What Are You Seeking?

My older brother, Hank, was, and still is for that matter, the strong, handsome, athletic one of the family. I hated him. No, just kidding. I never hated him. I was jealous of him. Tried to be like him. Wished I was him from time to time. But I never could be and have learned to live with that. Most of the time.

The truth is we got along pretty well, most of the time. He was a good guy and has become a good man, caring, committed, service minded, and an asset to his church and community. But there were moments, usually when I was twisting in his grip, fighting against his muscle and knowing there was no hope of escape unless I could somehow make him laugh; moments when his “gotcha” was unnerving, to say the least. Unnerving. Where did that word come from? It was frustrating, humiliating, painful, embarrassing, and a whole lot more. Any of you who had older siblings know what I mean. Momentary, to be sure, fleeting experiences, a bad taste in the mouth that you can wash away with a thousand better memories. Not the dominant motif of our relationship, by any means, but real. Real enough to make Joseph’s story that much more credible.

There are many dimensions of the Joseph story in the book of Genesis. But the one that leaped out at me this time was the family dynamic. One preacher once said, “Show me one well-adjusted family relationship in the Bible.” Jacob and his boys put the “fun” in “dysfunctional.” The way Joseph is introduced into the story makes you shake your head. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot!

The story of Joseph begins with him as a tattletale, and it gets worse from there. It ends with him being thrown into a pit, then sold or stolen (it gets a little vague in the telling) and carted off to Egypt. Now, that is an extreme fraternal “gotcha.” It is such a messy story that we are tempted to jump ahead to the end to see if there is a rainbow after this storm. There is, but that is cheating, it seems to me. It is cheating because some family stories don’t end well. Some family symphonies don’t resolve in the final chords. So, if we get to an “all’s well that ends well” kind of message, what about all the others?

To add to the problems, the God who has been amazingly present so far and will be again is absent in this story. There are no messages in the night, no calls to accountability, no wagging of divine fingers, or sending of glittering angels with flaming swords to sort it all out. There is just emptiness and a growing gap between brothers. So, what’s left in this story?

A search for peace? Verse 4 says that the brothers “could not speak peaceably” to Joseph. But then Jacob, winner of the clueless dad of the year, sends Joseph off to “see if it is well with your brothers” (37:14). Speaking peaceably and being well are both forms of the word, “shalom.” There was a constant search for peace, even when peace eluded them, even when peace was rejected.

We tend to think that God is where peace reigns. The end of this story tells us that this is true. But this part of the story of Joseph and his brothers tells us that God is in the search for peace, even when it isn’t found, even when it seems far away. God is in the search, in the effort, in the longing for shalom. That’s what Joseph means much later - years later - when he says to his brothers, “What you intended for harm, God intended for good” (Gen. 50:20). God was in the search, in the attempt to find the way to shalom. Even when it is not realized in this life, in these relationships, we continue to search. We continue to hope.

This means, I guess, that even in the midst of our struggles with brothers (or sisters, parents, or neighbors) and when we are feeling the sting of their “gotcha, “underneath it all, God has a “gotcha” too. Even in the struggle, God says, “I gotcha, never doubt my beloved child, never doubt.”

That is a word that Peter desperately needed to hear as he sank into the waves. Ok, you’ve read this one before. You might even have your own sermons already worked out for this passage. I don’t blame you. But before you go off in your own direction, I’ve got a couple of questions for you: “First, did Jesus want Peter to get out of the boat? And then was the reprimand about Peter’s lack of faith really because he couldn’t walk on water?”

Most of the time, I hear sermons - and may have even preached sermons - on this text with the tagline to keep your eyes upon Jesus. This is a familiar theme in the New Testament. Paul tells us to keep our eyes on the prize that is the upward call of Christ Jesus our Lord. The writer to the Hebrews tells us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Keeping your eyes on Jesus is a smart thing to do.

In our story for this week, it is when Peter looks at the wind and the waves that he begins to sink. It is when he takes hold of Jesus’ hand that he rises above his struggles and finds his way back to safety. It doesn’t take a lot of study to come to the conclusion that keeping focused on Jesus is a better way to walk - whether on dry land or on water. Certainly, we should keep our eyes upon Jesus.

Now, maybe I am trying to justify my own cowardice, but I wonder whether Jesus is really asking us to walk on water. I know, I know. We are told in many places that we can do mighty works in Jesus’ name. I know too that we shouldn’t shy away from difficult tasks because we are given the power of the Spirit. I know that there are labors that the Lord needs doing, and his plan is that we are the doers. I know that there are many unexplainable things that I have encountered, and others have encountered, for which the only proper response is to give praise to God.

Jesus sends them away. In the story, he is trying to have some time alone to pray and rest in the presence of the Father. He got interrupted by the crowd earlier and ended up having to cater a meal no one was planning for (except maybe him). So, now he sends them off so that he can stay back for a little while. Of course, there was nothing said about how he was going to catch up to them later. The trains didn’t run that late and the airport was closed due to fog. It could be argued that Galilee was a pretty busy lake, and Jesus had already commandeered one boat, who’s to say he couldn’t do it again?

But there is a layer beyond the immediate story. This is the tale of the church that has been sent on ahead without the physical presence of Christ. This was the environment in which Matthew was writing the Gospel—a church adrift on the sea of persecution, and the storms were rising. If not persecution, then perhaps confusion, or apathy, or antagonism. But here we are drifting, wondering if we can make it to the other side on our own.

Then we see a ghost. Or something. That’s all we get, isn’t it? A ghost. A vision. A hope and dream that we dare not place too much trust in. We are, after all, left to our own devices. Aren’t we? We’ve got to make this thing work on our own. We’ve got to solve all the problems ourselves. Don’t we? We’ve got to conquer the enemy all by ourselves now, don’t we?

Of course not. In the story beyond the story, Matthew’s readers knew that the sea represented all that opposed God. In the ancient world, the sea was the source of death and pain. When sailors set out for deep-sea work, their families would perform rituals that were essentially funerals, because they didn’t expect them to come back. And if and when they did come back, the reception was as though they had returned from the dead. The sea was the absence of God —at least in popular belief. The biblical witness is that God is the God of the sea and the dry land.

Jesus reaffirms that He is lord of all. He is the one who can calm the storm; he is the one who is present even when it feels like he is absent. When the disciples see him from their beleaguered boat, they can’t really believe it is him. “It is a ghost,” they cry in fear. It is something else to trouble us. It is no real help to us in this desperate situation. But Jesus says, “No it is really me.” Actually, what he says is, “I Am” —just like the voice from the burning bush, just like the force that freed a nation from despair. “I Am”, he says. “Trust me,” he says. “I am with you even when you don’t think so.”

Peter isn’t sure. He needs proof. He needs to step on the waves, to conquer his fears on his own. He needs to see that which oppresses him beneath his feet. So, with a sigh, Jesus says, “All right. Come on.” And Peter does it, for a moment. Then he fails and asks for help. “You of little faith, why did you doubt” (14:31), Jesus says to him. But was it because he couldn’t walk on water or because he got out of the boat?

I believe that the great work of faith that Jesus asks of all of us is to trust in his presence, even when, or perhaps, especially when, we can’t feel it. When there is no external reason to believe that Christ is with us, that’s when we need all the faith within us to get in the boat and sail. Sure, I’d like to walk on water sometimes. But in the end, I’d rather get in the boat with Jesus and ride out the storm all the way to the other side.