There are certain jokes that a person in a profession hears over and over again.  I suspect that dentists would like to have a dollar for each time someone says “You’re looking down in the mouth today, Doc,” or “Let me know if you strike oil and we’ll share 50-50.”

       The two jokes I hear the most often are the one about pastors only working one day a week and the one about the Catholic priest, a Baptist minister and a Presbyterian minister who are fishing in the same boat.  First the priest gets up, announces that he’s forgotten something, steps out of the boat and walks across the water to the dry land.  Then he walks back across the water and gets into the boat.  Next the Baptist says that he is thirsty, gets out of the boat, grabs a beer – a root beer, and walks back across the water and gets into the boat.

       Not to be outdone in this demonstration of faith, the Presbyterian steps out of the boat onto the water and immediately sinks out of sight.

        When this happens, the Baptist turns to the Catholic and says, “Maybe we should have told him where the rocks are.”

       Now that’s not just a Presbyterian joke.  Whoever it’s aimed at is the butt of the joke.   Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran – it’s a very ecumenical joke that is familiar to pastors.  And no, I don’t want to hear your version.

       The joke, of course, is based on the event of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee. But unlike the joke, the event did not take place during a placid ecumenical fishing trip on a calm lake.  It took place in the dead of night on a storm swept Sea of Galilee at a crucial tuning point of Jesus’ ministry -- and there were no rocks.

       After Jesus feeds the five thousand, the crowd responds with great excitement.  “With a wonder worker like Jesus as king we could brush away the Romans and restore the kingdom to Israel.  Do we need bread?  Here’s bread for five thousand.  Healthcare reform?  Who needs endless battles between the Israelite medical association and the trial lawyers association?  We can have a king who can heal us with his words.  The crowd tries to take Jesus by force to make Him king.

       The call of the crowd to earthly power and glory tests Jesus as to His obedience to His Father’s will.  This is the same test Jesus faced when Satan tempted Him in the wilderness and offered Him “all the kingdoms of the world.”  Will Jesus take the easy road of earthly authority?  Or will He take the hard road of the suffering servant of God – a road that must lead Him to the agony in the garden and execution on the cross?

      Jesus dismisses the cheering crowd.  Instead of heading a human revolution, He goes up to a mountain to pray.  “And when the evening comes, He is there alone.”

       Jesus faced a test. And Jesus also gives His disciples a test.  He tests their willingness to obey His word even when obedience seems suicidal – even when Jesus Himself is not present and doesn’t seem to care.  It is a test for them and it is a test for us.  We go through trials like this too.

       While Jesus prays on the mountain, the disciples struggle with a great storm on the Sea of Galilee.  The Sea of Galilee lies six hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean.  The seasonal streams which flow into the sea, have cut deep gorges through which wind rushes as through a funnel.  These winds can lash a calm lake into angry waves.

       The disciples do not want to make this voyage.  Maybe they see the storm coming.  Jesus has to make them enter the boat.  From the various gospel accounts, it is plainly Jesus’ will for them to battle nine hours with angry waves and contrary winds – and that, as far as they know,  they should battle alone.

       In obedience to their Lord’s command, they set out.  A sudden storm sweeps down. The sea is whipped into a towering rage.  To make matters worse, the wind is from the shore to which they are struggling.  They get nowhere – no matter how hard or how skillfully they row.

       Some of them are not sailors.  They are scared to death.  The sailors among them, like Peter, James and John, who know the facts are, if possible, even more frightened.  The way of escape is to run back before the wind to the shore they have just left.  But this is to risk shipwreck on the rocky coast.  It is also to disobey their Lord.  So they continue the struggle.

       How do they feel about Jesus in all of this?  Didn’t Jesus command them to cross the Lake?  Doesn’t he know that He’s told them to do something they can’t do?  Doesn’t he care?  Perhaps they are tormented by a sense of desertion and defeat.

       Just because a person becomes a believer and a disciple of Jesus, he or she has no right to expect that from then on the winds will always be favorable.  In the Old Testament God sends a contrary wind against Jonah who is fleeing from the word of the Lord.  Now, here in the New Testament, He sends a contrary wind against the disciples who are on the lake because they are obeying the word of the Lord.  Obey, disobey, either way, you can get waves.

       Christian duty is not always easy.  And sometimes, in times of crisis, God will remove Himself from our conscious experience in order to develop in us true faith --- faith that is based on His promises and not on our feelings about those promises.  God wants us to grow to be mature people in Christ.  That is God’s goal for us.  But the road isn’t the easy one.

       Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard tells the story of a boy trying to learn arithmetic.  The teacher gives him a book full of problems to solve.  In the back of the book are all the answers to the problems.  But the teacher instructs the boy never to look at the answers in the back of the book.  Instead, he is to work out the answers for himself.

       As the boy does his homework, he cheats.  He looks in the back of the book and gets the answers.  He finds it much easier to work out the problems now that he knows the answers in advance.  Kierkegaard points out that while it is quite possible for the boy to get good grades this way, he will never really learn mathematics.  As difficult as it may prove to be, the only way to become a mathematician is to struggle with the problems himself, not by using someone else’s answers, even if those answers are the right ones.

       It’s obvious that on life’s journey we are faced with problems, and we sometimes wonder why Jesus doesn’t just spell out the answers so that we know exactly what to do.  According to Kierkegaard, God doesn’t give us the answers because He wants to force us to work out the problems for ourselves.  It is only by struggling with the problems as they present themselves, day in and day out, that we can develop into the kinds of mature people God wants us to be.

       A student once asked the president of his school if there was a course he could take that was shorter than the one prescribed.  “Oh yes,” replied the president, “but it depends on what you want to be.  When God wants to make an oak, He takes a hundred years, but when He wants to make a squash, it only takes six months.”

       God needs oaks, not zucchini.  That means we need to keep growing.  And it's why the disciples need to keep rowing.

       Mark, in his always-energetic gospel, tells us that Jesus sees His disciples toiling in rowing.  Up on the mountain Jesus sees the lighting flash and the storm sweep down the lake, and the disciples trying to bring the boat to land.  He is watching them.  Never once do the get beyond the range of His eye.  But, and this is the key, the disciples do not know that Jesus is watching over them.

       In a book on Civil War, historian Shelby Foote describes Union general Ulysses Grant as having “4 o‘clock in the morning courage.”  By this, Foote means that you could wake Grant up at 4 in the mourning and tell his that the enemy had just turned his right flank.  He would be as cool as a cucumber.

       That’s a special kind of courage.  Four a.m. is that eerie time when human energy is at its lowest, before the darkness passes into light.  That’s when Jesus comes to them walking on the stormy sea.  When the disciples first see Him they are terrified.  To the terrors of the sea and the wind and the night is now added the terror of the unseen world, ghosts.  But immediately Jesus calls out to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.”

       Now comes a dramatic incident, which appears only in Matthew’s account.  If Matthew had told us this story but didn’t give us the name of the disciple who tried to walk on the sea, we’d know it anyway.  Peter always has to be in action.  He calls out, “Lord, bid me come to you on the water.”

       Security is not enough for Peter.  The coming of his Lord gets him going.  He longs to do the impossible.

       Now we are not told what Peter’s friends thought of this request.  Their response is probably varied.  Judas probably looked down his nose at Peter.  “There you go losing your head as usual.  You know quite well that it is not possible for you to walk on the sea.  Even if it were, what would be the point?”   Judas was a very practical man.  He prided himself on keeping his feet on the ground. 

       But if the others did not scorn, they still didn’t approve.  I can imagine that brother Andrew was frightened.  He might have taken Peter by the arm and said, “Steady now, Peter.  You can hardly stay on top of the water as it is.  Let well enough alone.”  But it is by refusing to let well enough alone what we make all our progress.

       Peter believed that Christ was so great that not only could He walk on the sea, but He could make others walk, too.  Peter failed in his attempts, as we shall see; but the great thing about him was that he, at least, tried.   An effort of faith that fails is far better than a cool and calculating attitude that won’t take chances.

       Theodore Roosevelt one said, “It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

       Whatever Peter’s friends in the boat think of Peter’s prayer, one thing is sure.  Jesus is pleased.  Jesus seems to have a great fondness for people who take risks in their relationship with Him.

        One time, for example, a Gentile mother came to Jesus to ask for healing for her daughter.  Jesus’ reply is so blunt as to seem shocking.  “It is not fair,” he says, “to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” – for the Jews commonly referred to non-Jews as dogs.

       You know, if I received an answer like that from Jesus, I think that I would slink away from that encounter totally discouraged.  After a few minutes, I would become resentful.

       But this woman is more like Peter than like me.  “Yes, Lord,” she answers, “yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  Jesus responds with boundless enthusiasm, “Great is your faith!  Be it done for you as you desire.”

       Jesus seems to positively enjoy people who are bold and persistent in their approach to Him.  I think there’s a lesson here for our prayers.

       Peter makes the kind of bold request Jesus likes:  “Lord, if it is You, command me come to You on the water.”  Jesus says, “Come.” “And when Peter got down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.” 

       That is the part of the story that most people forget.  They only remember that Peter sank when he became frightened, and cried out, “Lord, save me!”  But for a little Peter did walk on the water, and Jesus encouraged him.  Jesus was pleased with Peter’s venture of faith.  Jesus is always pleased when He sees us ready to try great things and to venture all our faith in Him. 

       Peter steps onto the sea.  For a moment it’s cool.  As long as Peter keeps his eyes on Jesus, he actually walks on the water.  But when he looks away from Jesus, and sees, the angry sea, and the white crest of the waves and hears the roaring of the wind, he becomes afraid and begins to sink.

       How many times we hear Jesus say to His disciples, “Don’t be afraid.”  Lots of things happen when we are afraid.  Fear confuses our mind, paralyzes our energy, and blots out the goal from our view.  When we begin to fear, we begin to sink.

        Karl Wallenda, the great tightrope aerialist’s life was at stake each time he walked the tightrope.  Shortly after Wallenda fell to his death in 1978 traversing a 75-foot-high wire in downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico, his wife, also an aerialist, discussed that fateful San Juan walk, “perhaps his most dangerous.”  She recalled: “All Karl thought about for three straight months prior to it was falling.  It was the first time he’d ever thought about that, and it seemed to me that he put all energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope.”  Mrs. Wallenda added that her husband even went so far as to personally supervise the installation of the tightrope, making certain that the guide wires were secure, “something he had never even thought of doing before.”

        When Karl Wallenda poured his energies into not falling rather than walking the tightrope, he was virtually destined to fail.

        It’s the same with Peter.  He stops thinking about Jesus and starts to think about not drowning.  It’s then that he starts to sink.

       Peter cries out, “Lord, save me!”  Immediately Jesus stretches out His hand and catches him.  Peter has failed.  In his failure he calls upon Jesus to save him.  It is a short prayer and a quick answer.  “Lord, save me.”  And immediately Jesus stretches forth his hand and catches him.

       When Peter is once more at his Master’s side, our Lord asks him a question.  It’s not exactly the expected question.  Jesus doesn’t ask, “Why did you try the impossible?  Why didn’t you play it safe and stay in the boat with your buddies?”  There Peter is, looking like a half-drowned rat, while not one of the others has even wet his feet.

       But instead Jesus asks, “Why did you doubt?  Why did you surrender your faith?”  Jesus’ purpose in this question is not to find out how Peter came by his doubt.  The waves and the wind are explanation enough.  It is, instead, to affirm to Peter, to the other disciples, and to us, the utter madness of doubt.

      Henri Nouwen writes in The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming:  “At issue here is the question: “To whom do I belong?  To God or to the world?”  Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God.  A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed.  A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me.  It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down.  Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves.  All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.

       “The world’s love is and always will be conditional.  As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain “hooked” to the world – trying, failing, and trying again.  It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.”

       What can satisfy us is God.  And Jesus is saying to Peter and to us that faith in Him is always and forever completely sane.  He tells us that the most intelligent thing any person can do is trust Him.

       This is true even when we are facing the waves and the wind.  This is true even when we don’t feel like it’s true – when we feel like Jesus has put us in it and then walked away to leave us to struggle on our own.  This story assures us that the struggle is for a reason and that Jesus keeps the promise that He will never fail us or forsake us.