I Dare Ya

A sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 14
August 13, 2023
First Sunday at St. Luke’s

Do you remember learning to swim? I learned at a summer daycare program. The day I learned, I went up to the edge of the pool. Johnny, the swim teacher, was in the water waiting for me to jump in. “Hey, Mr. Johnny! Should I jump in?” “I dare ya!” Johnny replied. Even as a child, I had my pride. I couldn’t turn down a dare. So without any other options, in I went. Splash–right into the arms of Johnny. 

Good people of St. Luke’s: My name’s Mark, and Molly and I are so happy to call this place home with you! Thank you for welcoming us so warmly. I will be honest. At times the past few weeks I have felt like that little kid trying to work up courage to jump into the unknown. But I’ve jumped. And you all, and our great search committee and vestry, and our wonderful staff, and our incomparable volunteers–you’ve all caught us and helped us stay afloat while we get our bearings. Thank you. 

Our gospel reading takes us to the waters, but unlike that swimming pool I jumped in, and unlike the welcoming waters of the unknown here at St. Luke’s, the waters Jesus’s disciples face are dangerous and uncertain. In Hebrew thought, and in the ancient near East more broadly, water was a symbol for chaos, for the unknown, for the untameable, for danger. Those disciples would have had that idea swirling around their consciences. But throughout the Old Testament, time and again, God conquers and controls the chaotic waters: bringing order into being; separating the land and the sea; commanding the great flood; dividing the Red Sea and the Jordan River; pulling water from the rock in the desert. God is the controller of chaos, the master of the seas. Those disciples, faithful Jews all, would have known those stories. 

Today they find themselves in the middle of chaos, tossed by the waves and wind. I imagine them sailing across a tranquil sea at first. At night the winds tend to calm down. James was at the tiller. Occasionally a sail would flap, and John would trim it to keep it in the wind. But suddenly at 4 am, a storm comes up. The sleepy disciples jump up; they haul in the sails; they hunker down and hold on. Sometimes that’s all you can do. 

I found The Episcopal Church my first year in college. But before I found St. Paul’s church in Fayetteville, I found Introduction to Philosophy with an instructor named Matt. Matt didn’t know it; few people did know it; but the faith of my childhood had been shaken. And while I was one of the few college students that dragged myself out of bed every Sunday morning to go to church, it was mainly going through the motions. And it was out of fear. I was afraid of God. God for me was more like Zeus, ready to strike me with a thunderbolt. So I got up and went to church. And in doubt and uncertainty and more than a little despair, I took the sails down; I hunkered down; I held on to what I knew. But I was adrift and out of control, chaos all around. 

Jesus finds those disciples like that. He comes walking on the water and they think he’s a ghost. Here’s a man who has control of the seas, just like God! And he speaks: It is I. His words are no accident. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, those are the very words God speaks from the burning bush. Jesus is making a statement about who he is: God in the flesh. 

Jesus sometimes shows up like that in our lives. Jesus shows up in the middle of the waves of doubt, of confusion, of despair and chaos. Jesus comes walking out on the waters, because Jesus is Lord of all of that–Lord of the waters and all their chaos. Jesus comes walking out on the waters to find us hunkered down and holding on with all we got. 

That’s where Jesus found college Mark, hunkered down and holding on in Philosophy 101. One unit in that philosophy course was on the existence of God. As part of that unit, the class discussed the essence of God. If we could boil God down to one characteristic, what would that characteristic be? What would you say? Power, I thought. I said so. Matt pushed back. “What about love?” he asked. Love? Are you kidding? In all my years of church, no one had ever said that the essence of God, the defining feature of God, the thing that makes God, God, is love. Sure, God loves, but only if we do everything right. Right? Wrong. No one had ever read me that verse in I John: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” God loves us because that’s just who God is! 

I couldn’t tell it at first, but with that prompting question from Matt, Jesus had come walking on the water: It is I, do not be afraid. “This isn’t right,” I thought. “I can’t make sense of it.” Just like the disciples think Jesus is a ghost, I thought such an idea–God is love–couldn’t be real. 

Of all those disciples, Peter, the most stubborn and boneheaded of them all, does something incredible. “Lord, if it’s you, command me to come out to you.” Command me to walk out into the middle of this chaos, the middle of this mess, the middle of this doubt and uncertainty and despair. Like that instructor I had in the pool, Jesus extends his hands and says, Peter, I dare ya. Let’s go, bud. And we heard the story: Peter goes out. When he takes his eyes off Jesus, he starts to sink. But he’s saved. Jesus is not only Lord of the wind and waves, he is also Lord of all life. And he grabs Peter out of the trouble he’s got himself into. 

That day in that class was only the first day Jesus showed up. But over and over, Jesus showed up in my life. “Lord, if it’s you, if this God of love idea is real, if I can trust that you really call me a beloved child despite my sense of unworthiness, command me to come out to you.” And over and over, I heard: “Mark, I dare ya.” In time, I learned to go out into that water, to keep my eyes on this Lord of love, to trust that God is love and that God loves me and you and all the world, no matter what, without conditions, just because that’s who God is. 

Our world is one battered by all kinds of waves and winds. And it’s tempting to hunker down and let it all pass by. It’s tempting to live faith quietly, sails put away, unnoticed. It’s tempting to just hold on to what we know and let everything else take care of itself. But Jesus has shown up, and he has told us not to be afraid. 

In a world that can be full of violence, we are to be about peace. In a world that can be despairing, we are to be about joy. In a world where death seems to get the last word, we are resurrection people. In a world where it’s dog-eat-dog, we turn the other cheek. In a world where our pasts define us, we embrace forgiveness and newness of life. In a world where we have to prove our worth, we know we are beloved just as we are. In a world where we divide everything into teams and competing interests, we are to understand that all things belong to God. In a world full of fear, we are to be about a radical and all-embracing love–a radical and all-embracing love that is the very center of God’s being and essence. But we cannot do any of that if we stay hunkered down in the boat, hiding out, holding on. No, we must venture out, walking on water, eyes on Jesus. 

In the midst of waves and winds and things we cannot control, Jesus is coming up to the church, and maybe we’re hunkered down. But he’s reaching out his hand to us, and he’s calling us to take this gospel of peace and joy and faith and hope and love out into the despairing chaos of the world. He’s calling us to get out of that hunkered down position and walk on water with our eyes fixed on him. 

Lord, if it’s really you, command us to come out to you. Should we jump in, Lord? Is it possible to live that way in this chaotic world, amid these waves that are out of our control? Is our faith enough? 

I wonder if we can hear Jesus’s reply? Like my swim teacher Johnny, I can just see Jesus, winking, arms already extended to catch us, and saying,  “St. Luke’s church: I dare ya.”