It was the summer after my junior year of college and I was doing what I had done every summer since I hit my teens—I’d given up my books and schoolwork for a hammer and nail apron and took my place on the jobsite where my dad was building or remodeling houses. This summer, the first job was to frame a two-story house and I found myself walking around on the second floor joists as we began hanging rafters for the roof. All of a sudden, I looked down and realized where I was, twenty feet or more above the ground. My legs began to tremble and I had to get down on my hands and knees to stabilize myself. It had been nine months since I had found myself in a similar position, and even though my body remembered it, my mind was playing tricks on me. I was scared, and it would take a couple of days of working up there before I got comfortable again.

I wonder if Peter had a similar experience, walking out on the water, suddenly realizing where he was, and freaking out about it. There’s actually a backstory about my fear—I had to overcome fear of heights to work with my dad. I remember as a younger boy, maybe ten years old, climbing around on a half-framed house and falling. I didn’t hurt myself. But years later, when I started working for my dad, I had to overcome that memory before I could function fully on a ladder or a roof.

This morning’s thunderstorm put me in mind of another incident from that same summer. We were finishing the metal roof on a large pole barn, 40 or 50 feet above ground, when a thunderstorm suddenly popped up. I’ll spare you the details. It was quite possibly the scariest experience I’ve ever had.

So many of us are fearful right now. The old certainties on which we relied seem to have fallen away; the safety net is being dismantled; our very sense of who we are as a nation, a people dissolving in front of our eyes. It often seems like we are hovering over an abyss of chaos.

I know that many of us come to church in search of reassurance and hope, to hear words of inspiration and comfort in these troubled times. Today’s gospel lesson speaks directly to fear. It’s the familiar story of Jesus walking on the water. And no doubt, those of you have attended church all your lives, going all the way back to Sunday school as kids, could tell me about this story—that it’s about Peter’s impulsiveness, his lack of faith, and of Jesus saving him in spite of himself; a lesson that we can transfer to ourselves. And so it is, but it is also, or could be, about so much else.

First, a note about context. This story is set immediately after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. But there’s another event that may offer additional perspective. Chapter 14 begins with the account of Herod’s execution of John the Baptist. After receiving word of this from John’s disciples, Matthew reports that he “withdrew to a deserted place.” But time and space for grief and reflection were not to be. The crowds followed him, Jesus had compassion on them, and healed their sick. It was that evening that Jesus took five loaves and two fishes, and from them fed the crowd.

Our story picks up immediately after that event. Again, Jesus withdraws after sending the disciples ahead. He needs time to grieve, to recharge and reflect on what John’s death might mean for his own ministry. The disciples begin their journey across the Sea of Galilee. They were sailors, at least four of them were, and the Sea of Galilee was their home. They apparently spent the night on the lake, their boat was battered by wind and waves—the Greek is literally, “tortured” so we’re meant to imagine the disciples had to struggle mightily against the great danger they faced. What I find surprising in this brief account is that Matthew doesn’t say anything about the disciples’ emotions until the moment they catch sight of Jesus walking on the water. They may have struggled in the storm throughout the night, but Matthew tells us that they became afraid only when they saw Jesus, thinking he was a ghost.

Similarly, when Peter takes out after Jesus, he is fine until he notices the wind. Then he becomes frightened begins to sink, and calls out to Jesus, “Save me.”

There are other dimensions to this story. One of the most significant is the sea itself. Throughout biblical literature, the sea is a symbol of chaos. It is the primordial stuff, present at the beginning of creation, out of which God creates order. For Jesus to walk on water is another proof of his power over evil and chaos, demonstrated as well by the fact that the storm ended when he entered the boat. And the disciples responded appropriately, worshipping him and confessing him to be the Son of God. 

To make another connection with ancient understandings, walking on water certainly symbolized divine power, but when humans attempted it or claimed the ability, it was seen as hubris, arrogance, and tyranny. The Emperor Caligula, for example, who reigned from 37-41, had a temporary bridge built across the bay of Naples so he could cross on foot, as befitting a God, and not cramped in a boat. So this event, coming after Herod’s execution of John the Baptist, after Jesus fed the five thousand, is another example of God’s reign breaking in, to provide food, to bring order out of chaos, to initiate God’s justice and peace.

And the disciples respond accordingly. It’s worth pointing out that in Mark’s version of the story, which doesn’t include Peter’s attempt to walk on the water, ends with this description of the disciples: 

“And they were utterly astounded,for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”

By contrast, Matthew’s story ends very differently. The concluding verse reads: “Those in the boat worshiped him, saying ‘Truly, you are the Son of God’.” Two things here. First of all, the use of the word “worshiped.” When we hear that word, we think of what we do on Sunday morning: sing hymns, read scripture, pray, all of that. It’s all quite respectable, rather staid. But the word translated as “worshiped” literally means “prostrated”—to get down, not just one’s knees but to lie prone before the one being worshiped. It’s the sort of bodily gesture that would have been expected when approaching the throne or person of the emperor. You might well wonder how the disciples could have done that in a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.

The second thing is the confession—Truly you are the son of God—the one able to feed five thousand, to calm the seas, to demand the kind obeisance normally demanded by the Emperor: an alternative ruler, an alternative kingdom.

In so many ways the world in which we live is chaos. We may feel like we are the disciples in the boat struggling against a mighty storm. We may feel like Peter, sinking as we notice ourselves suspended amid chaotic forces. We are afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid for our planet, for the human race, for this nation, our city. I fear for American Christianity that has been complacent and complicit in the sins of white supremacy, racism, and the violence of war. 

But if, like the disciples, we truly confess Jesus to be the Son of God, then our allegiance to him supersedes all other allegiances, including that of our nation. If we confess Jesus to be the Son of God, we need to name and fight the sins and evils that surround us. We need to call out and confront all those who conflate flag and cross; we need to confess our sins and complicity in the racism of our nation and out city. We need to call out and condemn the hatred and evil that that we’ve seen in too many other places across America over the last couple of years.

As followers of Jesus, as his disciples, we are at a moment of decision. We can confess him to be the Son of God, we can take up our crosses and follow him into the chaos that surrounds us. We can share his message of love, proclaim the justice of God’s coming reign, or we can turn away, look away, in disbelief and silence, and allow those forces of chaos to overwhelm us a church, a city, and a nation.

Jesus is reaching out his hand to us. Do we have the strength, the courage, the faith, the moral clarity to grasp it? For in that hand lies our salvation.