GOD AND THE POSSIBLE John M, Buchanan
Matthew 14:22-33 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
March 2]. 1982 Columbus, Ohio

From the mythology of ancient Egypt to the Athletic Department at Ohio State
University, "walking on water" has been a timeless metaphor for the supernatural.
The Egyptians used ‘walking on water" as a synonym for the impossible. And former
basketball coach, Fred Taylor, recently told about the burden of coaching at the
Ohio State at the same time as Woody Hayes. "we used to be invited down to the
river every Monday," Taylor said, "to watch Woody take his walk," There are
countless bad jokes about it. Walking on water represents the awesome nature of
the divine, in contrast to the human; the supernatural in contrast to the
natural; the truly free, in contrast to the limited, restricted humanity which
belongs to all of us. It is, for some, the embarrassing side of religion: the
superstitious, irrational motif which we try to ignore as much as possible. Some
passionately wish for religion without it, common sense religion based on sound
morality, healthy behavior and attitudes. Thomas Jefferson, immanently a man of
reason, rewrote the Gospels, eliminating all the incidents which conflicted with
his understanding of the laws of nature.

The supernatural and the superstitious seem to go together. And superstition
has been no real friend of human progress. ‘“e are condiderably better off in-
vesting our efforts in irrigation systems rather than writing new liturgies for
rain dances, It is generally a better bet to use the resources at one's disposal
to confront whatever hurdle is ahead, rather than waiting for a divine intervention
to remove the hurdle.

And yet - troublesome issues remain for the thoughtful Christian. If God
does not or cannot intervene in creation in a way that conflicts with or
supersedes the laws of nature, in what sense does God exist? If God is con-
strained in being God as we are in being human, in what sense does he exist?

If religion is meg@ly a way of thinking, an ethical system, an approach to
healthy relationships, why are we bothering with all this mysterious ceremony,
lighting candles, mumbling prayers, breaking bread, singing hyms? We can't, it.
seems, get rid of God. We can't get rid of the thought of a God who is God.

Even those who have never seen nor experienced one incident of God intervening
suddenly and miraculously and visibly cannot rid themselves of the notion. Nor
even our brightest, most rational seem to live very long without some sense of
awe and mystery.

We can't apparently, go too far without bumping into him, or him bumping
into us, as it were... not even out in a boat, in the middle of the night, ina
storm. This sort of thing never goes very well in the retelling, any more than
you and I can capture the essence of an athletic performance, or a violin solo,
or a painting, or a cardinal at the feeder and tell someone else about it the
next day. You know, even as you're telling it, that you're not getting the job
done, that big pieces of what you experienced are falling through your fingers
like so much sand, and increasing the number of adjectives or the volume of
your voice will not help much. You really did need to be there ~ which is what
those disciples surely must have thought when they tried to tell about something
that happened to them one time.

-2—

There they were in a small, squat, single-masted fishing boat, tacking across
the Sea of Galilea which ts really jyst a fair sized lake, at a point near the
north end about five milea wide. One of them tended the tudder, another worked
with the sail, and the rest were probably dozing. Tt was three a.m. Early, the
day before, Jasusa had fed a multitude of people with a few fish and loaves of
bread. The crowds were pressing him a bit so he ordered his disciples to ,211
acrogs the lake, He wanted to pray alone, he said. He would walk around the
north shore and meet them in the morning on the other side. A squall came up, 4s
often happens at the location, The squat little vessel would have been capable
of handling some heavy weather, I should have thought.And most of the people
in her were fishermen. They knew what to do and how to do it. They weren't
particularly frightened; they just weren't petting anywhere. The wind had
picked wp and changed and they were headed almost directly into it, and they
were making very little headway. And then something happened that none of them
understood: something so incredible., so inexplicable, that the retelling of
it still made the hair stand up on the back of their necks decades later. May-
be it was shallow. Maybe the squall had pushed them up into that northern
basin and they were so busy and the full moon was under the clouds and they
hadn't noticed how close to shore they were. Maybe Jesus was walking the
north shore and when the clouds broke saw the little vessel beating, getting
nowhere, and very simply, walked through the shallow surf +o them. There is
even a school of thought which proposed what I call the “on-beside-toward”
approach to the incident, working very hard to prove that the Greek preposition
translated ‘on the water", can also be translated “beside the ocean” or "toward
the ocean". Presbyterians ordinarily iseue an almost liturgical, corporate
sigh of relief when they hear that.

But the story isn't over yet. Those hard boiled, tough fishermen, working
that little boat, who were totally engrossed in the task ahead, now became
very, very frightened; scared out of their wits. What Jesus said to them was,
in a sense, the most terrifying thing of all. "Non't be afraid. It is I" isn't
quite right. He spoke in Aramaic, I suppose, but I'd really like to think he
drew on a Hebrew phrase he had been taught as a youngster and which the others
would have recognized immediately: that curious form of the "be" verb which
Moses hears at the burning bush. "Who's there? What's your name?" Moses
asked. What he heard was “I am..." "I will be what I will be"™,.."I am who
ft am". The Greek text allows it and that's what I think Jesus said. Peter
responds by wanting to get into the act, and before you know it, he's out of
the boat and somehow managing ali right until he begins to sink, or stumble,
or go under and Jesus has to put him back on his feet which is not a new thing
for Jesus to be doing to Peter, It's no wonder we wish that weren't in the text.

"T never saw no stuff like that," a youngster confessed to me once after
Sunday School when he hearec about the parting of the Red Sea. The German
Philosopher, Lessing wrote, “Miracles that I see with my own eyes are one
thing; miracles that I only know through history... are quite another. Re~
ports of miracles are still far from being miracles." {seeHerbert Thielicke ,
Yow to Believe Again, p. 65) That is to say,...Lessing ‘never say no stuff
jike that" either. Nor have we, nor are we talking 1f we have, unless of
course, we can broaden out the playing field and the rules and cali those
five by-passes that saved a life up at University Hospital yegterday a miracle

3

of healing, or that vehicle we're going to hurtie up into space tomorrow, OF
the fact that you can pick up a plece of black plastic connected to a wire and
talk to somebody in a phone booth in Brusseis.

The trouble is, we hardly ever deal with the meaning of this business,
we're so occupied with fussing over the staging. ‘The trouble is that stories
like this often become the context for witimate theological decisions, We
somehow manage to tie the very existence of God to the plausibility of the
atories., In JesusChrist Superstar, King Herod says it rather well, really:

‘Tf you are the Christ, the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you're no Fool

Walk across my swimming pool.

Prove to me that you're divine,

Change my water into wine."

The Bible doesn’t help much when we reason like that. It simply isn't
interested in the question. Nor do the people who wrote the Bible think like
we do. They are not at all concerned about the laws of nature: they never
heard of the phrase, frankly. They're stunned by what they experience, but
it doesn't send them scurrying te the laboratory to see whether they have
been hoodwinked, or whether what they know about water displacement must be
revised, At some point, difficult as it is, we have to let go of the Issue.
We don't know what happened. I don't think the people on the scene knew
what happened. Consistently in the Gospel narration, the people standing
around seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, don’t know what's going
on. Difficult as it is for us, "Did it happen?" is not the relevant question.
‘hat is the meaning of the event?" “What is the human experience the story
points to?",.. are the relevant questions.

For the record, however, the scientists aren't nearly as sure of them-
selves as we wish they were. Lewis Thomas, author, distinguished biologist,
wrote an article for last Sunday's New York Time Magazine, in which he ob-
serves that "Most sciences are in their very earliest stages. In the life
sciences it is required that the most expert and sophisticated minds be
capable of changing course - often with a great lurch - every few years...
Next week's issue of any scientific fourmmal can turn a whole field upside
down." (Time Magazine, 3/14/82, p. 89)

It really is not adequate to define a miracle as an event which breaks
the laws of nature. in the Bible, a miracle ia any event which reveals the
power of God, Hans Kune defines miracle as “anything that arouses human won-
der, including the creation and conservatithn of the world." (Does God Exist?,
p. 650) George Arthur Buttrick wrote similiarly that a miracle is “any
event that pierces our dullness or despair to convince us of the presence
and power of God." (Interpretor's Bible, Vol. 7, B. 433) C.8, Lewis wrote
a book under the title Miracles, and discussed the complex relationship be-
tween the creator, the laws of nature he created, and whether cr not he was
free to intervene. Lewis concluded tYat God pierces nature whenever there

is a human mind. The sheer uaccountable mystery of the human intellect, the
capacity to think about self, the capacity to feel and create, was for €.5.
Lewis, evidence that everything in nature is not determined, and limited by
instinct, drives and hormones. I'm ready to define as miracle every ing tance
of human creativity, from primitive drawings on cave walls, to little children
somehow getting on paper the purity and joy of a tulip, to the elegance of
Renoir. That ig not natural. It comes from somewhere else. I'm ready to
call miracle every incident of human nature becoming something more than in-
stinctive, self protection: when people sacrifice, and love and show com
passion, Very simply, I know lots of people who love others more than they
love their own lives. ‘That's a miracle. That is not a product of instinct,
hormones, natural drive. That points to God,

What 1£ we had some proof? Put a better way, what evidence could con-
vince us that Jeaus walked on the water? Is thereany way, other than ex-
pertencing it personally, that you and I could be convinced beyond a shadow
of a doubt that it happened? Probably not, but the more important point is
that Jesus himself would not accept our belief in him 1f we based it on his
ability to walk on water. No dynamic 1s clearer than that in the New Testa-
ment. People keep asking him for a sign, a miracle; people keep following
him because they have heard that he performs miracles. But Jesus consistantly
asks them not to think teo much of it, not to tell about, not to follow hia
on that basis. The final answer to our questions about miracles then is pro-
vided by our Lord. Faith in him is not believing that he walked on water.

The real miracle is what the story proposes about God; namely that we
can count on his presence in the midst of the very real crisis we encounter
along the way.

The meaning of this miracle is that the Jesus of Christian faith is not
just a figure in history, but a personal savior. We're inclined to forget
that...we educated Presbyterians. We're inclined to think we're dealing with
Gospel when we read books about the historical Jesus, or attend seminars and
have learned discussions on the doctrine of atonement. Several years ago a
popular song, with heavy religious overtones, swapt the country: “Bridge
over Troubled Waters", Those were troubled years, and I yn:ver heard the song
without thinking that the culture, particularly the young people who were
singing the song were saying something very honest and important about them-
selves, People don't need dry dogma: people need a bridge over troubled waters.

The meaning of this miracle is that in Jesus Christ God offers to be a
savior. In Jesus Christ God comes into the crisis. That boat must have been
a very frantic place, Lf you've been on a boat of any size you know that even
a little rough weather commands a lot of attention and that very rough
weather demands intense, total concentration. The author may not have in=
tended it, but I eee in that intense, concentrated, hard working crew of people,
a metaphor for the life I see you living and which I live myself.

They weren't praying and singing hymms on that boat. They were doing
what you and I do most of the time. ‘They were working, very hard, very in~-

~5-

tenaely to make some headway.. They were struggling for gurvival and frankly, they
weren't getting anywhere. I don't have to use much imagination to see in that a
metaphor for the kind of intense, strong commitment to achievement, success, ac-
comp lishment which charactertzes the lives of most people I know. We live, most
of us, on the far aide of business, right on the edge of chaos. And there dan't
a one of us who doesn't ait up from the oars and wonder if we're getting anywhere,
if we'll make it: if there is a resource we haven't drawn on yet.

This story is the incredible Good News that in Jesus Christ, God stretches
out a hand of steady comfort, or understanding, of acceptance, of power, This
story is about a savior who doesn't forget about us, even while we are tozally
preoccupied with the tasks at hand, It is about a God who sometimes invites us
to follow in ways as dramatic and risky as Peter's stepping out of that boat; 4
God who promises to save us if we can summon courage enough to trust himgj a God
who will come to us, ani give us strength we need when the water is choppy and
the boat has headed into a stiff wind. It is a story which declares God's faith-
fulness, God's love, and the Good News that we can count on his presence, that
nething shall ever separate us from him.

There simply are not any miracles better than that. Amen,

God of love, come to us in our busy, frantic lives. Come to us across troubled
waters. Come to us in the midst of the tasks to which we give ourselves. Come
to us: and give us grace to look up from those tasks to greet you: in Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.