19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, RCL)

The lectionary reading from Matthew's Gospel is the story of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee in the midst of a storm. In a couple of decades, anyone will be able to cross the Sea of Galilee on foot because of climate change.

I am writing a sermon on Matthew 14: 22-33, the passage wherein Jesus invites Peter to get out of the boat and walk on the water with him…in the midst of a storm.  Peter has always seemed to me to be the naïve, overeager, overachiever type.

Matthew’s story of Jesus walking on the water with Peter can spawn bad theologies.

The Hebrews’ stories brought their lives into balance. Moses believed that remembering where they’d been, how they’d come into the land God promised, and what God had done for them would keep them faithful. So he said that in offering the first fruits of harvest, “You shall make this response before the LORD your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.’” Their story was a confession of faith, a community story that cast their thanksgiving into a framework that provided boundary and purpose to their lives together. It was a creed. Tell it again and again, Moses urged.

Fear rules the emotions of Joseph’s brothers and strikes the hearts of Jesus’ disciples.