out in the power of the Spirit to engage the stormy seas of the world as we share in God’s mission, seeking God’s justice, offering loving service to the multitudes victimized by the world’s current calamities, and doing our part to help heal all of creation.

Then maybe it will be said of us as it was said of those of old who proclaimed in word and deed the gospel of Christ, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (cf. Romans 10:15b) Amen.