Sermon
of February 13, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Matthew 14:22-33
“Jesus
Came to Bridge the Gap Between... Faith and Action”
Julia and I have planned a series of sermons during Lent around the theme, “Jesus Bridges the Gap.” We’re going to look at lessons that are in the Sunday school curriculum and each week think about how a lesson illustrates how Jesus bridges some gap in our lives through his ministry and through his teachings.
Today you see the title is “Jesus Bridges the Gap Between Faith and Action.” To understand that, I think it’s important to go back to the beginning of our faith story in the early days of ancient Israel and the Hebrew people when laws were part of peoples’ lives; the laws that are found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, laws that governed how people should put their faith into action. It wasn’t enough in the ancient faith community just to have faith, you had to put your faith into action by the way you lived, and so therefore we have things like the Ten Commandments which teach us that our actions should be such that we don’t covet our neighbors’ things, we don’t kill or murder, we don’t bear false witness. There are other laws that teach us about giving, and one of the ones that I think of from time to time that governed behavior is the one for farmers—when they go to harvest their field, that they leave the perimeters of the field and don’t harvest those and leave the grain or the produce or whatever is there for the poor in the community come and take it. It’s the idea of “gleaning”—that when you harvest the field you harvest about 90% of it and leave some for the poor. It is how faith was transformed into action by care and concern for those in need in the community.
And that was how things were for many years. But around the time that Jesus came to Earth it’s believed that the gap between faith and action had widened, in fact there was even a chasm there and a lot of the people, especially the elite in the faith community, the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees, and all those we hear about, claimed to have faith but they didn’t live it out as much in their actions. They were busier running around trying to accuse others of not living their faith out and didn’t pay much attention to it themselves. They were seeing themselves as high and mighty but not really showing deep concern or love or compassion for others in the community, and the gap between faith and action had really widened. So a significant part of what Jesus came to do was to close that gap again and help us to see that faith and action are inextricably bound together; one must act out their faith, not just keep it inside.
So I want to take a look at this kind of familiar passage today where Jesus walks on water and asks Peter to come out of the boat and walk towards him and use that a means of understanding how Jesus helps to bridge the gap between faith and action.
Jesus helps to bridge the gap between faith and action by helping us to face our own fears. In the beginning of this passage, it seems like things are fairly calm. The crowds have been around but they have been dispersed and so it’s quieter now, there are no crowds of people around. The disciples have gone off on the beginning of a journey on the water and Jesus has gone off to pray. It sounds like a very serene setting. But it doesn’t stay that way for very long. Fear comes along in many different ways. In fact, I was noticing as I was reading this over, that either the word “fear” or “terrify” appears over and over again. It says, “In the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him, they were terrified and they cried out for fear.” And Jesus said, “Take heart, it is I, have no fear.” And a little bit later when Peter is walking up to Jesus it says, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid.” So there is fear all throughout this passage and I think Jesus used this situation, this scenario where the storm comes up and where the fear arises in peoples’ hearts, to teach them that they should face their fears.
I think one of things that
keeps us often from acting out our faith in our lives is fear of what the
consequences or results of our acting will be. Jesus is saying don’t pretend
there is no fear, it’s OK to have fear, it’s important to face your fear;
that’s the first step in being able to act out of faith, is to know that fear
exists and you can still act in spite of the fear. If we think of some of the
great people that come to mind easily in our faith story, the names that are
most familiar to us, a lot of them we know put their faith into action in spite
of fear. One of the ones I think of is Martin Luther, who started the movement
we now call the Protestant Reformation. He took his faith and put it into action
by calling the church to task for things he felt were wrong. That must have been
a very fearsome situation, to take on the establishment of the church and tell
it that it was wrong. Martin Luther King, in our time, in our lifetime for many
of us, took on the racist institutions of our society and called them to task.
It must have been, again, an incredibly fearsome situation to take on the
powerful institutions in our land and say that they are wrong and things must
change. And even another one we think of sometimes, when we think of the
religious people that have made an impact on the world, is Mother Teresa. Mother
Teresa as a nun probably could have stayed safe and secure in a convent but
chose instead to act out her faith in a place that would be very fearful for
many of us,
The second thing that Jesus teaches us in this story I think is that to bridge the gap between faith and action, we must focus our attention directly on Jesus. When Peter steps out of the boat he says, “Lord bid me come to you” and Jesus says “Come” and Peter steps out of the boat. As I look that over and over and over again, that verse, I thought Peter must have his attention intently focused on Jesus at that moment. He was talking to him; he had a conversation going on just with Jesus. “Lord bid me come to you,” and Jesus said, “Come.” Now I don’t know if he could have seen him in that situation, being dark and stormy, whether he could have seen him. But he probably still had even his eyes focused on the place where he thought Jesus was, whether he could see him or not. Everything was going OK in this event, when Peter steps out of the boat and he too, Matthew says, is walking on water when he had his attention focused directly on Jesus. But then it says, “A wind came up, and Peter looked at the wind.” He turned his attention away from Jesus and he started to sink.
There’s a great lesson I think in that tiny part of the verse, that when we have our attention focused on Christ we will be OK. When we divert our attention to something else, that’s when we get into trouble – when we have decisions and choices to make in our lives and we focus our attention on other things like, “Oh if I do this, I’ll make more money” or “Oh if I do this, I’ll become more popular” or “More people will like me.” Those are the things that may or may not work out so great. If we have our attention focused on, “I want to live out the way Christ would have me live out this situation,” and focus our attention intently on that, there is more chance that we will stay standing on the water instead of sinking into the water.
Another great story in the Bible that kind of illustrates this, although it’s not as fearsome but still illustrates the same point, is the story of Mary and Martha, two of Jesus’ friends, sisters of Lazarus. Near the end of his ministry Jesus goes to Bethany to visit them and Martha—I had to check this, I always get them mixed up, Martha is the one—Martha is the one that’s busy, taking care of everything around the house, cleaning the sink and got her Hoover vacuum out, vacuuming the floor and all of those things, and Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him. And Martha gets upset because Mary isn’t helping at all and Jesus says, “Mary is doing what is right for now.” Martha has her attention diverted to all these different things about whether the house looks neat, whether there are towels on the floor, all kinds of things, and Mary is focused just on Jesus, on listening to him. The lesson again is, if you keep your attention focused on Christ, then your faith can be transformed into action and things will work out OK.
One
other part of this, to me, is that Christ helps us to bridge the gap between
faith and action by helping us to filter our choices.
Here’s what I mean by that. It’s one thing to say you focus your attention
on Christ and maybe you can have a mental image in your mind of what Jesus looks
like or you can call up some thought and you can focus your attention on that,
but we also need specifics to guide us in rising up to action. We need to have
some kind of specifics to help us make choices and decisions and the teachings
that Jesus gave us throughout his ministry, before and after this momentous time
when he walks on the water. Jesus’ teachings are the filters through which we
can make those choices. When Jesus teaches things like, “Love your neighbor as
you love yourself” and “Take up your cross and follow me,” “Seek first
the
The good news today is that Jesus does help bridge the gap between faith and action, and it makes a difference for us today. It’s not just about stepping out of a boat and wondering if you’re going to stand or sink, it’s about stepping forward out of faith to act in some important way and how you come to decide about whether or not you should take that action or do that deed that you were considering. It has to do with things like whether you decide simply to be a Sunday school teacher or a Stephen Minister or to help out in some way in the community of faith. It could come into play when you decide to make a big change in your life.
I
thought of Sonja’s message earlier
and how she retired from a long, distinguished career helping children in the
school system in