Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 14:22-33

I had COVID in September of 2020.  It was a week with such little energy that answering one or two emails seemed exhausting.  As I lay in bed, quarantined to the guest room, I discovered the Marvel Universe.  I hadn’t ever really been drawn to all the big, blockbuster superhero movies, but I needed something purely entertaining.  Nothing deep or meaningful that I would have to work it into a sermon someday. I decided to watch the Marvel comic book superhero movies in order.  I watched one, then another, then another.  I’m still watching them as new movies come out.  I’ve come to be friends with Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-man, the Wasp, Wolverine, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Hawkeye; and, of course, the villains:  Doctor Doom, Magneto, Thanos, Loki, Kang the Conqueror, and so many more.

We love these costumed superheroes, who are often regular and often awkward people until they transform into their hero selves, usually with some power that came from a celestial or super-scientific source.  In the end, there’s always a lot of destruction and crashed vehicles, but they save the earth with all of us little people who play our cinematic roles by screaming, running from some monster, being terrified.  And they save us.

Mostly, I’ve heard today’s gospel text interpreted through the lens of this heroic, ambitious story lens.  Peter is the impetuous, bold individual who is drawn to the special powers.  He would be The Rock in the Marvel Universe.  He leaps into the sea, into the storm because he thinks that he can be just like Jesus, walking on the water. Of course, he fails, and Jesus says, “Oh, Peter, you of little faith.” Turns out that he had doubts, and that sunk him.

I read an article this week that challenges this heroic read of the story.  Adam Hearlson, a Presbyterian pastor in Philadelphia, says that we probably read the story that way because it’s been interpreted by pastors who were ambitious, whether by internal need or external pressure. They felt that the church was called to achieve great success. Peter’s water walk was an example of the courage necessary to do something great. “Peter did what all the other bozos were too scared to do.”[1]

Hearlson makes the claim that this ambitious prototype is more the result of the European and American values of expansion, conquest, and manifest destiny.  Ambition had to be given such positive framing so that there was justification to take, even violently, other people’s land or wealth for a “greater good.” Before the rise of colonial powers, ambition was viewed with suspicion in the church.  Augustine lists “worldly ambition” as one of the key obstacles in the way of Christian faithfulness.  Thomas Aquinas says that “ambition is always a sin.” But by the 1500’s, the heroes of conquestwere armed with divine right and the doctrine of discovery, which said it was God’s will to conquer and subjugate.  That was the new template. Unless, of course, you were enslaved or a woman.  Then ambition remained sinful.[2]

The argument made in Hearlson’s article strikes me because maybe I’ve felt the temptation to fall back into this model as move into a world post-covid.  Are we looking for the heroes, the superpower answers to smaller attendance, diminished programs, and uncertain outcomes?  We think that maybe we’re just not trying hard enough to reach out to members who haven’t come back, or need to come up with such creative and unique programming that people flood back into our programs and worship services.

As you may have heard, Katie LeClair, our youth minister resigned suddenly this week. After ten years of ministry at Gloria Dei with our teenagers, she wrote, “I’m not the right person to lead this ministry in this crazy post-Covid world.”  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to talk. Was she feeling that kind of pressure to be the youth hero, to turn around a cultural trend where the wind is clearly against us?  Did she feel like she needed to do it by herself, one individual who could channel the love of Jesus with such power that every kid would joyfully and willingly pick up Luther’s Small Catechism?  Did our ego need to be thriving and different-than-practically-every-other church sink her spirit?

As we currently search for three new staff members, I suspect we’ll have to be careful in how we think about our expectations.  Do we unconsciously or subtly, or even overtly, imagine them with a cape and a superpower?

What if Jesus’ question, “Why did you doubt?” wasn’t about Peter’s individual faith but about the boat?  Didn’t you trust the boat and your community of siblings who were probably bailing it out and rowing furiously while you went for glory?  Didn’t you trust that I’m on my way to get in with you, not with some grand gesture, but to join in the work of managing the storm?[3]

Jesus doesn’t reach out his hand to help Peter walk on water.  He puts him back in the boat.  We always think of salvation as being taken out of something, whether this troubled life or this broken world; or taken into heaven.  Perhaps resurrection just puts us back with love.  Back into the boat with our community where we row together, some of us strong and some of us weak at the oars.  Some of us with big pails for bailing; some of us with thimbles of confidence and faith.  We’re not saved to be heroes but to be together with one another and with Jesus.  Peace doesn’t come from accomplishment and courage but by sitting with the divine presence.

Years ago, when I was facing the headwinds of a church that prohibited queer clergy, I got a call from Bishop Gene Robinson in the Episcopal Church.  He told me that he has an embroidered pillow in his office that says, “Sometimes God calms the storm, but sometimes God lets the storm rage and calms [the] child.”[4]

Our superpower does come on the water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Mother of us all.  Child of God, the wind you feel in your face is the Spirit that marks us with the cross of Christ forever.  Amen.

[1] Adam Hearlson, “Ambition used to be a vice” The Christian Century, May 4, 2022. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/ambition-used-be-vice?code=HQocL8CztENLpWFkt5jC&utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2c62585db8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2023-08-07&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. I’m indebted to his ideas for this sermon.

[4] This is actually a quote by Leslie Gould and Mindy Starns Clark in “The Amish Nanny,” Harvest House Publishers (July 1, 2011)