Year B, Pentecost 10 John 6:1-21
On occasion I like to do a first person narrative as a sermon. That means I wrote this from the perspective
of someone in the Gospel story. Most of what I am saying is based on the text,
but some is what I imagine the feelings of one of the disciples would be, so
take that for what it’s worth.
I told the others we should have waited for him. We should never have gotten in the boat
without him. But Peter said we
should. Peter said that he probably
wanted to be alone after feeding 5000 people…I mean, who wouldn’t want a
breather after that? And you know Peter, he’s never wrong. Man is he stubborn.
I was worried.
That crowd was intense. They were
grateful for the food. Of course they
were. But they wanted more from Jesus.
They wanted him to be king. Jesus
doesn’t want to be a king, at least not the kind of king they were looking for. He has been clear about that all along. I thought he might need a little
protection. What if those people
followed him and took him away. People
want so many different things from Jesus. It seems to me that he’s always being
pulled in different directions. Everyone
wants something from him.
Andrew said that Jesus could handle himself. He did
just feel 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish.
He would be fine. It still felt
wrong just to leave him. I guess if I am
honest, and I try to be most of the time, I really didn’t want to be without
him. Especially in the dark. I have always hated being in a boat in the
dark. Bad things happen in the
dark. Everyone knows that storms came
out of nowhere on the Sea of Galilee. I
think the others wanted to prove that they didn’t need him. I mean, we are
adults. We should be able to get in a
boat without him. It’s just once you have been around Jesus, you don’t want to
not be around him. It’s like the dark is
darker when he’s not there. I know that
sounds crazy. But you know Peter, he’s
never wrong, until he is.
So I
got in the boat with the others. They
had enough people rowing so I curled up in the corner hoping to get some sleep,
hoping that when I woke up it would be morning and Jesus would be back with
us. As soon as that first drop of rain
fell, I knew that we were in for a bad one.
I sat up and looked around me—I could not see land anywhere. We must
have been miles from shore, which is a bad place to be in a storm. Soon the rain was coming down so hard we
could barely see. That would have been
ok except for the wind. The wind was the worst part. It kept rocking the boat back and forth. The
others were scared but I was the only one who was panicking. I yelled, “I told
you that we should not have left without him.” They could barely hear me. “We’ll be fine,” Peter shouted. “We’ve seen
this before. It will pass.”
It
didn’t. It might have only been minutes,
but it felt like hours to me. We should
never have left without him. I started
praying. I should have been praying the
whole time and maybe I was, but now I was praying out loud. I was straining to see the shore in any
direction. If I could just see the
shore, I would be ok. It looked like
something was moving. Could it be
another boat? Could there be others as
foolish as we were to be out in the middle of the night? It wasn’t a boat. It looked like a person. I thought I might be going crazy. Then I saw
the others looking. They had all dropped their oars and were staring. It was a person. It was like he was walking on water, but
that’s impossible. I opened my mouth to
scream, but nothing came out. I looked around to see if I was the only one who
was afraid. I wasn’t. Peter was pointing and he kept opening and
closing his mouth, like he was trying to speak but could not form the words.
That was when I was really afraid because Peter is never speechless. Never.
I
heard Thomas whisper, “It’s him. It’s
Jesus.” He was right. He was there, walking on the water with the
storm raging around him. His clothes were soaked just like ours, but he was
still above the water. I thought, no it
can’t be. Then he spoke. Despite the wind and the rain, I heard it
clearly. “It is I, do not be afraid.” I
would like to say that I stopped being afraid, but I didn’t. It just didn’t make sense. And what was he
saying? Those are the words that only God can speak, “I am.”
As a good Jew, I knew that was God’s name. That was
almost as scary as the image of him walking across water. I begged him to get in the boat. Everyone tried to get him in the boat. It’s not that I was worried about him. He was
fine. I just needed him in the boat with
us. I needed his presence. I wanted to
know that he wouldn’t leave. If he got
in our boat, then everything would be ok. He refused. I guess if you can walk on water
you don’t need a boat.
Suddenly
we were on shore. It’s not that the boat
sped up, it was more like the land just moved closer. The rain turned into a
drizzle. I turned to him and told him I
was sorry that we had left him. He just
patted me on the shoulder and walked on.
I called after him and asked, “Why do you ever go in a boat if you can
walk on water.” He turned and smiled, “Because that is where you are.”
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