Risk Without Guarantees
There is something about that picture of the boat with the disciples literally hanging on for dear life that resonates with me. Perhaps it is all of the turmoil of late about the state of our Anglican Communion and whether or not it will hold together, or, perhaps in light of today’s reading, whether it will stay afloat or sink like a rock that has a contemporary ring to it.
If you look at the architecture of many churches, they have often been designed to resemble the shape of a boat. The Church of the Ascension in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I served in my early years, looks – from the interior – as if the nave of the church is constructed in the shape of an upside-down-boat. In fact, the word “ship” in Latin is navis from which we derive the word navy and also the “nave of the church”, the main section of it where most of you are gathered this morning.
In some ways that sacred ship, the Church, is in peril on the sea even as we speak. The waves are coming in many directions, and, in some moments, they threaten to swamp that sometimes unseaworthy old vessel. Controversies over homosexuality, over authority (who has it and who doesn’t), controversies about liturgy and whether or not to change it yet again, all of these and many other contemporary issues place the Church at risk. And the seas have not grown one bit calmer for me during more than three decades as a priest. I have many a day when I would love to sail to quiet waters, drop anchor, spend the rest of my years contemplating beautiful sunsets, and listen to Evensong undisturbed.
But I also know that this idyllic ending is unlikely to take place as I envision it. How do I know? Well, today’s gospel reading is pretty good indicator of the demands being placed on followers of Jesus Christ in an increasingly secular society which would be just as happy if the Church as we have known it, as a force for good in society, would simply disappear.
Some of you know that when I came to the Cathedral three years ago some people of influence in the Village of Garden City explained, not unkindly but with a degree of sympathy, that one of the reasons the Cathedral wasn’t getting any support for various projects is that nobody expected it to survive. It was viewed by many as an institution whose time had passed, a beloved cultural relic, which could not sustain itself. Happily, their assessment was not well-founded.
In light of that kind of cynicism about mainline Christianity in general in today’s society, it is no small wonder that many churches find themselves wondering if they can survive in the midst of so much apathy. Today’s gospel reading has an answer to that issue. They will survive and flourish only if they are willing to take some risks, and, more especially, only if individual Christians, people such as you and I, are equally willing to take some risks.
People do strange things. I can’t tell you why Simon Peter chose to get out of the relative safety of that small, struggling boat to go to Jesus on the water. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. In fact it seems an almost impossible thing to me on one level: that of personal safety.
But listen to something important that William Willimon wrote about Jesus and the impossible.
“It is not the first time Jesus has called his disciples to do something that seems impossible. He’s already called his disciples to turn the other cheek if somebody walks up to them and clocks them in the face. He’s already called his disciples to walk two miles if anyone asks them to walk one. He’s already called his disciples to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. He’s already called his disciples to be perfect, just like their Father in heaven is perfect. He has already called his disciples to cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons. He’s already called his disciples to follow him wherever he goes – even to the cross. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when Jesus honors Peter’s request and again calls him to do the impossible. – ‘Okay, Peter, come to me. Walk on this water.’” 1
Many people in our society still want to be Christians but in a way which is essentially without risk, without the possibility of failure, and certainly without much necessity for commitment – for making hard, sometimes extremely difficult, and unpopular choices, which we must all make at one point or another. As parents, as leaders in society, as administrator of this Cathedral, I can tell you that the choices are all around us, just as the pressure to be non-controversial, non-threatening, and thoroughly accommodating is always with us as well.
How many parents give in to peer pressure and allow a child do something they know is risky because they don’t want to be seen as different from everyone else in town? Some years ago a father came to me because he was concerned that his teenage son was scheduled to participate in a camping trip in an area he felt was unsafe. The father asked me what I’d do under similar circumstances. My response, “If it were my son, he wouldn’t have been allowed to sign up in the first place.” And the father replied, “Well, that’s how I felt, but I want him to like me, so may I quote you as saying it’s inappropriate and he can’t go because you thought it was dangerous?” And my response was “Quote yourself. Do the responsible thing on your own.” I don’t know how it turned out, by the way. Probably not well.
Jesus doesn’t allow you to look good all of the time. I came across this reflection the other day:
“You can’t grow in faith – take risks, change, and develop – and count on looking good all the time. In stepping out of the boat, Peter reminds us that in order to an agent of Kingdom power, you must be willing to be a failure. In a way, we are lost the instant we know what the outcome of our efforts will be. Riskless Christianity – safe, stale, and stagnant Christianity – stays in the boat. It might be prudent. It might be sensible. No doubt it looks responsible and right. But it leaves us unchanged.” 2
That’s one of the weaknesses of institutionalized Christianity: it too often leaves us, and the people we encounter, unchanged. It wants guarantees of success before we are willing to take on challenges or simply confront evil in the world around us. We want guarantees of success, namely that our children will like and appreciate us in the moment, for the difficult decisions we are called to make as parents. It just doesn’t work that way most of time. Being a responsible parent is a risky business, filled with an often uncertain outcome.
The rather sobering message in today’s gospel reading is that you must be willing to risk being a failure in some of the things you undertake in life. Without risk we hardly ever change willingly, hardly ever dare to be more than we are right now. At many stages in our lives, when the relative security of the boat seems the safest place to be, there is Jesus walking on the waves, in the storm, in the midst of peril. Sometimes he invites us to join him there. Sometimes we simply need to join him there. I can’t always explain why that happens, only that it does happen sometimes. We have a need to not only be with him, but also try to be like him. And what an impossible challenge that can seem to be at times.
Not long ago I commented that the Church into which I was ordained has turned over, has changed, two or three times in the last three decades. Someone asked me how that could be true. My only response was that I have certainly changed over the decades and not just physically. While my essential view of the Christian faith hasn’t changed much, the basics are still the basics, I am simply not the same person I was in the early 1970s. I might like to return to being a young adult knowing what I know now, certainly much stronger and in better physical condition then, but I don’t want to go back to being the person I was then.
Today I like having to do some things differently, having my world view challenged and some of my prejudices debunked by experience. In retrospect I am very grateful for the opportunity to lead this Cathedral even though I was quite comfortable and had really planned to retire from my previous parish. I’m glad Jesus invited me to get out of the boat, to join him out there on the waves, without any guarantees of success.
There are many opportunities in life to do new things, to be stronger and hopefully better than we are now: to be a better parent, to be a more faithful Christian, to be a more loyal friend, to make an uncertain career change, to work at revitalizing a neglected or broken relationship, to look for hope in what seems an impossible situation or set of circumstances. In all of those situations, Jesus can be present, and often is, and more often than not is urging us to come to him, to trust in him. The only guarantee is that he will be there for us and we will not sink. But in taking the chance he can make us new people: stronger, wiser, more hopeful and more hope-filled. And when individual Christians are that trusting in Jesus, his Church cannot help but be transformed.
The Ven. Theodore W.Bean, Jr.
Provost
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1 Pulpit Resource, Vol. 36, No. 3, pp. 27-28.
2 Synthesis, August 10, 2008.
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