Homily, April 12, 2011
Katie Baxter, Christ College
Peter walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33)
I pulled my bag off the rickety old luggage carousel and proceeded to the taxi counter with my
sister’s very specific instructions for hiring a pre-paid taxi. I continued to follow these very specific
instructions to indicate what transportation I needed, to get to the taxi queue, and to instruct our
driver where to take us (which he did, relatively easily). After arriving at and checking into the
foreign, but recognizable hotel, my husband and I breathed a sigh of relief. And realized we were
hungry. Venturing out into the streets of Chennai, a city of 6.5 million people in southern India, I
was struck by the cacophony around me. The streets were full of people moving shoulder to
shoulder, stepping around street vendors and piles of garbage. Bikes, autorickshaws, mopeds, and
motorcycles wove among the taxis and cars moving at a stop-and-go pace. Little space was left for
pedestrians to walk between the traffic and the storefronts. Buildings large and small were
jumbled together, some with high fences, some with doors left wide open directly into the street. I
became increasingly aware of my place as a westerner, a woman, as someone clearly foreign, when
we couldn’t figure out in which of these buildings we could get some lunch! We wandered around –
block to block, corner to corner, checking out storefronts to try and determine which of these
unfamiliar places was a restaurant. Then to top it all off, when we returned to the hotel to ask
“where can we get some food” they didn’t understand the question! They spoke English, but
couldn’t comprehend how we couldn’t simply go out and figure out where to get some food! Here
we were in an environment in which our senses were heightened and we were fully aware of our
surroundings….we were awake! But we were completely at a loss without any of the cultural
touchstones we had been accustomed to, even in other places we had travelled. As alert as we
were, we were in a place of uncertainty and we were clearly at the margins of the world in which
we found ourselves.
So today I ask you, when have you been at this place? When have you existed at the margins or
spent time in uncertainty? Perhaps it lasted a short time, or perhaps it stretched over weeks,
months or years.
Good indicators of when you were in this kind of a place is when you ask yourself questions like
Where am I? What am I doing? How do I make sense of it all?
Perhaps your questions were more introspective: who am I? What is my purpose? What is
my place in this world?
It’s likely that your time of uncertainty was more subtle than the situation I just described… it could
have been something surprising, or perhaps, disappointing or even tragic happened and you were
left questioning your values or your beliefs. Was this time or this place something that happened to
you or something that you chose to step into? Was it an intentional risk, perhaps in deciding where
to go to college or choosing to study abroad. Or deciding to try something new and unexpected one
weekend. Or picking a summer job you knew would make you come alive, even if your parents
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weren’t so sure. Or choosing to spend Christmas vacation with your sister who was living in an
unfamiliar place on the other side of the world!
It can be hard to remember a time when you were uncertain or, as I said “on the margins.” Or
maybe it’s been a long time since you’ve been there. For the most part, we tend to get comfortable
and complacent with life….it’s easy to do. We go about our days, our weeks, our months and years.
We’re generally satisfied with things and are happy to be settled into routines. In this chapter of On
Our Way that’s focused on “Living in the Presence of God” Susan Briehl writes, in response to
reminders of the holocaust she experienced when visiting the holocaust museum, that most times
she is too busy or bored to think about these things. It’s nice and comfortable to live our lives in
ways that are steady and reassuring. Being busy and bored likely means we’re not too worried,
we’re not too overwhelmed, we’re not in crisis.
Personally, I notice that it’s often during these times of life – when I’m bored or consumed with the
day-to-day – that I’m especially put off by the unexpected: the snowstorm that keeps me from a
family visit one weekend. The flight cancellation that forces me to spend an extra 12 hours in
Cleveland. The neighborhood kid who rings the doorbell just to chat and see how the dog is doing
today.
It’s at these times that I believe God is alerting me to God’s presence and is saying to me
“hello…don’t get too wrapped up in yourself. You’re not in control here.” Because I’m pretty much
into thinking I have control of my own life. And sometimes God needs to stop us, get us out of our
comfort zones, and say “hello, here I am.” (this can be a lot easier to see in the kid at the door than
in those hours at the airport!)
In “An Altar in the World” Barbara Brown Taylor quotes the poet Kabir.
Do you have a body? Don’t sit on the porch!
Go out and walk in the rain!
If you are in love,
Then why are you asleep?
Wake up, wake up!
You have slept millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?
I like how this short poem puts it. Wake up! We spend much of our time sleeping through life. We
forget to stop and sense the presence of God. To cite another image from On Our Way, we curl
inward instead of looking outward.
The story from Matthew today is a story about Peter “waking up.” Peter and the disciples had
already stepped into lives of uncertainty when they agreed to follow Jesus, this prophet who was
confusing the natural social order of things. They had left families and jobs to venture into the
unknown, not certain where it would lead or what would happen along the way. And here they
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were in a boat, maybe getting a little comfortable, maybe settling into this new way of life.
(although just before Jesus had fed five thousand with just a few loaves and fishes, so that must
have been surprising!). But a storm is brewing and they become aware of a figure coming toward
them across the water. And I believe Peter decides to take a risk. He asks Jesus to call to him across
the water. And Peter takes that step. He ventures out, tries something, and is made fully aware of
the awesome presence of God…I’m sure he was awake at that point!!
I believe that when we get bored and busy, one way to become more aware of the presence of God
is to deliberately choose to step out of our comfort zones or choose to be OK with life’s
uncertainties for awhile. In these times, we are saying to God: we’re waking up! We’re choosing to
be aware of the presence of God in new and unexpected ways. We can be made alert, can thrive,
and engage in ways we could never plan for on our own.
So I invite you to think about where you can invite more risk and uncertainty into your life. Where
can you be deliberately un comfortable? Where, when and how can you try something new, put
yourself in an unfamiliar place, venture into the unknown and, like Peter walking on water, take a
risk in order to be more fully aware of the presence of God?
Amen
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