John 6:1-21
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
As many of you probably know, this past week was Shark Week on the discovery channel, one of the holiest weeks in my family’s household. I talked about this in our staff meeting on Wednesday. We love watching shark movies. All 5 sharknadoes? Watched them. Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Shark Night 3D, the Shallows, 47 Meters Down, we’ve seen them all, and many of them in theaters. So with all of these new wonderful shows about sharks on this week, as I read the Gospel story for today I couldn’t help but have images of Air Jaws running through my mind, and thought that Jesus was very lucky that the sea he walked across was freshwater.
We have a rare double whammy in today’s Gospel text. Two for the price of one if you will. Two different stories that, while related, seem like they really should be two separate readings. These are two of the most iconic stories about Jesus. Stories that have inspired countless works of art, and are told in multiple Gospel accounts. At the end, we are left amazed and bewildered at the seemingly limitless nature of Jesus’ powers. The story begins with Jesus who is still attempting to find some quiet time to rest and recover from his life of public ministry. But the crowds who had heard about the miracles he had performed are close on his tail, following him and the disciples wherever they went. Instead of continuing to flee from the crowds in search of solace, or confronting them and sending them away, Jesus has compassion on the people and immediately starts thinking about how they are going to be able to feed all of these people. The disciples are quite realistic, some might say pessimistic, about the situation that they are in. “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little” Philip unhelpfully offers up. It’s like they haven’t been paying attention to the wonderful things that Jesus is capable of. They are mired in rationality, despite having seen Jesus time after time transcend the rational, opting instead for the extraordinary, the improbable, the impossible.
Jesus takes the loaves and fishes graciously offered up by a child in the crowd and does the impossible. He blesses them and distributes them to the crowd, and afterwards twelve whole baskets of leftovers are collected. It’s a miracle of the highest order, and the crowds recognize this and immediately want to make Jesus their king. But as we know, Jesus kingship is not like those of our world. His crown is one of thorns, not gold and jewels. His power is displayed not through military might or lavish palaces, but rather through a counter-intuitive death on the cross. So, he retreats up the mountain to pray by himself.
The sequence of events that follow are difficult to fully understand. The disciples head down to the sea, get in a boat, and start heading for Capernaum. Umm, hey guys, aren’t you forgetting something? Maybe, oh I don’t know, the guy who just amazingly and impossibly fed 5000 people using just five loaves of bread and two fish? What were they thinking?! The Gospel text says that they left because it was dark and Jesus had not yet come to them. Why didn’t they go back and look for him?
Have you ever been left behind by your friends or family? Either accidentally or intentionally? It’s not a great feeling. About six or seven years ago I spent New Year’s Eve in Santa Cruz with a number of my good friends. We were at a house party and I was talking with some people about my college study abroad experiences in Prague, when all of a sudden, I looked around and realized that none of the people I had come with anywhere to be found. They later told me that they had informed me of their impending departure a number of times but that I hadn’t listened. I remember no such thing, but it was New Year’s after all, and on top of that I was in full blown storytelling mode, so it is highly likely that they were telling the truth. I rang in midnight that night on a street corner by myself looking at a phone that was about to die. Now this was before Uber or Lyft so I tried to call a cab. When I found a number for SC Taxi Company, I assumed the SC stood for Santa Cruz, and I was amazed that I got through to an operator right away. Turns out the SC actually stood for South Carolina, which wasn’t much help in my current predicament. And then my phone died, so I decided that my next best option was to walk home, admittedly, not my brightest idea. I spent the next two hours wandering around Santa Cruz. I began my walk furious that my friends would just ditch me. As I walked and began to realize how lost I was that feeling gradually gave way to fear and worry about how I was going to be able to get back home. Eventually I was able to find an ATM and then was able to hail a cab. Only problem was, the driver didn’t recognize my friend’s address. We drove around for quite a while until he finally turned the meter off and pulled into a 7-11 to ask for directions. When we finally pulled up to my friend Barney’s house it was pushing 3 AM. I walked into the house and you would have thought that I had come back from the dead. The room erupted with questions of where I had been, hugs and excitement, and quite a few observations about my stupidity for not simply waiting for them to come back to get me.
So obviously, in this story I am Jesus, right? No, I’m not nearly egotistical enough to try to make that comparison. If anything, the short-sightedness and foolishness I displayed is more like the actions of the disciples. But that moment when the atmosphere of the room turned from fear and worry into joy and celebration is strikingly similar to the story that we have for today. We don’t know why the disciples decided it was a good idea to leave without Jesus. All we know is that once they did they found themselves in trouble. The seas became rough and the wind began to blow. For those of us lucky enough to live near large bodies of water, we know the sheer power and force that they can contain.
The disciples found themselves at the mercy of the waters of the sea, and I have no doubt that they were afraid. This fear intensified, when, in the distance, they saw a figure walking towards them on the water. Upon realizing that this was not a ghost or an apparition, but rather their teacher, their rabbi, walking across the water towards them, the fear and worry in the boat was transformed into joy and amazement. In the midst of all of their fear and trepidation, Jesus shows up, and in spectacular fashion! Even though they had left him behind, Jesus shows up. I’m not sure what they expecting, but I’m almost positive it wasn’t this. But it’s the perfect illustration of what kind of God we have. We have a God who is unpredictably reliable. Now I know that that sounds like an oxymoron, it sounds paradoxical, but in so many ways, we do have a God who is paradoxical. A God who defies our human logic and reasoning and understanding of the way the world works.
Part of the reason that we have the Bible is because it is an account of the reliability of God – the steadfastness of our creator. Who is there and holds true to the promises that have been made to us, to the covenants made with humanity, despite all of our wandering both physical and spiritual. No matter how far we may stray from God, whether it is literally leaving him behind as we row out to sea, or figurative when we distance ourselves emotionally, God is there chasing after us. God shows up. As I’ve said before, we have a God who chases after us. Who yearns to be in relationship with us. A God who sees our hunger and defies the laws of rationality and reality to feed us mind, body, and soul. And no matter how long we avoid that relationship, it is constantly and consistently offered to us. That is what it means to have grace. That is what it means to have unconditional love.
But despite the reliability of God, the way that God shows up in our lives is utterly unpredictable. No one could have expected what Jesus was able to do with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. The disciples couldn’t have dreamed that the figure in the distance would in fact be Jesus walking on water to get back to them. There’s a reason that these stories of Jesus conquering stormy weather are so prominent in the Gospels. Our lives are so often like a boat sailing on the sea. Sometimes we sail on calm waters, with wind that is strong and true and skies that are clear and blue. When that happens, it’s literally smooth sailing. We are filled with excitement and a sense of adventure and aren’t particularly preoccupied with looking around to see where God is. But when the seas are rough, when the wind howls and we are filled with fear and trepidation, that’s when we look around, hoping to catch sight of God. Now there’s a whole sermon in and of itself about looking for God as much in calm seas as we do in rough, because God is most certainly present in both. But when we do take the time to look, we find that God shows up in both ways that are both likely and unlikely, predictable and unpredictable.
It may be in the love and support that we receive from our family and friends. Or that love and support might come from a stranger, or from a person that we would never expect it from. Sometimes God shows up in a song that speaks perfectly to our predicament coming on the radio at just the right time. Or in a quote posted on Facebook by our least favorite person. Now I know what some of you might be thinking, because I was thinking the same thing as I was writing this sermon. What about those times when we haven’t felt God’s presence? Times when we have been lost and scared in the stormy seas of life, and called out, “Where are you God?” and only been answered by silence. I have been there, as I’m sure many of you have. The Bible is full of characters who experience those moments of feeling forsaken by God. Even Jesus on the cross quoted from Psalm 22 – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Yet we as the reader of these stories have the benefit of an outside perspective, and we know that God is in fact with them, even in those darkest of moments. That is why we have stories like the one today. Stories that attest to the unpredictable reliability of our God. Stories that remind us that no matter our perception of the situation, God is in fact there with us. God is in that silence that seems so empty at the time. God comes to us in the midst of the storms of our lives. Sometimes it is just to sit with us in the mud, to grieve and mourn and cry with us. Sadly, God’s presence is not always an instant remedy for those tough times in our lives. But as those of you who have ever comforted someone lost in grief, or been lost in grief yourself, sometimes simply sitting with someone in that moment is enough.
Impossibly and unpredictably, God shows up time and time again. And when we take that truth to heart, when we incorporate it into our very being, that silence begins to feel a little less empty. We begin to look for God to show up. Not in the ways that we would expect, but in the most peculiar and surprising ways. And from those places we would never expect it, we hear a voice that calls out over the wind and through the waves and says, “It is I, do not be afraid.”
photo credits: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/walking-on-the-water-kume-bryant.html, https://www.artrabbit.com/events/david-mach-alternative-facts, http://lolgod.blogspot.com/2010/03/jesus-vs-shark.html, https://minoowkim.com/you-give-them-something-to-eat-7b7573805f95, https://www.westernseminary.edu/transformedblog/2012/05/10/what-do-we-believe-about-the-bible/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B6pN7kC4rw, https://twitter.com/svcccasagrande/status/706878229454266368,
Sinning boldly with Sam 