Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 14A)
August 9, 2026
Delivered by the Rev. Dr. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ashfield, MA
We have a couple of fine stories to consider this morning. The first is from the Book of Genesis, the tale of Joseph’s brothers plotting to kill him and then deciding to sell him to a passing caravan of traders on their way to Egypt. It’s a familiar story full of emotional and physical violence and memorable detail. There’s that special “long robe with sleeves” (otherwise known as “the coat of many colors”) that old man Isaac makes for his beloved youngest son, and we hear about the resentment and jealousy of the older sons who strip Joseph of his robe, throw him into a pit, and sell him off as a slave. Little do they know that they’ve just set in motion a chain of events that through the grace of God will eventually result in Joseph saving his family from starvation. As you’ll hear next week – spoiler alert! – the story that begins today in anger and betrayal will end in one of literature’s outstanding scenes of reconciliation and forgiveness. If you like a gripping read and want to know what happens between this morning’s part of the story and the stirring conclusion that we hear next week, check out the Book of Genesis, chapters 37 to 45.
But that’s not the story I want to talk about today. The story that captures my attention is the one from Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus has just finished feeding the five thousand, and now he puts the disciples into the boat and tells them to go on ahead to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. After dismissing the crowds, he goes up the mountain by himself to pray. This seems to have been his customary practice: Scripture tells us that Jesus withdrew regularly from the circle of disciples and his ministry to the crowds to spend time alone in silent prayer outdoors. We don’t know what Jesus experienced in the intimacy of his prayer, but I’m guessing that sometimes he prayed with the emotional expressiveness of a man who felt free to weep at the death of his friend Lazarus (John 11:35) and over the city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44), a man who felt free to experience and express his sorrow and anger and love and who shared his full self openly with the One he called Abba, Papa, the beloved Father/Mother who created him. I’m guessing that at other times his prayer was very quiet as he listened patiently and intently to the inner voice of love, letting himself steep in the “sound of sheer silence” that the prophet Elijah heard on the mountain-top (1 Kings 19:12). I’m guessing that Jesus often rested in the same silent communion that we ourselves can experience in contemplative prayer when we drop below the chatty commentary of the mind and receive the love that is always being poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5). And I’m guessing that sometimes his prayer – which he so often practiced outdoors – was inseparable from feeling the wind on his face and the rocky ground under his feet, inseparable from inhaling the scent of cedar and fir trees, from hearing a bird’s sudden cry, and from watching the stars wheel in silence overhead. I’m guessing that in prayer Jesus was sometimes drawn into an ecstatic awareness of his kinship with the living world around him, and all of it sacred, all of it holy.
St. John's Episcopal Church Madrigal Singers rehearse "What wondrous love is this"I think it’s no accident that this remarkable story of Jesus walking on water – a story that also shows up in two other Gospels (Mark 6:45-52, John 6:16-21) – begins with our seeing him alone in prayer, as if to indicate that the miracles that flowed through Jesus were nourished and sustained by his ongoing relationship with the Lover of his soul. That’s true for us, too, right? We feel closer to the Divine, more attuned to God’s presence, when we spend regular periods of time in solitary prayer seeking knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry it out.
So, the story tells us, Jesus is alone in prayer as evening comes. Meanwhile, the disciples are becoming increasingly stressed. Their boat, “battered by the waves,” is still “far from the land,” and the wind is blowing hard against them (Matthew 14:14). The sea in this story – as in many parts of the Bible – is a symbol of chaos (c.f. Genesis 1:1; Jonah 1:4-16), a symbol of the wild, unruly, often dangerous, and ever-changing world that is beyond our control. It’s not hard for me to imagine being in that boat with the disciples, bouncing in the waves and clinging to the sides of the boat for dear life. Who among us doesn’t sometimes feel overwhelmed these days, tossed about in waves of dread, unsettled by the surges of cruelty and mean-spiritedness being let loose in our midst and by the foreboding signs written in the language of fires and droughts, floods and heat, of a climate system being pushed to the brink of chaos by the pollution of fossil fuels? With democracy in disarray and the living world around us under incessant assault – to say nothing of the challenges we may be facing in our personal lives – it’s no wonder we may feel uneasy, afraid, or even swamped.
Tossed about in their boat that night, the disciples endure the storm for hours. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, they peer into the darkness and, through the spray and surging water, spot someone approaching them, walking on the sea. The waves were frightening enough – but this is truly terrifying. Is it a ghost? But no – it is Jesus himself, who immediately tells them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27). “It is I,” he says, or, literally, “I am.”“I am” is the very name of God, the name of the One who is the source of light and life, the very Ground of Being (c.f. Ex. 3:14; Isa. 43:10, Jn 18:2-9). “I am” is approaching; he is here; he is speaking to us. “Take heart,” he says. “Do not be afraid.”
Amidst the whirlwind of our lives, when we are most awash in anxiety and fear, our jaw clenched tight, our boat close to sinking and all our energy applied to the desperate attempt to keep ourselves afloat – we hear a calm, clear voice within us saying, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” We may be struggling with ourselves. We may be struggling with our circumstances or with our emotions, struggling with sorrow or temptation, struggling with regret or guilt or fear, but then that voice sounds again within us, the voice of Jesus, calling us to take heart. “Do not be afraid,” he tells us. “I am here. Do not be afraid.”
The story could have ended here – surely there is enough already to ponder and to take in! Yet there’s more. Peter, dear Peter – you can always count on him to be impetuous and impulsive, he is such an ardent soul! “Lord,” he says boldly, “if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” And Jesus says, “Come” (Matthew 14:28-29).
And out Peter steps – out of the security of the boat, out of that small world where everyone is narrowly focused on staying alive – and he walks toward Jesus across the open waves. Apparently, it’s not enough for Peter to experience the inward calm that Jesus gives, not enough for him to know that he is safe, not enough for him to experience the relief of understanding that the Lord of life is with him and will guide his boat safely to shore. No, Peter’s trust in Jesus is too strong for that. He wants to meet Jesus where Jesus is – out in the turbulence of the world. He wants to do what Jesus does – to proclaim and bear witness to the love and mercy of God. He wants to follow where Jesus leads – to risk all, to venture all, to make his life not a concerted effort to stay safe, but rather a great adventure in which moment to moment he gives himself in love, holding nothing back.
And so, Peter gets out of the boat and starts walking on the water toward Jesus. When have you gotten out of the boat? For I know you have. We get out of the boat and walk on the water whenever we venture something brave for the sake of love. We get out of the boat and walk on the water whenever we care less for our own comfort and security and more for the possibility of responding to human need. We get out of the boat and walk on the water whenever we head toward Jesus, whenever we put our trust in a divine power that is greater than ourselves and turn our eyes and hands and feet toward love. I’m not talking about defying the law of gravity. And I’m not talking about Jesus asking us to float serenely above the waves, as if through some act of dissociation that we imagine to be “spiritual” we should separate ourselves from our lived experience. No, what I’m trying to convey is that Jesus invites us to stay in close contact with the real world, however messy, confusing, and painful it may be, and to learn how to walk on its waves. Walking on water is as good an image as any for what it’s like to step out in faith, listening to the voice of love within us and responding to its lure to step out beyond ourselves, beyond our own small boat, and to do more for love than we ever thought possible.
The only way to grow in faith is to do things that require it. And of course we blow it all the time. Like Peter, filled with the power of love we can step out of the boat but then quickly lose confidence. Yikes! We may tell ourselves. The wind is stronger than I thought! I can’t do this! Or instead, we may notice what a great job we’re doing (Hey! I’m walking on water! I must be hot stuff!) and we lose any felt contact with love. Self-consciousness can pull us down either way, whether it’s caused by fear or pride, and we begin to sink. Yet all that’s needed is to do what Peter did next – to ask for help, to cry out, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30). “Immediately,” says the text, immediately Jesus will reach out his hand to catch us, just as he caught Peter, chiding us in a voice that is filled with affection, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31).
You’ll remember that earlier in the story, when the disciples in the boat cried out in fear, “immediately” Jesus revealed his identity and spoke a word of encouragement and calm (Matthew 14:27). Again, when Peter began to sink and cried out in fear, “immediately” (Matthew 14: 31) Jesus stretched out his arm to grasp him and to lift him from the waves. The waves of the world are perilous. They are real. But Jesus is close at hand, a holy, living presence ready to save.
I will close with a question. Where do you find yourself in this story? If you find yourself tossing about in stormy seas, feeling frightened and alone, I invite you in the silence to listen to the calm voice of Jesus saying to you, “Take heart, it is I: do not be afraid.” Or, if Jesus is inviting you out of your safe hiding-place and out onto the water, I invite you to listen to him say to you, as he said to Peter, “Come. Trust me. Don’t look down. Just keep walking toward me. Love will hold you up. If you sink, I will catch you. Come.”
