You’ve got to love the Apostle Peter:
impulsive yet fearful,
headstrong yet vacillating,
faith-filled yet clueless.
He professes that Jesus is the Christ,
and is thus proclaimed by Jesus
to be the rock on which
he will build his Church,
but then he immediately
rejects Jesus’ prediction
of his passion and resurrection,
and so is condemned
as a stumbling block.
On the night Jesus is betrayed,
Peter avows passionately that even if
all the others fall away
he will stand fast,
but then denies Jesus
three times before the cock crows
to herald the coming day.
And in today’s Gospel,
Peter has faith to step
out of the boat and into the storm,
but then fears and doubts
and begins to sink.
impulsive yet fearful,
headstrong yet vacillating,
faith-filled yet clueless.
He professes that Jesus is the Christ,
and is thus proclaimed by Jesus
to be the rock on which
he will build his Church,
but then he immediately
rejects Jesus’ prediction
of his passion and resurrection,
and so is condemned
as a stumbling block.
On the night Jesus is betrayed,
Peter avows passionately that even if
all the others fall away
he will stand fast,
but then denies Jesus
three times before the cock crows
to herald the coming day.
And in today’s Gospel,
Peter has faith to step
out of the boat and into the storm,
but then fears and doubts
and begins to sink.
And in all of this,
Peter is the exemplary disciple.
He is the exemplary disciple because
he’s pretty much like all of us.
It would be simpler, really,
if we were just flat-out terrible disciples,
if we were hypocrites
or pusillanimous cowards.
But we’re not.
We’re mostly, like Peter, a mixed bag
when it comes to following Jesus:
possessed of great faith
and of crippling fears,
capable of grand gestures
and of small betrayals.
We may not deny him three times
between dusk and dawn,
but with frustrating frequency
our faith fails us
as we face the wild winds
and grow aware of the abyss
that looms beneath our feet.
Peter is exemplary because he, like us,
is a less-than-perfect follower of Jesus.
is a less-than-perfect follower of Jesus.
But in today’s Gospel he is also exemplary,
because he gets at least two things right,
and these are things we too should strive to do.
because he gets at least two things right,
and these are things we too should strive to do.
First: he steps out of the boat
and into the storm.
True, Peter is impulsive.
He hops out of the boat
without thinking through
what it will feel like
to stand on water
in the midst of a storm;
he hasn’t considered what it means
to stand above the abyss
buoyed only by faith.
An ill-considered move, we might say,
but it also shows that he
simply wants to be wherever Jesus is,
and if Jesus is outside the boat
and in the storm,
that is where Peter wants to go.
And this is how we ought to be too.
We journey through life in the little boats
that we hope will provide us with
buoyancy and shelter,
safety and direction,
boats that we count on to carry us
through whatever storms come our way.
A job, a stock portfolio,
friends, family, education,
a way of understanding
the world and our place in it.
The safety of these boats,
is, of course, an illusion,
since life’s storms
can easily swamp them:
jobs are lost,
friends abandon us,
worldviews are upended.
We journey through life in the little boats
that we hope will provide us with
buoyancy and shelter,
safety and direction,
boats that we count on to carry us
through whatever storms come our way.
A job, a stock portfolio,
friends, family, education,
a way of understanding
the world and our place in it.
The safety of these boats,
is, of course, an illusion,
since life’s storms
can easily swamp them:
jobs are lost,
friends abandon us,
worldviews are upended.
But more importantly than all that,
if you want to be where Jesus is
you’ve got to get out of the boat
and leave it behind,
because Jesus is not found
in places of illusory safety
but in places of real risk,
in places outside of our areas
of comfort and certainty.
He calls to us
as he called to Peter:
“Come.”
Come be with me
in the wind and the waves.
Come be with me in the storm.
if you want to be where Jesus is
you’ve got to get out of the boat
and leave it behind,
because Jesus is not found
in places of illusory safety
but in places of real risk,
in places outside of our areas
of comfort and certainty.
He calls to us
as he called to Peter:
“Come.”
Come be with me
in the wind and the waves.
Come be with me in the storm.
Second: as Peter begins to sink
he cries out “Lord, save me.”
As Peter discovers that
the world outside the boat
is far wilder and more perilous
than he could have imagined,
his impulsive confidence begins to fail
and his desire to be where Jesus is
begins to be eclipsed
by his fear and his doubt:
who was he to think
that he could get out of the boat
and walk across the water to Jesus?
But as his faith in himself
fails in the face of real peril,
his faith in Jesus makes him
cry out for salvation
and Jesus catches him
and bears him up above the abyss.
he cries out “Lord, save me.”
As Peter discovers that
the world outside the boat
is far wilder and more perilous
than he could have imagined,
his impulsive confidence begins to fail
and his desire to be where Jesus is
begins to be eclipsed
by his fear and his doubt:
who was he to think
that he could get out of the boat
and walk across the water to Jesus?
But as his faith in himself
fails in the face of real peril,
his faith in Jesus makes him
cry out for salvation
and Jesus catches him
and bears him up above the abyss.
And this is how we ought to be too.
When we fail in our life as disciples,
as we most surely will,
when we find ourselves regretting
our foolishness in thinking that we
could venture outside our vessels
of comfort and security,
when we are confronted with
our own foolishness and frailty
in the face of such wind and waves,
when our faith in ourselves falters,
we must cry out as Peter did:
“Lord, save me.”
During private moments of prayer,
in the confessional,
before God’s altar
we ought to cry out:
Jesus, stretch out your hand
and draw me toward you,
through the wind and above the waves,
across the watery abyss
so that I may be where you are.
When we fail in our life as disciples,
as we most surely will,
when we find ourselves regretting
our foolishness in thinking that we
could venture outside our vessels
of comfort and security,
when we are confronted with
our own foolishness and frailty
in the face of such wind and waves,
when our faith in ourselves falters,
we must cry out as Peter did:
“Lord, save me.”
During private moments of prayer,
in the confessional,
before God’s altar
we ought to cry out:
Jesus, stretch out your hand
and draw me toward you,
through the wind and above the waves,
across the watery abyss
so that I may be where you are.
Peter is the exemplary disciple
not because he is
a perfect follower of Jesus,
but precisely because
we see in him our own imperfect path
as disciples of the Lord
and our dependence on God’s mercy.
He is exemplary because he is
both impulsive and passionate enough
to step out of the boat
and into the storm
so that he might be with Jesus.
He is exemplary because
when in his frailty he fails
he is humble and trusting enough
to cry out to Jesus for salvation.
not because he is
a perfect follower of Jesus,
but precisely because
we see in him our own imperfect path
as disciples of the Lord
and our dependence on God’s mercy.
He is exemplary because he is
both impulsive and passionate enough
to step out of the boat
and into the storm
so that he might be with Jesus.
He is exemplary because
when in his frailty he fails
he is humble and trusting enough
to cry out to Jesus for salvation.
So we too hear the call of Jesus,
the tiny whispering sound
that can pierce
the tumult of the storm,
calling to us “come.”
Come step out of the boat
and into the storm,
for I will be with you to save you,
if only you call out to me.
“Take courage, it is I;
do not be afraid.”
the tiny whispering sound
that can pierce
the tumult of the storm,
calling to us “come.”
Come step out of the boat
and into the storm,
for I will be with you to save you,
if only you call out to me.
“Take courage, it is I;
do not be afraid.”
May God, in his mercy,
have mercy on us all.
have mercy on us all.
