August 7, 2011
(Eighth Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 14A)

(From The Lectionary Page)

I Am is Here

Photo of The Rev. Canon Joe Behen by The Rev. Canon Joe Behen

It seems like only yesterday that I had two little tiny girls at home who thought I was the coolest guy on the planet.  Of course, they’ve wised up significantly since then.  But there was a lot that they didn’t understand as little gals about what moms and dads do.  My youngest daughter, Mikaelee, was 4 years old, and had seen her friends and her older sister riding two-wheeled bicycles.  She couldn’t wait to be part of the club.  She begged dad to make this happen.  Like most dads I know, it didn’t take much for a little girl to have me wrapped around her finger, so I couldn’t resist. 

I hadn’t decided yet if I would momentarily let go, to see if she could balance herself.  But once we got going and I was running along behind, holding her up, I could tell that it would be too soon to let her go on her own.  A bad experience now would only create fear and anxiety that she would have to get beyond before trying again.  But eventually, that’s exactly what it would take for her to learn.  But right now, she was having a ball, so I continued to trot along behind her, holding her up.

When we finished and got back to the house, she raced in to find mom so she could tell her all about it.  “Mommy, guess what I did!  I rode on a big bike!”  Well, Karen didn’t know yet if I had let go or not, so she asked, “Was daddy holding you up?”  Mikaelee hesitated.  You could see the little wheels turning in her head.  Finally, she must have decided that this question was just beside the point.  She simply went into a litany of how the whole thing happened - from her perspective.  Of course, she knew that I had been with her because we were talking during her ride.  But she was largely unaware of what my presence had to do with what she had done.  All she knew was that she had ridden a big bike.

It often happens when we read or hear of Peter’s walk on the water that we imagine it having happened because of his faith.  If only he had more faith, he wouldn’t have begun to sink.  When Jesus chides him as being one of little faith, it must be because Peter had let his fear get mastery over his faith.  I wonder, though, if the truth in this conclusion requires us to go deeper into the story before we can measure its true depth.  For example, what if Jesus’ reference to Peter’s little faith had nothing to do with his sinking, or his fear of the wind?

Most scholars today think it just as likely that Jesus was referring to the disbelief embedded in Peter’s first statement to Jesus.  The dialogue begins with Jesus self-identification.  But his statement includes the proclamation of his divinity. One translation of today’s passage reads Jesus statement like this: “Take heart, I Am is here.”  Of course, “I Am,” was the divine name, as given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  But Peter was not convinced.  “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Notice the wording that Matthew chooses here for Peter’s unbelief: “…if it is you…”  When Jesus was tempted in the desert earlier in Matthew’s gospel, the devil had said to him:

You see?  Peter is playing Satan’s part!  But why?  Why would Matthew want to equate poor old Peter with the devil?

Let’s look at the nature of the devil’s challenge to Jesus to see how it might inform our understanding of Peter’s challenge.  The devil had questioned Jesus’ divinity.  “If you are divine, then prove it!”  But the devil was also knowingly setting a trap for Jesus.  His final temptation revealed his goal.  “I will give you all the kingdoms of the world,” he said, “if you will fall down and worship me!”  But for the Son of God to worship someone other than God would create an impossible paradox.  How could God’s Son not worship God?  Of course, Jesus had seen the trap, and thrown it back at him.  “Away with you, Satan!  Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”  But Peter’s challenge to Jesus today reeks of Satan’s own challenge.  It’s no wonder, then, that in a few chapters Jesus will remember this.  He will look at Peter and say, “Get behind me, Satan!”

Peter’s desire for Jesus to prove himself once and for all has betrayed the limitation of his faith.  How could one whose very existence depends on God ask for independence from God?  How could a creature of God lose his creature-ness?  Unlike Satan, however, Peter remains unaware of the impossible paradox that he has asked.  So, Jesus will hold Peter on the water as he has held him in life.  Peter’s sinking may simply be Jesus showing Peter the trap that Peter himself had created.

We all unintentionally set such traps for God every day.  We imagine sometimes that we are responsible for our own existence, and thereby in control of it.  Of course, I’m not suggesting that our lives are predestined to turn out this way or that way.  We all have choices to make.  And those choices change many things.  My daughter could have chosen to keep her bicycle going down the sidewalk, or she could have crossed the street, or gone most anywhere she chose.  But those choices only mattered because I had been holding her up the whole time.

So, on one level, Peter has played Satan’s part.  But on this level, he is us.  Like Peter, none of us have intended to assert our independence from God, or we wouldn’t be here this morning.  But also like Peter, we often forget that only in God do we live, and move, and have being.  We are deep in God’s presence, and that won’t change.  Once again, Peter has been given the vocation in Matthew’s gospel of representing all the flawed followers of Jesus. Perhaps this is why Jesus calls him the rock upon which the Church is built.[1]

“Take heart, I Am is here.”  This remains one of the most powerful claims in all of Scripture.  “I Am” is here.  To know this in our hearts radically changes how we engage the world around us.  To trust God’s presence with us, and to act based on that sustaining presence, frees us to live faithfully rather than fearfully.  What Peter learned was that it was Jesus who had held him up from the beginning.  Jesus momentarily let Peter go so that he might learn more of the divine presence that sustains him.

My daughter eventually learned when dad lets go, things change.  Later, after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to control herself on the bike, Mikaelee learned more about the part that dad had been playing.  She would also learn that when dad lets go, it was not because he would no longer be there for her.  Rather, it was because she had to continue to learn what dad’s presence means now.  Dad would always be there for her, holding her up in many ways.  Of course, now she knows that in a way she couldn’t when she was 4.  And when she’s 30, she’ll know it in a way that she can’t now.

Our lives and our world are too often plagued by immense pain and injustice.  It can feel very much as though God must surely be absent, or things would be different.  But remember the two responses that Peter, representing us, offers.  One response is to feed this doubt in God’s presence – to require proof, to forget that we are ever held in God’s loving embrace.  This choice does not destroy that presence, but it destroys us.  I can’t love God and love my neighbor if God isn’t there.

The other response we can choose is based on God’s presence.  Throughout this gospel it is Peter’s second response, the prayer, “Lord, save us,” to which Jesus responds, “Great is your faith.”  This response frees us to act in concert with God’s presence rather than against it.

May our actions this day and always be based more and more on our knowledge of the loving and life-sustaining presence of God.  Take heart, I Am is here.

Amen.

[1] Matthew 16:18  Notice the proximity of this establishment to the equation of Peter to Satan in 16:23