August 9, 2026 Sermon -- Pastor Joel Pakan [Matthew 14:22-33]

The gospel today comes to us from the book of Matthew.

Glory to you, O Lord.

Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, while he dismissed the crowds.

And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.

Evening came, he was there alone.

But by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.

And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.

When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, It is a ghost.

And they cried out in fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I.

Do not be afraid.

Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

He said, Come.

So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.

When he was no when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and began to sink.

He cried out, Lord, save me.

Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, You of little faith.

Why did you doubt?

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

The gospel of the Lord.

Thanks.

You all cried.

And you may be seated.

I know that one.

Friends, grace and mercy and a peace that surpasses all the storms that we may encounter.

Be with us as we consider these words from our scriptures.

This sermon is going to be in two parts.

And so the first part, we're going to look back at the beginning of the summer.

You see, all throughout our summer, we've been having a progression through the Gospel of Matthew, but also a progression through the epistle of the Romans.

And we started our summer in Romans 6, and the sixth chapter of Romans is super important to us Lutherans.

So let me remind you what we heard in the beginning of June and that we're continuing to hear all throughout the summer.

This is verse 3 and 4 out of Romans 6.

Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

That's what we heard all the way back in June.

Now I'm going to do something that is a little dangerous.

I'm going off book.

I put a little surprise here in your baptismal font, and I'm going to need some help from some of our youngest people.

Would anyone like to come up here and see what surprise I put here in the baptismal font?

And come up, and I can promise you that we're going to have fun.

There's something up here.

Do you want to see what it is?

Come on up.

Come on up.

Oh man.

Oh, we are going to have fun.

We're going to get some people wet.

What do you say?

Anyone want to come on up?

Come on up.

Come on up.

Alright.

Now, the first thing we're going to do is for this fun, we're going to take a little moment and sanitize our hands.

So just take a little bit there.

You can come on up.

There you go.

Put a little bit on your hand.

Come on over.

Put a little bit in your hand.

There you go.

Come on over.

Get a little bit for you.

A little bit for you.

Go ahead and sanitize your hands.

There we go.

One more.

Alright, there we go.

Rub it together.

Alright, rub it together in your hands.

Alright, come on up here.

Tell me what we got here.

Nobody else has seen this.

What is in here?

What do you see?

You see a can.

You see a can.

Can anyone tell me what this can says on it?

Who's a good reader?

Liquid death.

That's what this can says.

It could be scary.

It is scary, right?

Because if you drink it, you don't know if you're gonna die.

Yeah, you don't know if you're gonna die, right?

Yeah, it is scary.

Well, our reading from Romans is a little scary.

It says, we were baptized into Christ's death.

But then it says, so that we might be raised just like Jesus died, but also just like Jesus raised to new life.

Now, here's the thing.

I think I think we need to open this can.

That's what they were made for.

Being opened.

Now, I bet whenever baptism happens here, you probably don't hear this sound in the very beginning.

Is it ridiculous?

I love it.

I love ridiculous things.

We're gonna go ahead and pour this as just water.

Liquid death water.

We're just gonna pour it in here.

Now, I was a little baby when I was baptized.

I don't remember my baptism.

But I know it happened, and there was all these people that gathered together when I was baptized, and the pastor got over me and put water on my head and said, In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Spirit, you were baptized, and that means God is raising you to new life too.

Now, every once in a while, have you ever ever had someone maybe accuse you of something or maybe call you a mean name or make you feel bad?

Is that oh, that's happened?

I know it's happened to me too, right?

Now, Martin Luther, he had the guy who started this whole tradition that we're in, he had people that would sometimes say things to him that would make him doubt his value and his work.

And whenever he would doubt, he would have the statement, statement he would say, whenever someone would doubt, in fact, he would even say, sometimes the devil makes us doubt.

He would say, When the accuser comes and makes you doubt, you say to the accuser, you say, No, I've been baptized.

No, I've been baptized.

Did I get you baptized?

So, now if that can happen to Luther, and sometimes you even said too, sometimes people like, right?

Sometimes happens and maybe they accuse you of something and you can doubt yourself.

But God says, No, even though you're dead, I am raising you to new life.

And so, if that happens to you, do you think that sometimes happens to me too?

Yeah, it does.

So now, if I can help you remember your baptized by saying, no, you've been baptized.

Do you think that I need help remembering that I've been baptized?

Yeah?

Oh, and you've already sanitized your hands.

What do you say?

Why don't you put your wall your hands in here?

Come on, come close.

Can you come over here, sir?

Do you want to get your hands in?

Here, I'll move this out of the way.

All right.

Get your hands in there.

You got your fingers wet?

All right.

I need a really good reminder of I've been baptized.

So we're gonna say together, no, you've been baptized.

Ready?

One, two, three, no, you've been baptized.

Oh yeah! Oh, so good.

Now, now let me ask this question.

Turn around and look at all these people out here.

Now, if you sometimes forget that God is raising you to new life, and I sometimes forget that God is raising me to new life, do you think that those people out there sometimes forget that God is raising them to new life too?

I agree.

Now we've got a thing we could say to them.

We could go out and we could, with our fingers wet, do you think we could go out there and say, no, you've been baptized and sprinkle people?

Yes.

Yeah?

Okay, now here's the thing.

Man, we've already used up so much water.

Here's the good thing.

I've got more.

There's another one over there.

All right, now here's the thing, right?

You can just buy these at gas stations anywhere, and sometimes when you need just a little bit of baptism to be remembered, you get this.

And sometimes when you need a lot.

So, friends, here's what we're gonna do.

All right, we're just gonna fill this up.

All right now, friends.

Remember, anytime that you are doubting, right?

Yeah, you may make sure we use it all.

I agree.

Anytime that you're doubting, that God's work isn't going to be effective in you, we can do like Martin Luther did, and we say no to the accuser.

No, I've been baptized.

And we're gonna all help remember all these people.

And so here's what we're gonna do with walking feet, right?

Yep, we're gonna get our hands wet.

We'll use this.

Super wet.

Super wet.

All right, good.

Now, I've got more in here, so as we walk around the room, you can come back to me and we'll get our hands wet again.

But let's go out and help people remember.

No, you've been baptized.

Let's go over here first.

Come on.

Come on, no, you've been baptized.

Come on, say it, say it out loud.

You don't have to stick my no, you've been baptized.

Yeah, there we come on over this way.

We gotta get people over here.

No, you've been baptized.

Here, get some more water on your hands.

No, you've been baptized.

There you go.

No, you've been baptized.

Let's go this way.

Alright.

No, you've been baptized.

Say it out loud, I gotta hear ya.

I gotta hear ya, no, you've been baptized.

Oh, come on over here, we're gonna get people in the back of their heads.

No, you've been baptized.

Come on.

Come and girl, okay.

Get a little more on your hands.

No, you've been baptized.

Keep going.

We haven't gotten nearly to everybody yet.

No, you've been baptized.

Come around this way.

One more section over here.

Boy, if people are listening to this on the radio, they're wondering what's going on.

No, you've been baptized.

Alright.

Get them all good.

Get some water on your fingertips.

No, you've been baptized.

Alright.

Good.

No, you've been come over here.

No, somebody go over to that far side and get those people while I was sitting over there.

I will you will.

You will.

No, you've been baptized.

You've been baptized.

Alright.

What do you think?

Did we get everybody?

Alright, go ahead.

Don't let anybody be forgotten.

We need to get rod.

We need to get rod.

Where's Rod hiding?

Oh, there he is.

Okay, alright, okay.

Let's come back to the frontier, friends.

You should drive.

Here, here, use my stole.

Dry them off.

There you go.

Dry off your hands.

Here you go, gentlemen.

Dry up.

Now, if you see anyone this week or this month or this year, right, who seems like they're down, that maybe they've received this word that says they're not worthy to be loved, you have a thing that you can do.

You can get your fingers wet a little bit, and you can remind them God is raising them to new life.

No, you've been baptized.

Now, here's the thing.

One last thing before you return to your seats.

I've got a couple more cans.

So here's tons of dead.

Liquid death, you can just get this at the gas station.

It comes in all kinds of flavors.

I just put the water, the straight regular water in your font.

But there's a couple cans here that have not been opened.

If there's someone in your life that needs to be reminded that God is raising them to new life too, come and grab a can on your way out today.

Alright, friends, you may return to your seats.

Oh, you're gonna take them?

Go for it.

Go for it.

Yeah?

That's alright.

They're empty.

I've only got those two.

You'll have to ask your parents to go find one at your local store at the gas station, maybe.

Oh! Wasn't that fun?

Yeah.

Good.

Alright, friends.

Let me go a little bit back to on script.

Um let me see if I can get us to uh to our gospel text.

This is why they made stolls, you know.

For cleaning up after ourselves.

I know Luther said an orderly, you know, sacrament.

I kind of pushed the bounds just a little bit today.

Um let me say a couple things as quickly as I can.

I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little bit different in my sermon from what we did uh last night.

Jesus, when he goes to feed the 5,000, that's the story that we heard last week, he's trying to escape to have some time of personal grief because his cousin, John the Baptist, has just died.

He was beheaded by Herod.

And he's trying to get away.

He's trying to do a very human thing when he leaves.

He's trying to grieve his friend.

And he can't do it.

The people's need is just too great.

And it results in this miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, which is it's a beautiful miracle.

And one of the things that's really interesting about our scriptures, right, in that context, we get it a little bit in our scripture that says it fed 5,000 men, and then there were also women and children.

Now that's something that that we shouldn't just skip over, because the the cultural context was that they wouldn't actually have mentioned women and children, but our scripture does.

Right?

So our scripture is bringing more inclusiveness into, because the culture would say that only the men counted, but our scripture mentions that it's more than just the men who receive the feast.

So we take that context and we move it into our scripture, right?

And let's think about who's in the boat.

I I love the architecture of our churches, right?

Um one of our ELCA pastors, um, many of our ELCA pastors have served congregations in Germany.

And one of them, his name is Scott Moore, and he was an architect before he became a pastor.

And so when he was uh serving the churches in Isleben, which is the town, Isleben in Germany is the town where Martin Luther was born, and also the town where he gave his last sermon.

And so as an architect, he helped the congregation of St.

Peter and Paul in Germany and Iisleben, Germany.

This was the congregation that Martin Luther was baptized in.

They did a whole redesign of the congregation to put the baptismal font right in the center of the church.

It's center to our theology and it's centered to Martin Luther.

So this other architecture, you have it in your old sanctuary space.

When you look up at the ceiling in your gathering hall there, the gospel ship, right?

You look up and it looks like it's a ship.

It looks like it's a boat.

Think about it with this scripture, right?

In that boat on that sea were these disciples, but they were not uniformed.

They were people from very different places and very different cultures.

We have Matthew the tax collector who sided with the Romans.

He's in that boat on the stormy sea, and he's next to Simon the zealot.

Now, the zealots were the ones who wanted to take up arms and defeat the Romans.

So we've got Simon the zealot and Matthew the conspirator with the Romans in the boat on a stormy sea together, and Jesus isn't there.

It's almost like our scripture is talking about the boat of our congregation that we remember when we look up at the ceiling of the old architecture in your church.

Now I'm gonna add one more layer to this.

Some of the most ancient manuscripts that we get translated into the Gospel of Matthew, it doesn't label Simon as the zealot.

It says it's Simon the Canaanite.

So some of our earliest manuscripts say it's Simon who is a minority person who looks different and has been warring.

The Canaanites and the Israelites have been warring for generations and generations and generations.

They hate each other.

And Jesus puts them in the gospel boat together.

And then he leaves.

Yeah, I think it does.

So, what are we to do?

How are we to live?

There's something really interesting.

I last time I preached on this text, this didn't come to me, but it came to me as I was thinking of you all and my our time together this Sunday morning.

Peter does this really interesting thing.

He asks Jesus, Lord, if it's you, command me to come.

Peter can't do that without the beginning of faith.

Right?

We believe that faith starts in baptism, but it doesn't end there.

That baptism is the seed of faith and it begins a journey for us.

And so when Peter says, if it's you, Lord, command me to come, and Jesus says, Come, Peter in faith steps out of the boat and starts walking.

And starts going out.

And it doesn't mean that it isn't easy, and it doesn't mean that he isn't afraid.

In fact, he's really afraid when he sees the waves and the wind.

And yet Jesus is still there to take his hand.

Here's what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this very well-known Lutheran theologian, says about this.

He says this in his book, Discipleship.

The situation has to be initiated, which will enable faith in Jesus, the incarnate God.

This is the impossible situation in which everything is based on only one thing, the word of Jesus.

Peter has to get out of the boat into the waves in order to experience his own powerlessness and the almighty power of his Lord.

If we had not gotten out of the boat, he would not have learned to believe.

His situation on the temptuous sea is completely impossible and ethically simply irresponsible.

But it has to happen for him to believe.

The road to faith passes through obedience to Christ's call.

The step is required.

Otherwise, Jesus' call dissipates into nothing.

Any intended discipleship without this step to which Jesus calls, it becomes a deceptive enthusiast's allusions.

Only the obedient believe.

A concrete command has to be obeyed in order to come to belief.

A first step of obedience has to be taken so that faith does not become pious self-deception or cheap grace.

The first step is crucial.

It is qualitatively different from all the others that follow.

The first step of obedience has to lead Peter away from his nets and out of the boat.

No matter what you said, no matter what has been said to you, no matter what's been done to you, God is raising you to new life.

No, you've been baptized.

One more quick word.

I can't ignore this.

That you had this wonderful hymn that precious Lord take my hand in your service.

It didn't happen in Saturday service, so I didn't talk about this, but you know that's a that's a beautiful American hymn.

Thomas Dorsey is the hymn writer.

It was written here in America.

Thomas Dorsey, born in 1899, was part of the Great Migration.

African Americans fleeing Jim Crow, moving up to Chicago from the center of our country.

He learned music in the juke joints.

He was a bar musician like Luther.

And he had all of this music from playing on those out-of-tune pianos and the juke joints in the South.

And when he started marrying those juke joint melodies to the gospel, the church said no.

The church said no.

We won't hear this stuff because that music can't be redeemed and can't be married to our gospel music.

And gospel music then was very upright and proper.

It took years.

Thomas Dorsey started the first gospel choir in Chicago.

And finally the church started warming up to his music.

That song, Precious Lord Take My Hand, comes out of a time of great sorrow in Thomas Dorsey's life.

His wife died in childbirth and lost their child.

And for a couple years he didn't write music.

And when he sat back at the piano for the first time, years later, he says, Precious Lord, take my hand.

This melody and the song came like drops of heaven, like tears coming off of a stone in the sky.

And that song was written.

Friends, the worst thing has already ever happened to you.

God came and found that you were dead.

That you were dead in your sin.

That's not the end of our story.

God is raising us to new life.

Thanks be to God in Jesus Christ.