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Proper 14, Year
A Jonah 2:1-9 Doubt, Fear and Faith Our readings from Jonah and from Matthew’s Gospel open the way for us to talk about doubt, and how can be an important part of our coming to faith. Sometimes fear mixes with doubt and gives way to faith. Sometimes it gives way to basic prayer. Healthy doubt leads to questions. Questions lead to discussions. Only God can consume our doubt. In our Gospel reading for today, Jesus asks Peter why he doubted. Peter did not answer. Maybe it was because Peter was in fear for his very life. Peter knew he could die. Have you ever been in a situation that was so desperate that you knew you could die? Like those passengers on the Air France plane last week? How did you react? Did your whole life flash before your eyes? Did you pray? Was your prayer condensed to a few basic words - something like, “Lord, save me?” or “Help?” My own story on fear and basic prayer is my story about being bitten by an English bull dog. It was on Ash Wednesday about seven years ago. I lived in a town home and my next-door neighbor had a big bull dog that was about ten years old. This dog was not nice. He had growled at me from behind the storm door in days gone by. On this particular day, my neighbor had tethered him outside on a flimsy leash. This was against the rules of our condo association. Anyway, as I was walking past the dog to my back door, that creature broke his leash and came at me like a freight train. He sunk an upper tooth into one side of my foot and a lower tooth into my shoe on the other side of my foot. The force of his attack knocked me flat on my back on the ground. I was lying there screaming for Jesus. The dog was about two feet from my neck. I think he was deciding which part of my neck to attack when the owner heard me screaming. She came out and restrained him. That was one time when I knew for sure that I could die. I remembered I was dust. I couldn’t even get out Peter’s three-word prayer, “Lord, save me.” All I could do was scream for Jesus. I’ll save the rest of this story for coffee hour sometime, in case you want to know what happened after that. Frankly, it’s a miracle I’m alive to tell the tale. In our Gospel reading for today, the disciples find their lives in peril. They have a miraculous outcome. It all started when Jesus needed some time for quiet meditation and prayer. He had to find a lonely place on the mountain to get that time to pray. Jesus had sent the disciples away – across the lake – the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is a beautiful body of water. In the mornings it is green, and in the afternoons it is blue. I have no idea what color it is in a storm at night, and I really have no desire to find out first hand. My only experience with it is the blue variation. About this time last year, I was out on the Sea of Galilee in the late afternoon. We were in one of those wooden tour boats. I had looked forward to this all day long. We had been traveling in the heat and listening to lectures. I was hoping for a quiet little trip out to the middle of the lake and back. It was going to be a meditative time when I could ponder. I was going to think about Jesus and the disciples out on the lake. About storms coming up suddenly. I was going to meditate on Jesus telling the disciples how to fish, and then telling them that from now on they were going to fish for people. I was going to think about Peter walking on the water. And I was going to do all that in a thirty-minute boat ride. But as was often the case in the life of Jesus, my meditation time got postponed. When the men in charge of our boat heard that we were a Christian group, they decided to entertain us with Christian Music. Suddenly, the stereo came on really loud and we were stunned to hear Elvis Presley singing “Precious Lord, take my hand.” The music continued with other, more contemporary singers. The music was a storm of noise inside the boat. There went my thirty minutes of quiet meditation. Real storms also come up suddenly on the Sea of Galilee, and they can be violent. The disciples knew this because many of them were fishermen. That’s probably why they did not give up when the winds blew and the waves came crashing in on them. But they also knew they could die out there. They were probably praying, but had no idea that they would get direct intervention from Jesus. Sometimes when we pray, the most unexpected things happen. Sometimes we get a miracle. The disciples thought it was too good to be true that Jesus would really show up and rescue them from their desperate circumstances. There is something else I want to point out. It’s the conversation between Peter and Jesus. The sentences are much longer while Peter is in the boat. We have to hand it to Peter for having the faith to walk out to Jesus on the water. But when Peter gets out on the water and realizes how much danger he’s in, his prayer becomes very short: “Lord, save me.” This is basic prayer, often born of fear. And that’s OK. Sometimes we just have to stand there with Jesus in the storm. When Peter got out of the boat and started walking toward Jesus, he had no assurance that he would get back into the boat and get to land again. Being with Jesus was all that seemed to matter to him at that moment. His circumstances brought him closer to God. When the reality of the storm set in, Peter did a very human thing. He began to doubt. His doubt was a healthy part of his faith. But then he began to sink. Jesus asked him why he doubted. Peter didn’t come up with a ready response. Maybe he had no idea why he doubted. And that’s OK, too. But Jesus took care of Peter and got him back into the boat anyway. If Peter had not gotten back to the boat, he still would have been in the loving arms of Almighty God. In the modern-day church, where do our doubts lie? You probably have your own favorite set of doubts. For the sake of discussion, let’s take for example the Nicene Creed – one of the basic expressions of Christian faith. On any given Sunday, there might be things in the Nicene Creed that you would doubt. You might not be willing to name them, but maybe there are nagging questions hanging around in your head. I’ll take a chance on saying this out loud: It’s OK to have healthy doubt -- the kind of doubt that questions and explores the issues at hand. Jesus died to take away our sins, not our minds. I have this advice when it comes to healthy doubt: Think of those expressions of Christian faith about which you might have questions. Think of them as clothes hanging in your closet. Maybe they don’t all fit you. Or maybe you don’t fit all of them. Please don’t get rid of them. Leave them hanging there and go back and try them on for size from time to time. Asking questions about our faith is how great theological works get written. This is also how we get grumpy saints. One of my favorite grumpy saints is Teresa of Avila. She was a sixteenth century Spanish mystic. She also had a pretty good sense of humor. At a time of crisis in her life, she complained, “Jesus, is this how you treat your friends?” Healthy doubt worked through is the way to healthy faith. When the chips are down, your faith will reveal itself. I have this quote from Teresa of Avila in a little frame: “Let nothing
disturb you; When we gather at this altar to receive the bread and the wine – the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, something miraculous happens. Our Risen Lord comes to us as mysteriously as he came to the first disciples. Maybe all our doubts and fears are not totally relieved. But our faith reveals itself in the very act of receiving communion. Maybe all our questions are not answered, but Jesus is here just the same. There will be times when we as a church will step out in faith. Fed by our Lord in Holy Eucharist, I hope we will have the faith to step out into uncharted waters, even though there will be times when we will be crying out for help. I hope we will always have the faith to hear our Lord say to us, “Take heart. It is I; have no fear.” |
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St. Margarets Church, Moultrie, Georgia