“Dear Lord, Be good to me. The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.”
This prayer came to mind as I thought about the gospel story, as I imagined what the disciples were going through that night on the Sea of Galilee. It's a prayer that might have crossed their lips as they wrestled against the waves, as they struggled with the wind, as they tried and tried with all their might to escape the weather and reach the other side. It was the middle of the night after all, a situation filled with stress and anxiety and fear. They were exhausted by the late hour, and all of their efforts had been in vain. They were far from land, and the waves just kept coming and the wind just kept blowing against them. It was the perfect breeding ground for discouragement and helplessness to set in, because no matter what they do, the disciples can't make their situation any better. They may be holding their own, but the fact remains that no matter how hard or long they row, they're not making any progress; things aren't getting any better; they can't control the weather; the wind keeps pushing them away from their destination. At this point, even though it seems useless, there's nothing for them to do but to keep trying anyway, even though it won't make any difference, that they're still gonna find themselves back where they started.
“Dear Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide and my boat is so small.”
This prayer, or one like it, has probably crossed all of our lips at some point in our lives – the times when the forces of the world seem to be lined up against us and our means of defense and safety seem so meager. The sea around us is filled with wave after wave after wave, battering our little boats – waves of sickness or money problems or mental illness. The winds seem bent on keeping us from getting where we wanted to go – winds of desperation over divorce or the challenge of parenting or caring for our parents, winds that threaten our homes, our families, our place in the world. We feel battered and blown around by the world – and so we pray – “Dear Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.”
Now, I get what this prayer is trying to say. “Please God. Watch out for me. Protect me. The world is so big and dangerous, and I'm so vulnerable, I feel so small. But you're not. You're big and powerful, so keep an eye out for me, would ya?” But if you look below the surface of the words, if you think about them for a minute, you start to see that they imply something about how we think about God and what we believe about Jesus – besides the fact that God is big and strong, I mean. It kind of reminds me of that song by Bette Midler in the early 1990s - From a Distance - and that was the main part of the chorus - “Oh, God is watching us, God is watching us. God is watching us – from a distance...”
You see what I'm saying? Both that song and the prayer imply that God is far away, that God is looking down from heaven, and maybe if we ask the right way, pretty please with sugar on top, God might intervene to help us when the windy weather comes, in its many forms, as it always does.
And when we think of God that way, it still feels like we're alone much of the time. If that's all God is, then we are still left to face the winds and the waves and the chaos of the sea on our own, left to just keep rowing and hope the storm gives out before our arms do.
Perhaps that's about where the disciples were that night – wondering why Jesus had sent them off on a boat in the evening, left them to go it alone while he stayed behind, wondering how it might be different if only Jesus was there with them – they had seen him calm the wind and the waves before, of course. So where was he?
And that's when it happens. Then. Our version says in the early morning, but it could also be translated as the 4th watch of the night – which were the hours between 3 and 6 AM, then in those darkest hours, when daylight seems still so far away – then, that's when they happened to look up and look around – and there they saw Jesus coming to them across the sea. Of course, they didn't know what to make of it at first – they thought he was a ghost – what else could it be?, since no human being can walk on water, and they cried out in fear, terrified. But immediately, Jesus called out to them, “Take heart! It is I! Do not be afraid!” And they still don't quite know what to think, and so we have this scene with Peter asking Jesus to confirm his identity & hopping out of the boat and sinking – and again – immediately, Jesus reaches out to lift Peter up – and all of that is amazing – but what I really want to point out to us today – what the disciples discovered that day – is that God is not watching us “from a distance.” God is not looking down from heaven with a sympathetic eye, watching our boats get battered by the waves and pushed around by the wind. No, God does not stay far off – God comes to the disciples through the winds and waves and Jesus, God's Word-made-flesh GETS IN THE BOAT with them! Jesus comes and joins them in the middle of their fear, their anxiety, their exhaustion – he comes and climbs aboard, to be with them in the chaos that surrounds them – and as soon as he does, the winds cease.
But what I want us all to take away from this story today is to hear and to believe and to hold onto the fact that God is not far away. Even when we feel most alone, most powerless, most helpless to do anything to change our situations, whatever challenges we may be facing – especially then, Jesus comes to us walking on the water – but he doesn't stay there. He climbs into our boat with us! He tosses in his lot with ours, taking on our burdens, our sins, our hurts, our sorrows as though they were his own. He climbs aboard, and picks up a paddle and starts rowing with us toward the shore – and whether or not the winds cease immediately or continue to howl around us for a while, he is with us. Jesus does not abandon us, come what may. Jesus truly is Emmanuel, God-with-us; truly he is the Son of God, who loves us and will never let us go.
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
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