Years ago, during one spring break at seminary, I loaded up all my gear and headed out to the desert for some solitary camping. During that time I hoped to read, to write, to hike, to just spend some time in quiet contemplation and free myself from the stress of work and school.
It took a few days for my mind to quiet down. To rid itself of all the things I had planned when I got back, things I needed to do before the next quarter started, and other things going on in my personal life that could wait for resolution until I got back. On the third morning, I woke up, had my coffee, went for a hike, and came back to the campsite to read. More so than the last few days, my mind felt quiet and distraction-free enough to really spend some time reading both the Bible and some pastoral theology books I had brought with me.
As I sat there with a book next to the coals from the morning fire, a wind began to blow. And it continued to blow, and it got stronger and stronger, blowing sand into my pages, and blowing the pages over so that I had to keep my hand firmly on the book to be able to read at all. I finally got so frustrated I shouted at the wind, at God, at the universe, “Really?!?! I’m finally in the right mindset to read, and now this? Stop with the sand blowing already.”
And God answered.
“Sure. And do you want me to grow you a shade tree too, Jonah?”
Despite the slap in the face, and never one to shy away from sarcasm, I responded, “Sure, Lord, I’d love some shade. But you’ll just take it away from me tomorrow, right?”
Silence.
No answer necessary.
Jonah had at first run away from God (Jonah 1), because he didn’t want to go to the people of Nineveh. And in today’s reading, we find out why. Jonah prophesied, the people repented, and God spared the people of Nineveh because they turned from their wickedness. But Jonah is angry, because “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
Jonah was angry because the work that God had asked him to do seemed like just going through the motions. He already knew that this would be the outcome, so why did he have to travel across the world, just to watch people do what he expected them to do? How was this not a punishment for Jonah? He was the only one who had to endure any kind of discomfort in order to watch the inevitable happen, so why wouldn’t he be mad, right? Wasn’t his anger at God justified because he was asked to merely go through the motions?
At the time of my conversation with God in the desert, I had been avoiding doing something I knew I needed to do. In my mind, the results of my actions were a foregone conclusion. The task involved correcting someone, and I didn’t look forward to the inevitable anger and moral outrage that would come my way. But I knew it needed to happen, even if I felt that I knew the outcome of the conversation. And since I knew the inevitable outcome of the conversation, why did it matter when the conversation happened, I thought. And besides, maybe by putting off the conversation, someone else might feel prompted to have the conversation in my place… I could hope, right?
But the conversation was for me to have, not for someone else, just as Jonah was the one who needed to travel to Nineveh. In the end, the conversation went just as I expected, with me feeling a bit more like Jonah, minus the repentance of the Ninevites. But the conversation was a necessity.
Going through the motions, as unnecessary as it might seem sometimes, is part of our work. Nineveh needed to hear God’s condemnation against it, so that it’s people could repent and avoid their fate. Sometimes we are the only ones who see a problem, and know we need to confront it. Sometimes we know that people will not change even when confronted, but our action is still required, futile though it may seem.
In the movie Jaws, there’s a scene where Martin Brody, the sheriff in town is sitting on the back of the boat, throwing out chum into the water, hoping that they’ll be able to attract the shark that they are hunting. He’s absent-mindedly talking to the ship’s captain and the pilot as he’s doing this, and not thinking much of what’s going on.
Then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and turns around in time to see a giant shark’s head popping above the water and he jumps up, his eyes wide, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Then he slowly walks backwards into the cockpit of the boat, never taking his eyes off the water. As soon as he’s inside the room, he turns slightly to the captain and says:
“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
As it turns out, Rob Scheider, the actor who portrayed the sheriff in this movie, had ad libbed that line, and every one of the cast and crew absolutely loved it. The phrase took on a life of its own, and soon they were using it whenever they were filming and something went wrong or when the unexpected and inexplicable happened, or when what they were facing seemed like an insurmountable task.
If ever there were people who might have wished they had a bigger boat, I would assume it was the disciples, who had been stuck in a boat in a raging storm for most of the night. The Gospel reading today tells us that it was the fourth watch, or between 3 and 6 am, so they had been in their boat for at least nine hours with the wind howling, the waves crashing around them, and the storm just raging on.
If they had had a bigger boat, it would have meant more displacement, and therefore more stability, and their boat would not have been thrown around by the wind so much. If they had had a bigger boat, then it would have meant higher bulkheads, and the waves may not have crashed over the sides and required them to bail as much water to keep themselves afloat.
If they had had a bigger boat, they would have felt safer, more comfortable, more protected. If they had had a bigger boat, they may not have been afraid at all.
And then, in the midst of this raging chaos, the huddled congregation of disciples sees a figure walking to them on the water, and they become scared, as it looks to them that it must be a ghost. But Jesus calls out to them and says, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
I can only imagine what is going through the disciples’ minds at this point. Here they are, in a boat, in the raging storm, looking across the water at Jesus who is telling them not to be afraid.
These disciples had been in a boat with Jesus before, maybe another boat, maybe even a bigger boat, and that time, they too were in a storm. The wind was howling and the waves were crashing all around them, and Jesus… well, Jesus was taking a nap in the front of the boat. The disciples wake him up, and Jesus gets up, commands the storm to be calm, and the wind dies down, the rain stops, and the water becomes as peaceful as a mirror.
They’ve seen this movie before, and so some of them are thinking, “Great! Jesus is here, he’ll calm the storm and all will be well.”
But Jesus doesn’t calm the storm.
He’s just standing there, telling them not to be afraid, in the midst of all this raging chaos.
His presence alone provides them with hope, and hope is its own form of comfort, but at this point, it is still just hope, hope that comes from knowing that he is somewhere close.
It seems Peter has been paying attention to what has been happening to them in the past few weeks and months that they have been spending time with Jesus.
They were in a similar situation to this, in a boat where Jesus calmed the storm, and they were sent out on their own to preach the good news to the lost tribes of Israel, where they themselves cast out demons and cured the sick, and they had only just recently helped Jesus to feed a crowd of people with nothing more than five loaves and two fish, and the disciples had learned the valuable lesson that miracles weren’t just things that happen to them, but things that happen through them.
Maybe Jesus was just standing there for a reason, just standing there and not calming the storm. Maybe there was a reason for this delay in God’s blessing and peace.
So Peter calls out and says, “Lord, if that is really you, if I’m not just talking to some vague notion of a memory of you, if I am not hallucinating after a hard night of being on a boat in the middle of a storm, if it is, in fact, you, then command me to come to you on the water.”
And Jesus simply says, “Come.”
And Peter steps out of the boat.
And then Peter experiences something profound. He takes a step, and he does not sink, and then he takes another step, and again, his foot does not sink, and he continues to move toward Jesus because Jesus has commanded him to get out of the boat. And then another step, and yet another…
But then it happens.
The Gospel says, “He noticed the strong wind.”
And all of a sudden Peter has this moment of revelation, where he says, “What am I doing? Why am I out of the boat? People can’t walk on water! How did I get here? This defies the laws of physics. Look at the wind, the crashing waves. I’m not as light as a feather…” And his feet begin to sink into the water, and then more of him starts to go down, and then the greater part of him is under water, and he cries out to Jesus, “Lord, Save Me.”
Jesus reaches out and pulls Peter up out of the water and says, “You of little faith, why do you doubt?”
Do you think that all the disciples in the boat were saying the same thing?
“Yeah, Peter, why did you doubt? C’mon, don’t you have any faith, Peter? I mean really, dude. Loser!”
No. The disciples in the boat are now looking at two people standing on the water. Jesus, their master, and Peter, their friend. Both are standing on the water, while the other disciples are still in the boat that is being rocked and thrown around by the waves.
Think on that for a moment. Peter had focused on all the chaos going on around him for a while, and lost sight of Jesus. This is why he started to sink into the sea. But now he is standing there, on the water, next to Jesus, looking back at a boatful of disciples.
And this whole time, the storm hasn’t stopped raging. The wind and the waves have been crashing down on that little boatful of disciples the entire time that Peter has been walking on water, sinking in water, and now, even standing on water next to Jesus.
In fact, the storm was still raging as the boatful of disciples stared at Peter and Jesus standing on the water.
Let me ask you, who do you think felt safer at that moment?
The disciples in the boat, or Peter, standing on the water, next to Jesus?
You see, even after having seen Peter walking on the water, sinking in the water, and finally seeing Peter stand on the water there with Jesus, they, the other disciples, are still in a boat in the raging storm, and probably still wishing that their little boat was three sizes bigger that day.
The storm continues to rage, and their boat continues to be tossed around — and the storm only stops after Jesus and Peter climb into the boat.
We like to focus on the miracle of walking on water here. It was a miracle. We can’t deny that. We also like to focus on Peter’s doubt, since Jesus himself called Peter out for that moment of fear and doubt when he “noticed the wind.”
But I think that the important part of the message today is that Peter called out to Jesus and said, “If it is you, Command me to come to you on the water.”
Peter didn’t say, “Command me to come to you so that I can walk on water.” It seems like Peter fully expected the water walking would happen, and that Peter’s real concern was to do as Jesus commanded, and to be with Jesus:
“Command me to come to you on the water.”
Peter was unconcerned about the miracle, and more concerned with doing what Jesus commanded, and with being near him, because he knew the safest place in any chaos is right beside Jesus.
This is why Peter, once he had confirmed it was really Jesus, stepped out of the boat and onto the water. He didn’t start doing jumping jacks, or running around frolicking on top of the waves. He didn’t turn around and look at the disciples in the boat and say, “Hey guys, check me out!” It was not about Peter doing a miracle. Instead, Peter made his way toward Jesus, because with Jesus is where he wanted to be, and doing as Jesus commanded, is what he wanted to be doing.
The obvious question that jumps out at us is are we the disciples in the boat, or are we Peter?
Do we want to be the disciples in the boat, or do we want to be like Peter?
And I’m not talking about walking on water, but I’m talking about the desire to be close to Jesus, even if it means that we may have to do something that takes us out of the relative safety of our own little boat in the storm, out of our own little comfort zone.
You see, there is a long history of using the imagery of boats to draw allusions to the church, and as we know, the church, and every other human organization, suffers from the malady of being made up of people just like me. And I would often rather remain happily in my comfort zone, instead of asking what God might want me to do – especially when it might involve something uncomfortable.
And so, I can look at those uncomfortable things, say, “You know what, I think I need a bigger boat. If I had a bigger boat, this wind and these waves might not upset me so much. If I had a bigger boat I could deal with this storm myself. If I had a bigger boat, I might not even be tempted to step into the water to be near Jesus. That’s a crazy idea anyway.”
The fact that this miracle was something as profound as walking on water often makes us think that asking God to command us to do something means that we will have to do something huge, something enormous, something so outside the normal that we shy away not only from doing it, but also from asking it.
God might not be commanding me to leave my home and country and travel halfway across the world to live in a remote village in the middle of nowhere. God might simply be asking me to talk to my neighbor and invite them to church, a task I find uncomfortable. God might simply be asking me to get up early every morning and pray for that same neighbor, a task that reduces my sleep by 30 minutes, and which might make me cranky. God might simply be asking me to give of my time, my energy, my expertise or money – even if I feel like I don’t have much of any of them right now. God may be asking these things of me as just a token of my willingness to partner with His work in this world.
It may be just a minor change that affects my own comfort, but as we already know, God can multiply the little we have into an abundance. And my little sacrifice can have huge ramifications in God’s work in this world.
Only you can know what your own comfort zone – your boat – might be, and only you can know what the corresponding step outside that boat would look like.
But the important thing is, are you willing to say, “If it is you,Lord, command me to come to you.”?
Now, I’m not telling you that you have to make this request of God.
Please, don’t feel like I’m rocking the boat and trying to pressure you into doing something you are not comfortable with.
Because, you see, at the end of the day, just like at the end of today’s Gospel, Jesus will get into the boat with you. You may never have stepped out of the boat, but that doesn’t mean that you will miss out on the blessings or peace of God.
You will never miss out on the love and peace of God by staying in the boat.
But you might miss out on the excitement of standing on the water next to Jesus, you might miss out on the excitement of starting to drown but being rescued by your Savior, you might miss out on the excitement of learning new things and growing in your faith by taking a risk to step a little closer to Jesus.
I, personally, prefer to do as Peter did, and ask, “Lord, if this is you, command me to come to you.”
Years ago, toward the tail end of my time in seminary, I had to do an internship as a hospital chaplain. At the time, hospitals frightened me. Or rather, not the hospitals, but the people within them and their struggles with pain, be it physical, emotional or spiritual. I wasn’t very adept at dealing with their emotions, let alone my own at the time, and so the idea of being a spiritual guide to those struggling with those issues was truly daunting to me.
The hospital I ended up at was the trauma center for the area north of Los Angeles, and it routinely dealt with gunshot wounds and other forms of major trauma. It was also one of the surgery centers in the area, and, as is always the possibility, mistakes can be made, resulting in complications from these surgeries.
One particular floor of the hospital was the long term care ward, which housed a lot of people who had had these complications with their surgeries, and were now confined to their beds. People who had lost mobility, or an aspect of their life through no fault of their own. People who often were dealing with the anger of that loss.
It wasn’t an easy floor to spend time on.
On one day, I had been shadowing one of the other chaplains as he spoke with people throughout the hospital, and we ended up on this particular floor. When we got there, he had me shadow through a couple of rooms, and then as we approached a room for a woman who had been there for over four months, he said, “Now you go. I will wait outside and listen in.”
If our lives could have sound effects, this moment would have included the creepy stabbing sound from the movie Psycho that always accompanies the moment that characters experience sheer terror.
And so I went in, introduced myself as one of the chaplains and began conversing with the woman. I offered to pray with her and her daughter, and then continued speaking with them. I felt completely awkward. I felt out of place. I felt like I had no skills necessary to deal with what the woman was talking about. If I had been watching myself through the lens of a sit-com, I would have been curled up in a ball with the visceral reaction of “Oh my God what is that guy doing?” and just totally cringing.
Finally, my mentor came into the room, introduced himself to the woman and her daughter, and let them know that he had to take me away.
I. Was. Relieved.
He asked me how I felt, and I replied “Awkward. I felt like I was completely incapable of handling the situation. If you hadn’t come in there to get me, I do not know how I would have gotten out of the room without being totally rude and just suddenly walking out.”
He then turned to me and said, “Well, we need to work on your exit strategy, but you need to realize that you provided something wonderful back there. You listened. You prayed with them. You helped them to feel heard. And you helped them feel like someone else understood their pain. I know you felt awkward. I know you felt completely incapable of the situation. But you knew what to do, even if you didn’t know that you knew. What was obvious was that you were letting yourself get distracted by those awkward feelings, by whatever thoughts and doubts were running around in your head, rather than doing what you already knew how to do.”
In today’s Gospel, we find another story of a mentor, but instead of just one awkward guy, we find that we have a bunch of them, all feeling inadequate to the situation.
Today, the Gospel simply starts with “When he heard of this, Jesus withdrew from there in a boat.”
Which makes us ask, what did Jesus hear?
Well, in the previous passage, John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin, had been beheaded by King Herod, because the king had made a rash promise to his niece after she danced for him and his visitors. Her mother then prompted her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, and Herod felt compelled to follow through on the oath he had just given to his niece.
His cousin John was dead, and Jesus was sad. He was emotional, and naturally, he wanted to withdraw from the people and be alone to grieve John’s death.
But the people followed him. And not just a few.
When he came ashore, the people were waiting for him, and despite his own pain at the loss of John, it says that Jesus had compassion on them, and he cured their sick. As evening approached, the disciples told Jesus that he should send the people away so they could buy food in the neighboring towns.
But Jesus turns to them and says this: “You give them something to eat.”
The disciples reply, “All we have is five loaves of bread, and two fish.” It’s as if they want to say, “Clearly, Jesus, this is an impossible situation.”
They’re staring at their hands, then at the crowd, then at Jesus, then back at the small amount of food in their hands, then back at the crowd. Most likely confused, and just a bit terrified. In Mark’s gospel, we see that the disciples even asked Jesus if they should go out and buy roughly a month’s worth of wages – 200 denarii – of bread to give to the people to eat. In other words, what on earth do you expect us to do? Should we use our own resources to solve this impossible dilemma?
It’s no wonder they felt inadequate, and completely unequipped for the situation.
But the only reason that Jesus would have asked them to feed these people would have been because he already felt that they were equipped.
In the tenth chapter of Matthew, we find that Jesus had given the twelve disciples “power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” We find in Luke’s Gospel, in chapter nine, that the disciples returned from this trip and reported all the things they had done. In Luke’s Gospel, the attention then turns immediately to the same story as we have in Matthew’s Gospel today – the feeding of the five thousand.
Luke’s Gospel makes clear the distinction between what the disciples had just experienced, and what is about to happen. They had been sent out to heal the sick, to cast out demons, and to preach the good news. And they reported back to Jesus that they had, in fact, healed the sick, and cast out demons. In short, they had been performing miracles, they had been doing mighty acts in the name of Jesus.
And yet, they are then confronted with a dilemma.
There are five thousand men, not including women and children, and they only have five loaves and two fish.
Jesus was asking the impossible.
You give them something to eat.
What were they supposed to do?
These disciples had been performing miracles. They had seen the mighty power of God at work, and here they were, feeling inadequate for the situation.
Jesus knew that the disciples were already equipped, and he wanted to give them the opportunity to expand their growing faith. He wanted to teach them to have even more of an understanding of the mighty acts of power that God could do in their midst if they only allowed themselves to see a glimmer of the possibility of the impossible.
Jesus knew that the disciples had within them what they needed to feed the people, but the disciples were overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation. Even though they had cast out demons, and had healed the sick, they failed to see how God could work in this situation because they were focused on the details – five thousand people, five loaves, two fish – rather than on the power of God to move mightily.
So often, we can do the same thing.
If we are people of faith, then we already have within us the grain of faith that can see the mighty hand of God at work in our lives. We are equipped with the seed of belief that grows with every experience. We may still get distracted by the details, especially when the details seem so large and out of place, but the more we allow ourselves to be taught, to see the miracles within even the most minute little detail, then we can truly learn to see God’s hand at work in all situations.
The disciples could have gone out with the two hundred denarii and bought food for people, but that would have meant taking matters into their own hands. And by taking matters into their own hands they would have lost out on the opportunity to let God expand their view of the possible. They would have lost out on having Jesus give them even more understanding and even more of that kernel of faith that they had experienced on their trip preaching to the lost sheep of Israel.
Twelve disciples returned from that trip where they had cast out demons and cured the sick. And then here they stood, dumbfounded, at how to resolve the situation of feeding a crowd. And then Jesus gave them the lesson of a lifetime. Not only did the small amount of food feed these thousands of people, but the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. It’s almost as if Jesus was personally saying to each one of these twelve: Not only is there enough for everyone, but there is enough for you. There is, in fact, far more than you will ever need.
When I am confronted with what seems like an impossible situation, I can choose to take matters into my own hands, and attempt to fix things using my own resources and my own power, or I can allow myself to feel that moment of terror and yet still look to God to teach me. To look to God to expand my understanding of what is possible.
Years ago, just shortly after I had finished seminary, I was a deacon awaiting ordination to the priesthood. I was still recovering, you might say, from having spent so much money on my education, and was not at all flush with cash. There was a special event happening in my denomination, and one of the bishops from the Philippines was coming to the USA. I distinctly remember in my prayer time that God told me to put aside some money for this bishop. And not just “some,” but the very specific sum of one hundred dollars. I was dead broke, and couldn’t imagine giving away any money, especially since my bills amounted to far more than just one hundred dollars.
I tried to rationalize, I tried to ignore, I tried to bargain, but for some reason, God kept putting this on my heart, and I finally relented. As I gave the money to my local priest to give to the bishop, I was almost in tears, wondering how this could remotely be God’s plan, seeing as how I didn’t have the money to deal with my own bills.
When the bishop arrived, he was overjoyed to hear about the money, because he had left the Philippines with no hotel reservation, no place to stay, no way to get around, and only $30 in his pocket. He was scared as he got on that plane, because the facts of the situation – a plane ticket and $30 – seemed so impossibly overshadowed by a situation mired in uncertainty. But God had told him that all would be provided, so he stepped onto that plane. When he arrived, people offered him a place to stay, and others offered to drive him around, people offered to feed him, and someone pushed the money I had begrudgingly donated into his hand. When all this happened, he was completely shook up. God had done more for him than he could have possibly imagined when he stepped onto that plane with only $30 and a plane ticket.
And, of course, when I heard my part in how things all worked out for this bishop, I suddenly forgot about my bills and how giving up some of my money had affected me. God’s plan suddenly made sense. And I realized how I had been taken part in God’s plan.
If I had fought with God, or ignored his prompting, I would have missed out on the opportunity to see the expansiveness of God’s power in this world. I would have missed out on the possibility of being a part of God’s work in this world. I would have missed out on being a part of the hand of God.
You see, miracles are not just things that happen to us, but sometimes they are things that happen through us, just like the disciples experienced when helping to feed these thousands of people with five loaves, and two fish.
It’s so easy to get distracted by the facts of a situation, by the enormity of what we feel we might be facing, and by the sheer terror of it all. And we may then attempt to take matters into our own hands, rather than allowing ourselves to be taught, to be molded and, ultimately, to be used by God.
This story in the Gospels is a reminder. It is a reminder that God can make the impossible, possible. And it is also a call to action. A call to see what God might be doing, and how God might want us to become a partner in doing His work in the world.
If we allow ourselves to follow God’s prompting, and if we allow ourselves to partner with His work, then we may very well one day see that we are the ones picking up twelve basketfuls of abundance.
As I read through this morning’s Gospel reading, I was, of course, struck by Jesus rebuking his disciples. They had tried to cast out a demon, and they couldn’t get the demon to leave a boy who suffered from seizures and would fall into the fire or into the water.
When the disciples came to Jesus, though, he tells them that they are faithless and perverse, and wonders how long he has to put up with them. I mean, honestly, if I had a boss or teacher talk to me like that I might have told him to go perform some impossible scenarios with himself. But still, this is why many of the disciples are considered saints, after all, and instead of getting all miffed, they bring the boy to Jesus, who promptly casts out the demon.
When the disciples ask why they couldn’t cast this demon out of the boy, he responds that it is because they have too little faith. Then he says that if they have faith the size of a mustard seed, they would be able to tell a mountain to move and it would, and in fact, nothing would be impossible to them. Now the mustard seed jumped out at me, because while I’m quite fond of various styles of mustard, I’ve never actually seen a mustard seed. And so I decided to look up the size of a mustard seed, and also what the Greek text said here in this passage, so I could look up the information in my various encyclopedias and dictionaries.
What I found is that this passage in the Greek does not actually say, “the size of a mustard seed,” but says, “as a mustard seed.” From the dictionaries, it seems that mustard seeds were generally used to refer to size in Jesus’ time, so that’s how we translate this passage. But instead, Jesus is referring to faith like a mustard seed.
I think that in this passage it’s not the size of the faith we have, because if Jesus said to the disciples that it’s because they have little faith, and then told them they needed to only have faith the size of a mustard seed, some of them could respond with, “Well, Faith isn’t one of my Spiritual Gifts, so you may need to call on Thomas to make that happen. I’ve got the spiritual gift of administration, though, so if you want me to do up the logistics for that mountain moving, I can certainly do that.”
Previously, in chapter 13 of Matthew, Jesus had referred to the kingdom of heaven like a mustard seed, and said that even though it starts out as one of the smallest of seeds, it grows into one of the largest of garden plants, it becomes a tree, and birds nest in its branches (Matt. 13:31-32).
The point that Jesus wanted his disciples to realize is that it’s not the size of their faith that mattered, but how they used it.
Why? Because just after telling the disciples that they need to have faith as a mustard seed, he then tells them that the son of man would be betrayed. In other words, “You’re not always going to have me around. This is why you need a faith that grows beyond having me nearby.”
Though the disciples were performing miraculous works in Jesus’ name while traveling with him, they still had him around when things didn’t quite work out as they had hoped. They come to Jesus and he fixes it. Jesus had “to put up with them” a while longer until they learned what they needed to learn. And what they needed to learn was to have a faith that grew, from something smaller than a mustard seed into a giant garden tree that could provide respite and safety for others.
Faith comes by being stretched. Faith grows through action. It steps out into an uncertain path and returns stronger for having walked it. Faith grows by experiencing those things that seem impossible, but then come to pass. It steps out in fear, and ends in courage. Faith like a mustard seed is actively seeking new experiences of growth.
The disciples knew Jesus’ teachings, but if faith were just knowing these spiritual truths, then academics would be the most faithful. But faith involves action. It requires doing things without certainty, it involves acting upon the unknown. And that only comes from living and experiencing, from stepping into the uncertainty of life.
What the disciples had was certainty. Certainty that if things didn’t work out, Jesus would fix it for them. But once Jesus had returned to the Father, he needed them to find ways to deepen that faith, rather than looking for the quick fix answer.
The obvious takeaway here for us, of course, is to question if we look for the quick fix answer when confronted with scenarios that might grow our faith, instead of looking for the growth opportunity.
As I read through the New Testament reading for today, the same two words kept jumping out at me: “by faith,” “by faith,” “by faith,” kind of like the steady beating of a drum. (Or a hammer on my thick skull, perhaps…)
The other thing that kept coming up was that everything that the people in this chapter believed, or acted upon, was something that was “invisible,” or “as yet unseen,” or that “he set out, not knowing where he was going.”
There was nothing tangible to hold on to, just the word of an invisible man in the sky who told them to build things, to go places, or that a great nation would spring up from their aging bodies.
Nothing tangible.
Nothing at all that would seem to indicate that the words from heaven were even remotely real.
And still these people believed.
Crooked Road
I found these stories of people acting “by faith” to be simultaneously encouraging and damning, because, I too have had one of those moments where I feel that God has spoken to me and told me a Truth that will come to pass in my life.
But also, these past few weeks I’ve woken up every morning, looked at the situation of my life and realized that absolutely nothing about my current situation has changed. It feels, in many ways, on some days, like the lackluster life of Joe Banks, in Joe Vs. the Volcano.
I have to wonder how often someone like Noah woke up on a sunny, cloudless day, wondering why on earth he might be building a giant boat when there was no rain in sight. Did he ever question God’s commandment to build an ark? If and when those around him ridiculed him, and when everything looked like sunny skies for weeks on end, did he question his own sanity?
Or what about Abraham (“this one as good as dead”), when he was told that he and his old wife would conceive and have a son. Did he wake up on some mornings, look at his gray-haired wife and wonder if he was delusional for believing that these two old bodies could still produce a child?
We just don’t know if they did. But I am certain that they had their doubts, and their own struggles to believe these words from heaven, because that is only human. It is human to have moments, hours, days, even weeks, where we fall into the temptation of looking at the visible, tangible, in-our-face facts, while ignoring that which we have received as Truth. It is human to want to give up, to look at the current situation around us and just say, “Maybe God didn’t say that to me after all…” And this is why this passage is damning, because I sit and contemplate those very words, and contemplate whether I too am delusional.
I can see that Noah, and Abraham and Sarah most probably had days like what I am experiencing, but still they pressed on – and in the end what they had been told came to pass. And that is why this passage is also encouraging: if I continue on, I too will see the results of acting in faith, despite the outward visible signs of what I’m currently experiencing.
Of course, while today’s reading is encouraging, the current conversation still goes something along these lines:
Me: “Hey, Guy in the Sky, not much happening here. In fact, almost everything seems to be the exact opposite of what you’ve said. What gives?” God: “Do you remember what I told you?” Me: “Yes.” God: “And…?” Me:
