SPEAKER_00: The Holy Gospel according to Matthew, the 14th chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side of the Sea of Galilee while he dismissed the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.
SPEAKER_00: When evening came, he was there alone.
SPEAKER_00: But by the time the boat battered by the waves was far from the land, for the wind was against them.
SPEAKER_00: And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.
SPEAKER_00: But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, It is a ghost, and they cried out in fear.
SPEAKER_00: But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you, walking on the water and came toward come.
SPEAKER_00: So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt?
SPEAKER_00: When they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Praise to you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You may be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Little lad there.
SPEAKER_00: Grace and peace to you from God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Take a moment and ask yourself this.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have faith?
SPEAKER_00: I have talked at this pulpit before about my journey of faith through all its ups and downs, profound experiences of God, and moments when I didn't believe in God at all.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking about God, whether I believed in her or not at the time, has been a big part of my life since I was little.
SPEAKER_00: Yet for the longest time, I actually could not tell you what it meant to have faith.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't figure it out if it meant to believe or something else entirely.
SPEAKER_00: It was only when I entered seminary and took my Lutheran theology class that I was actually taught what faith is.
SPEAKER_00: In class one day, the professor wrote out a very Lutheran phrase some of you may have heard of before on our whiteboard.
SPEAKER_00: Justification by grace through faith apart from works of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Who's heard it before?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of the concepts that has historically described Lutheran theology, that it is God's grace that reconciles us to Him, not anything we do.
SPEAKER_00: We began defining the major words in the sentence and discussed them as a class.
SPEAKER_00: But when the professor asked us to define faith, we all got stuck.
SPEAKER_00: We threw out words and concepts like belief and knowing.
SPEAKER_00: But our professor told us we were missing something.
SPEAKER_00: We were hitting the target, just not the bullseye.
SPEAKER_00: In our gospel this morning, we hear probably one of the most famous stories in Christian scripture, and honestly, one of my favorites as I've gotten older.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples are out on the boat in the very early hours of the morning when a storm comes and is battering the boat.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of the storm, they see a figure approaching them, walking on the sea, and get terrified that it's a ghost.
SPEAKER_00: We come to find out just a verse later, though, that this figure isn't in fact a ghost, but Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the story shifts from a cinematic moment to a personal story.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, one of Jesus' core disciples, probably still terrified and questioning if this beat the figure in front of him is his teacher, issues a sort of test to this being.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then directly commands Peter to come, and to his credit, Peter does.
SPEAKER_00: He steps out in faith and walks towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Yet even in the midst of this miraculous moment, Peter gets scared by the swirling sea around him.
SPEAKER_00: He sinks, crying out to the Lord to save him when Jesus reaches out and rescues him from the deep and asks him why he doubted.
SPEAKER_00: To all these wondrous things that just happened, the disciples, the rest that are in the boat, boldly confess that Jesus is the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is a fascinating story full of chaos, miracles, and ghostly figures.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a story you would tell around a campfire, or maybe you would tell to kids before they go to bed.
SPEAKER_00: But as much as I love these fun aspects of our gospel today, it's not actually why I love the story itself.
SPEAKER_00: It is one of my favorite stories in the Bible because we are brought face to face with a core question about our life with God.
SPEAKER_00: What it means to have faith.
SPEAKER_00: So again, take a moment to think about this question.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to have faith?
SPEAKER_00: Does it mean to believe in God, or is it something else entirely?
SPEAKER_00: When my He defined faith for us, to find the answer that our professor was looking for, he defined faith for us.
SPEAKER_00: Faith, he said, is to trust.
SPEAKER_00: And now you may be saying to yourself, trust is not that much different than belief.
SPEAKER_00: And I would agree with you.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is often used as a synonym for belief.
SPEAKER_00: If you have faith in someone, you believe they can do whatever you need them to do.
SPEAKER_00: Yet trust implies something deeper, more relational compared to belief.
SPEAKER_00: You may believe that people in the world generally have your best interest in mind, but that doesn't mean you sleep with your door unlocked.
SPEAKER_00: Trust is built through getting to know someone by talking and spending time with them, not by just taking them at their word.
SPEAKER_00: It is something built through experience and effort.
SPEAKER_00: It is deeper than belief.
SPEAKER_00: While you may not sleep with your doors unlocked, you may trust a loved one with a set of keys to your house.
SPEAKER_00: You have experience telling you that they care for you and would not use the key wrongly.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, beliefs are fairly flexible and potentially can change from moment to moment.
SPEAKER_00: But trust is much more solid, less volatile, and takes more to break or change.
SPEAKER_00: In our gospel, we see faith through Peter and Jesus' relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Peter may have questioned if this supposed ghost was Jesus, but when he hears the command to come, he goes willingly.
SPEAKER_00: He has faith that his teacher would not lead him astray, would not let him drown as the storm swirls around him.
SPEAKER_00: And true to their relationship built on trust, Peter does walk on the water towards Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter still has a moment of fear.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at the chaos all around him, gets scared, doubts, falls into the water, and struggles to swim.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has to pull him out and save his life.
SPEAKER_00: Did Peter not trust Jesus enough?
SPEAKER_00: Was this doubt his undoing?
SPEAKER_00: While Peter's fear and doubt may have been seen in this moment, that does not necessarily mean he didn't trust Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And doubt is not necessarily the opposite of faith and trust, as doubt can teach us things.
SPEAKER_00: It is in his moment of doubt as he is sinking into the sea that Peter has an opportunity to learn more about Jesus and build that trust further.
SPEAKER_00: He learns that Jesus cares about him, that Jesus will help him when he calls out.
SPEAKER_00: He learns that Eve.
SPEAKER_00: More importantly, Peter learns that even when he gets distracted by the fear around him or when he doubts, God is not the kind of God who will abandon her children, but stays with them no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: Doubt was not the end of Peter's story, only another moment in Peter's journey of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It taught him about God's love and care.
SPEAKER_00: It taught him about Jesus, God incarnate, who came to be with us and understand our suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And even though he doubted, Jesus, just two chapters later, after today's gospel, declares Peter to be the rock on which he will build his church.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's life and work will all be at the core of the early Jesus movement that leads us all the way to the church today.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is a gift from God.
SPEAKER_00: It is a relationship that is not ours alone to tend, as God gives us everything we need in each and every moment to trust in their love.
SPEAKER_00: However, like Elijah learned in our reading from 1 Kings today, that does not mean God will always give us or even appear to us in ways we expect.
SPEAKER_00: For Elijah, God did not come in the great wind, in the earthquakes or fire.
SPEAKER_00: These very extreme displays of natural power.
SPEAKER_00: God came to him in the sound of sheer silence.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah evading death from people who were trying to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: God shows himself to Elijah, not in the chaos of the world before him, but in a moment of quiet.
SPEAKER_00: For Peter and the other disciples, it's the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: God showed God's self in the midst of a chaotic storm and then a dramatic display of divinity through Jesus walking on the water.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it is through the silence or the storm, God gives us what we need to trust in her word and build a relationship.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us everything we need to trust in God's love and promises.
SPEAKER_00: I have just spent a lot of time talking about what faith means and how God gives us faith.
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, what does it mean to trust in God and to have faith?
SPEAKER_00: I think this is best said by Paul in our Romans reading today.
SPEAKER_00: To have faith is to acknowledge that, quote, the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The word is near you.
SPEAKER_00: John 1.1 tells us that Jesus is the word.
SPEAKER_00: And so to have faith, to trust in God, is to know that Jesus is always near you.
SPEAKER_00: No storm, no silence, nothing, not anything can take God away from you.
SPEAKER_00: God is in the food of life, the bread and wine of communion.
SPEAKER_00: God is in the waters of baptism, ones that bring us into a new relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: God is wherever we gather, as Jesus tells us, where two or three are gathered, I will be there.
SPEAKER_00: God is with the sick, for Jesus tended the sick.
SPEAKER_00: God is with the dying, for our God knows what it means to die.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing, no sin, no doubt, nothing that will cause God to abandon you.
SPEAKER_00: My siblings in Christ, if you are sinking in the midst of the storm right now or see the storm clouds rolling in, God is with you.
SPEAKER_00: God gives you what you need to trust in her goodness and love.
SPEAKER_00: If you have questions for God, doubting if you are worthy enough or getting distracted by the chaos of the world around you, do not be disheartened.
SPEAKER_00: God will not abandon or forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is our trust, our relationship with and in God, something that they help us to tend and grow.
SPEAKER_00: On each and every one of your journeys of faith, may God give you what you need to trust in her goodness and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: May God show himself to you in ways you can see and the ways you least expect.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, may God show God's self to you in the midst of the storms of your life, staying with you until the winds cease and the clouds disperse.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.