Proper 14 Sermon - BMT - August 9, 2026

Peter walking on water, but for a moment.

This is this is such a good story.

If you grew up in the church, you probably learned this story when you were really little as a kid.

And even if you didn't grow up in the church, I'm sure that you would be familiar with this famous.

I mean, the drama is just palpable, right?

Jesus walking on the water and Peter going out.

Jesus before this had fed 5,000 families and uh with just a few loaves of bread and some fish, and then he goes up into a mountain.

He withdraws to commune with the Father.

And during this time, the disciples they stay back on the boat, and the boat seems to drift out into the midst of the sea, and a storm raises up, and Jesus is presumably coming back to the boat towards the disciples, and they see something and they think it's an apparition.

They think it's a ghost, and they're absolutely terrified.

And Jesus calls out and says that it's me, and then one of the disciples, Peter, calls out and says, Lord, if it's you, call me out onto the sea with you.

Why does Peter make this request?

Of all the things that Peter could ask for or pray for request of Jesus, why this?

I mean, there's a storm raging, and Peter asks to join Jesus on the water.

The reason Peter asks this request is because Peter is a disciple and Jesus is rabbi.

You see, at this time, that word disciple was a technical word that the Jewish people use to give description to this relationship between a student and a rabbi.

This was a relationship that was very rigorous in the Jewish community.

If you got to the point in your education that you wanted to pursue rabbinical training to come under a rabbi, this was reserved for the best of the best of the best of the best.

It was very demanding.

It was like the functional equivalent of like a PhD in the Hebrew Bible, but you just got started in your teens.

And it was very rigorous.

Often, uh, you know, the teenager would sit down with a potential rabbi or potential disciple, and the rabbi would just like grill them and interrogate them and ask them all sorts of questions to determine if they have what it takes to be their disciple.

Very demanding.

And then if you got to the point where you were actually honored to be a disciple, the rabbi would call you, come follow me, come be my disciple.

And this was a great honor to be bestowed on one.

And the disciple would come under the rabbi, but this relationship as a student was not simply that the disciple would learn everything that the rabbi knows intellectually.

But this relationship was one of formation.

They didn't simply want to know what their rabbi knew, they wanted to be like their rabbi.

That's what a disciple is.

They wanted to eat like their rabbi, sleep, uh, wash their hands, uh, practice Sabbath, everything like their rabbi.

It was uh education, not of information, but transformation.

And this was done by imitation, imitating their rabbi.

But see, Jesus comes along and he's not calling the best of the best of the best.

Jesus comes along and he calls some teenagers who are fishing in the family business and says, Come be my disciple.

Like everything that'll be necessary will be provided.

You come.

And this rabbi will even call practicing tax collectors at the tax booth.

Matthew, come follow me.

Come be my disciple.

Like everything necessary will be provided, but it's an invitation into imitation to be transformed by taking Jesus' yoke upon.

So when Peter sees Jesus walking on the stormy seas, Peter wants to be like his rabbi.

He wants to do what his master is doing, and he calls Jesus.

Tell me to come out with you, join you on the waters.

But see, the imagery of water is very important here.

Students of the Old Testament will know that ancient Israel, Hebrews, Jews, these were not sea people.

They were not sailors.

Like that was never a part of like Israel's military program.

Like, let's, you know, let's get a navy.

No, and and Jonah is like a case in point in this.

No, actually, ancient Israel and the Hebrews, the Jewish people, they viewed water and the sea as connected somehow to chaos.

It's the place where Leviathan is, uh, Job tells us.

And by chaos, it that the sea, this imagery, the storming seeds in these waves, it's it's something that almost sits in tension with creation, with the order of creation.

It's the formless and void waters of chaos, right, that the spirit is brooding over in Genesis 1 is going to bring order to that which is formless and void.

So this imagery of water, Jesus isn't just walking on water.

Jesus is taking a stroll on a stormy sea.

So when Peter asks Jesus to call me out, join you where you are, Peter is not simply wanting to walk on water.

Peter wants to walk on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

And this is a request that Jesus doesn't refuse.

Surprisingly, Peter steps out of the boat into the crashing waves and billows, and if but for a moment, he's walking.

Peter sees the storm and the wind and the waves, and he's terrified and he begins sinking.

And he's calling out to Jesus, and Jesus comes and picks him up, and Jesus has kind of a, like I read it as like a sad rebuke.

Like Jesus is his heart is broken.

Like why the little faith?

He picks Peter up, and we see in this imagery that, oh my word, like the disciples of Jesus, wait, are they capable of following Jesus and imitating him to such an extent that they can walk on stormy waters?

But we see that Peter sinks, and in this story, what is made clear is that we can follow Jesus.

We can imitate Jesus, but we cannot do any of that without faith.

It takes faith to do what Jesus is doing.

It takes faith to be a disciple of Jesus.

That is, that Jesus is not just some good moral teacher that has some good ethics that we can apply to our life.

No.

Jesus is someone who is to be the object of affection and love and loyalty and faithfulness.

And this we see from Peter.

This relationship of a disciple to be like his master, to even join him on the billows and the waves of the sea.

You see, by the time we leave the gospel writers and we come into the epistles and the rest of the New Testament, this word disciple totally disappears.

It's only the word disciple is only in the gospel writers.

Did you know this?

In Matthew, Mark, Luke, in the book of Acts, which which Luke wrote, taught speak of being a disciple by the time you get to Paul and James and John and the book of Revelation, no talk of disciple.

Well, isn't this important?

Aren't we supposed to be disciples?

Well, the calling of discipleship is there, it has different languages, a different context.

It's mostly predominantly written to Gentiles, right?

But you still see echoes of this as Paul says, right, imitate me as I imitate Christ.

When Paul is speaking of being crucified with Christ, the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

This is language of discipleship because Jesus uses the imagery of the cross as his imagery for discipleship.

But by the time we get to Paul here in Romans 9, Paul utters what I think is probably the most wild, like unbelievable, outlandish thing a Christian has said for 2,000 years, apart from preaching the gospel, is what Paul says here.

This is unbelievable.

It's like he's holding this ball that he's gonna knock out of the park, is all this rhetoric of sincerity and integrity.

Paul says, I'm speaking, this is what he says.

I'm speaking the truth in Christ.

I'm not lying.

My conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit.

What are you not lying about, Paul?

Paul says, I wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.

What?

What?

Why can Paul talk like that?

Why can Paul say that?

Because Paul is a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth.

This is who Christ is for us, the one for the many, the one who became a curse under the law to save who?

All the lawbreakers.

The Christ who stands in the gap, the judge who is judged.

Paul is saying, like, I wish I were accursed.

That I would be an object of wrath for the sake of my brothers and my cousins, my family.

This is extraordinary language.

And if you keep reading Romans, who is Paul talking about?

Paul's talking about unbelieving Israel.

That is, Israel who's not accepting Jesus as the Messiah.

His cousins, his family, his friends.

And if you keep reading in Romans, these are the people that are actually persecuting the Roman church.

Like they're causing them real pain.

This is scary, these people.

Paul even calls them moments later, their enemies.

And Paul says, I wish that I were cut off and accursed for the sake of my enemies.

Paul is manifesting what has been revealed to be the divine love of God manifested in Christ.

A love that loves and embraces and adores his enemies.

This is the invitation of discipleship.

It's an invitation to imitate Christ, to imitate God, just as Peter's imitating Jesus, if though for a fleeting moment, and Paul imitating Christ here.

We often find ourselves, I often find myself.

I'm more like Jonah.

See, Jonah, when invited by God to go to Nineveh, when the call comes, right?

Obey.

Jonah walks away.

Well, he doesn't, he doesn't actually walk.

He flees.

He runs.

He books it.

But see, what gets revealed is actually this God, the God and Father of Jesus, you actually can't outrun this God.

When the calling's there, it's there.

He's something of a hound of heaven.

Dave Livingston shared that poem this past week.

This image, so what happens with Jonah is God calls Jonah and says, Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh.

I want you to tell them that disaster is coming.

The sin has gotten so bad.

You need to go there and you need to tell the people of Nineveh that disaster is coming for the sin that's going on in that city.

Jonah says, No, not doing that.

He books it on a boat, in the ocean, in a fish, on the shore.

He's in Nineveh.

And Jonah stands up before Nineveh.

He gives this prophetic message of this coming disaster.

And then what happens?

The people of Nineveh hear this message and they repent.

And then God relents in bringing disaster.

But what does Jonah do?

I love this.

We read at the end of the book of Jonah.

Jonah is absolutely livid.

He's furious.

I mean, he is angry.

And he tells God, this is why I didn't want to come.

I didn't want to come to Nineveh.

I didn't want to bring this message.

I didn't want to be here to speak to these people.

Because I knew, I knew that you were a merciful God.

I knew that you were long-suffering.

And I knew that you were going to show mercy to my enemies.

I don't want.

And Jonah says, kill me.

God, kill me.

I would rather die than to see your mercy go to my enemies.

See, Jonah flees God because he knows God.

That's strange.

That's the Hebrew Bible for you.

God, who is revealed as a God who loves his enemies.

May we, on hearing or seeing Christ walking out on the waters, up on the cross, when we see the eyes of Jesus beckoning us, come follow me.

Take my yoke upon you.

Do what I do.

Love the way I love.

Show mercy like this.

Give like this.

May we not be like Jonah.

But may we, though imperfectly, be like Peter or Paul.

Like these are humans, right?

There's nothing special about Peter.

No offense to Peter.

There's nothing special about Paul.

They're human beings filled with the Spirit of God.

That's it.

The power and the presence of God in a human being.

The invitation of discipleship.

But may we know, even if we resist the way Jonah resists, that the God who's been revealed in Christ is a God who will not let us be.

But will pursue us.

He will find us.

He will draw us to him.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.