I was shopping the other day at a certain well known supermarket, and, as I often do, I chose to use the self service checkout option. I checked everything through, no problem; clicked the window for no bags needed, since for once I’d remembered and brought my own. Swiped my club card, paid my dues - with actual money for once. All done. The voice then instructed me to “please take your items,” so I proceeded to do so, placing my shopping bag on the loading bay and beginning to load my purchases into it: one carton of milk, one bunch of bananas . . .
. . . at which point the voice says (you may be ahead of me here), “Unexpected item in bagging area.” This where it starts to get embarrassing, and it’s probably the reason why I do most of my supermarket shopping at quiet times of the day (or even the middle of the night). Because I can’t resist arguing with that disembodied voice. “Of course there’s an item in the bagging area, you idiot. It’s called a bag. How can a bag in a bagging area be unexpected? Isn’t that what we’re all here for?” People are beginning to stare at me, and a man in a security guard’s uniform has started talking into his mobile phone, though to be fair he’s probably just ordering a pizza for when he comes off shift.
Yes, I know it’s only a recording, but if there’s a voice speaking to me why shouldn’t I answer back? It may not do any good, but if I let off a bit of steam I feel a bit better, so it hasn’t all gone for nothing, has it? One of the places we feel most helpless these days is when we’re having to deal with machines that fail to do what machines are supposed to do - meet our needs and make our lives more comfortable. Instead it feels as though they’re out to get us. In a recent survey, the announcement “Unexpected item in bagging area” was voted as one of the most annoying things you ever hear.
And then there’s the weather. We’re just as helpless there. We can’t control or change the weather for all our 21st century sophistication. We have to put up with it whatever, and today we’re blessed with the remnants of Hurricane Bertha. Only the left-over bits, thankfully, so while we’re getting a bit of wind or rain, it’s just a blip in our summer picture, and not too many roofs will get blown away. I hope. But though we may not like, we do have to lump it.
Sudden squalls are still a feature today of the Sea of Galilee, though perhaps today they’re not quite as frightening as they would have been to even experienced fishermen at the time of Jesus. These days the boats are larger, and they’ve got engines; not so back then. The Gospel reading set for today in the revised common lectionary is Matthew’s version of the story of the Stilling of the Storm. You can find this story in Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 to 33.
Matthew’s version of this story differs a bit from Mark’s, but then there’s also the ‘stilling of the storm’ story as St Luke tells it, in which Jesus is asleep in the boat. Were there two different storms, or are these different accounts of the same storm? Be that as it may, a distinctive factor in Matthew’s version is to do with Peter. Jesus walks on water, but do does Peter.
Let’s reflect on that for a moment or two. It’s a strange story, but it feels true to the picture the Gospels give us of faithful, foolhardy, brave, impetuous Peter. This is a man who’s been out on the lake often enough, and who knows as well as anyone there just how deep it is, and how dangerous. But he’s also a man who knows Jesus, and somewhere in his heart he already knows just who Jesus is. So, when Jesus calls him he gets out of the boat and begins to walk across the lake.
But it’s the middle of the night, and the wind’s blowing a gale, and at some point Peter comes to his senses and realises just what a pickle he’s in. His natural trust in Jesus has been replaced by a distinct failure of trust in himself, certainly in his power to cope with a storm. It feels almost like a sleepwalker waking up to find himself in a strange and dangerous place. Peter panics, but in his panic he still knows where to look for help. “Save me, Lord,” he cries, and Jesus reaches out to him and he is safe.
So Jesus helps Peter back to the boat, and they get in, with everyone terrified at the intensity of the storm. But they’ve no sooner got into the boat, than the storm dies down, to the amazement and awe of them all. This again is one of Matthew’s touches, and I need to refer you to the story in Luke in order to connect into the story with which I began.
For in the version of the stilling of the storm we read in Luke, Jesus does just the same sort of thing that I do in the supermarket. He wastes his time talking to something that by definition we can’t control. I talk to disembodied voices in supermarket machinery; Jesus talks to the weather.
We’ve all done that, or maybe we’ve been a bit poetic: “Rain, rain go away, come again another day!” Nothing worse that getting caught by a rain shower when you were expecting it to stay fine. I have been known to curse mildly at the clouds. It doesn’t do any good though. It’s a fool’s errand.
But it’s not a fool’s errand when Jesus does it. He tells the storm to hush down, and it does. And the lake’s surging waves die away to a flat calm. And the disciples say, “Who is this, that the wind and the waves obey him?” Who indeed? They begin to realise what Peter already I think knew somewhere deep down - this isn’t just a great teacher, this is a man deeply and fundamentally in touch with the creative power of God.
And that’s a terrifying but also a wonderful thing to discover, for us as well as for those first disciples out there on the lake. Put at its simplest, the message of this story is that we may from time to time be out of our depth, but Jesus our friend and saviour never is.
We know that, but we often forget it. Like Peter, we hear the call and get out of the boat - to take on whatever care or responsibility, whatever project or task, whatever journey of discovery our faith or our faith community invites us into. We may think of this in terms of vocation, and people may seek to train and prepare us for the task, and maybe even commission or ordain us into it.
But then the times come when we suddenly wake up to realise just where we are: the water’s too high and the shore too far away; the task seems too great and our own strength too small, there are waters rising up to overwhelm us. Suddenly, we’re out of our depth, and we know we can’t save ourselves; suddenly, we’re sinking.
“How little faith you have,” says Jesus to Peter in the story we heard this morning. As St Luke tells the story, Jesus says much the same to all his companions. Elsewhere he tells them that if they had faith just the size of a mustard seed they could command a tree to be plucked up and thrown into the sea. I’d like a bit more faith, in God and in myself; and the bit of faith I do have is constantly under threat. The world is tough and bad things happen in it, and it can be hard to remain constant in witness and praise. I admit my prayer is often just that I might see a little bit more of the road ahead, to be able to walk it a bit more boldly. But usually we can’t tell what’s round the next corner, or what dangers might crouch in the next shadow; what we do have, however, is this promise - that there’s a hand that reaches out for us, and we’ve a saviour who knows our needs and listens for our cry.
So if what we’re about is God’s work, and if we are God’s people, seeking his word and his presence constantly, God will provide . . . not necessarily what we want, but what we need; not necessarily the means to fulfil our own planned agenda, but the means to persevere, and to bear a true and persuasive witness to the God we’ve met with and walked with in the man Jesus Christ, the God who we therefore know loves us.
If I look back over the often chaotic chapters of my life thus far, and all the wrong turnings, and all the times I’ve stepped happily into quicksand or mud, and all the times I’ve been absolutely out of my depth, I can easily identify with Peter. For I know I’ve been held and supported, and led to safety. And I hope too that from time to time I’ve been able to do a little of that reaching out and saving work myself, for people God has needed me to reach out to.
At a funeral last week that I attended, the minister asked the difficult and daring question, “Where is Jesus in this story?” For the family in bereavement, she suggested, Jesus was present in the very real support they’d received from friends and neighbours around them, and in the sense they were able to have even in this time of agony and desolation and loss, that they were surrounded by love. They were at risk of sinking beneath the waves, but there were hands reaching out to buoy them up.
I’m sure that in the same way an important part of our call as members of the Body of Christ is that we should aim to be Christ (or maybe I should say to be Christ-like) to one another, helping, guiding, supporting, rescuing. Those in positions of leadership or authority in the Church certainly have a prime role to be as Christ-like as they can be, but responsibility isn’t just theirs, it’s the job of every member to be as like our Head as we can be; and that starts with our ministry to one another.
What that may mean in practical terms is a matter for each individual Christian, and each Christian fellowship, to decide. All have different challenges, opportunities, skills and resources. And among us there are those whom God may well be calling specially, in just the way that Jesus called Peter - to step out of the boat and into something quite new and probably rather scary. But make no mistake, he calls all of us to something.
To something we can do - maybe not in our own strength, but his help is available. I can’t talk to supermarket check-out machines (or at least, I can, but it profiteth me nothing); I haven’t up till now had much success with the weather either. But I can talk to God; Jesus has given me permission, and shown me how. The words begin “Our Father” - and that in itself is proof that he will listen and respond, for what father wouldn’t, for a child who is dearly loved.
And a last thought - “Our Father”; not just mine, but yours too, this is the family prayer - so when I pray ‘Our Father’ I am straightaway praying myself into a position of responsibility for and solidarity with anyone who’s also a child of God. And I might also add that who is and who isn’t a child of God is, I believe, God’s affair and not mine. So as I look to God for help when I’m in deep waters, so also I know he calls me to offer myself to him, because there will be times when I in my turn need to be the help he is offering to others.
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