Claiming a mustard seed faith
Proper 14A | Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28, Matthew 14:22-33
So which do we go with: attempted murder or walking on water? We have two fascinating stories to wrestle with today. And both of them need room to stretch, I think.
The question, however, is always: What do we need to hear?
In the story of Jacob’s sons who first seek to murder their brother, then tamp it down to indirectly murder their brother, before finally deciding to sell him into slavery—this is a story often drenched with providence. In that one, we ask where God is in it.
Compared to that, the gospel story is less juicy, isn’t it? And somehow, strangely forgettable. It doesn’t feel as important. Which probably means we’re missing something. And more than that, we’re prone to completely misunderstand “the point.”
So let’s go for a walk on the water.
Before the disciples get in the boat, we need to back up a little bit. To where we were two weeks ago, near the end of chapter 13. Jesus has been teaching about seeds and soil and the Kin-dom. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…
He described faith as something in which volume is irrelevant. Faith as small as a mustard seed can create a shrub taller than the trees.
Jesus also was critiquing the tradition’s relationship to faith and commitment by transcending Sabbath law.
So, in a sense, Jesus is offering heterodox (unconventional) teaching. But it is teaching that turns the focus from the rules themselves and toward the desire of God. An idea that is super familiar to us: heterodoxy is our orthodoxy.
Jesus offers this transformational teaching to a people looking to be transformed. Which is most people! And the people who like things the way they are confront him.
This comes to a head at the end of chapter 13.
When Jesus goes home.
The people from Jesus’s hometown like this method of transformation, but they don’t allow themselves to be transformed. Because they refuse to see Jesus the way he is. Only the way he was. And because of that, Jesus has no power there.
At the same time, King Herod, who is always concerned with keeping hold of his power, is convinced to kill the imprisoned John the Baptist. A man who he likes. Who he listens to. In other words, Herod is becoming open to the transforming grace of God! But because his wife and daughter are monsters, Herod remains a monster.
Word of John’s death then comes to Jesus.
He grieves the death of John the Baptist.
And he tries to get away. To pray. To commune with God. Catch a break. But he can’t. He has sympathy for the crowds. They are sick, abused. Like refugees. They have nothing and no place to go. Our responsibility is to welcome them.
And after Jesus does, he feeds them, miraculously, from scraps. It’s incredible.
That’s when Jesus gets away.
He sends the disciples on ahead. Tells them to get in a boat and go over the open water.
Finally, rest. Silence. No more need. Voices. Hands grabbing his clothes. All of it gone.
Of course, he can’t stay. It doesn’t work like that. The need doesn’t actually go away. And now his disciples need him.
So he follows. Crossing the water like a dragonfly.
Now, a couple of things happen.
Which requires a bit of interpretation.
They’re freaking out that someone is walking on water. People don’t do that. So one thing here is fear. Fear from confusion based on certainty (how can someone do what nobody can do?)
When they recognize it is Jesus, the fear changes. Because now he is someone who can do what nobody can do. And that is freaky. They are just as comfortable as we are with keeping the impossible impossible for us.
Peter is different, though. He believes that he can do this as well. That, seeing Jesus walk on water, he, too, can walk on water. And if Jesus asks him too, he will. The underlying assumption, I think, is that the invitation will bestow Jesus’s power onto Peter. Remember, Jesus invited them to heal people and then they could. He invited them to exorcize demons and they could.
So Jesus responds: “come.” And Peter does.
Peter walks on water.
This is a big deal. It works, but then a gust of wind scares him? And it starts to fail.
This is where the interpretation needs to come in. Look at that phrasing in the New Revised Standard Version.
But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’
—Matthew 14:30-31
I suppose this is a plunge into the water and Peter is flailing and Jesus reaches in to save him. But it also doesn’t sound like that at all. It’s just what we’d imagine if we assume the hand out is the important part.
If we staged this for a movie, though? Doesn’t the action sound slower? No Wile E. Coyote drop, but one who is “beginning to sink” and worried that he’ll go under? Like a ship with a hole in the bottom. It doesn’t drop at first. You have time to worry about dying long before you do.
This messes with how we’re inclined to read this story.
Because if this is a story of Jesus saving us, of Peter’s weak faith, then it doesn’t make any sense. And if it is a story about the sincerity of one’s faith or the volume of it, then it doesn’t jive with what Jesus just taught them.
“You of little faith” isn’t supposed to be an insult here. Even the mustard seed is mighty. Size doesn’t matter. Volume doesn’t matter. Faith at all is enough.
“Bearer of the mustard seed faith, why did you doubt?”
This is a fantastic question to ask Peter. Because he was doing it!
Peter walked on water.
And when the first gust of wind came, he freaked out.
That is what fear does. It would have us destroy our own miracles.
So this isn’t doubt in the modern sense. It isn’t faith vs. doubt like flip sides of the same coin. A mustard seed faith got Peter out of that boat and walking on water.
And, to mix our metaphors and parables, fear that came from a gust of wind threw Peter into such a panic that he’d hide his light under a bushel basket.
Even so, he only begins to sink. He probably could have stepped back up to the surface. But now he’s afraid. Feeling helpless. I can’t do this.
How familiar is that?
That sensation in which our head and faith tell us we can, but the rumbling in the gut and the hairs on the back of the neck say “It’s impossible—I’ll die.” This, of course, is the root of anxiety. The physical alarm system designed to keep us alive decides that something like public speaking will literally kill us. And our bodies react like it will.
And when we avoid death, our bodies go “Phew! I just saved us. High five over here!”
And much like we tell people who suffer from intense anxiety to just “get over it,” we think the response to fear is strength. And it’s cousin, certainty. As if we are failing by being afraid.
We have the whole thing backward and distorted.
Peter performed a miracle. He did what others could only dream of doing. And were far too afraid to try.
Peter left the boat.
That wasn’t just the hardest thing. It is a kind of miracle.
And that is the root of the little faith. We like to call it “doing hard things.” Things that genuinely feel impossible. Like getting out of bed when you don’t have the strength. Walking into a new place when the car is much safer. Making new friends at their church picnic.
The fear is natural. But that doesn’t mean we should listen to it. It also doesn’t mean you lack faith. Fear’s grip on us is no indicator of worth, strength, or significance at all.
But…
When we choose to listen to the small faith over the fear…miracles happen.
And as we’ve seen with Jesus, that means everybody can be fed. Everybody can be healed. Every need can be addressed.
And even the dead can be raised.
With God, we can transform this community and new life can resurrect these old bones. We really can have nice things in Terre Haute.
Listen to him.
Bearers of the mustard seed faith, why would we doubt?