WHEN THERE’S NOT A SOUL OUT THERE TO HEAR MY PRAYER
Matthew 14:22-33
Sermon presented on August 10, 2008
The theme of this morning’s sermon is, “When There’s Not a Soul Out There to Hear My Prayer.” You may recognize the lyric, from the ABBA song, “I Have a Dream.” America is in the throes of ABBA-mania this summer. The film version of Mama Mia! was released on July 18, and has enjoyed the largest opening run of any musical in movie history. ABBA’s music sounds irrepressibly playful and bubbly; it’s nothing if not over-the-top, silly, and utterly cheerful. But I propose that their songs are more nuanced than they might appear at first, that the lyrics in some cases are actually dark and brooding. For example: the ABBA song, “The Winner Takes It All,” though strangely buoyant musically, in fact puts-forth a bleakly pessimistic take on the human predicament. And the song with the upbeat title “I Have a Dream” in fact proposes that dreams are futile, or at least they’re all we’re left-with in this harsh world of bitter betrayals.
Autumn winds
Blowing outside my window as I look around the room
And it makes me so depressed to see the gloom
There’s not a soul out there
No one to hear my prayer . . .
I open my window and I gaze into the night
But there’s nothing out there to see, no one in sight –
There’s not a soul out there
No one to hear my prayer.
We have, all of us (I think), known this experience: when there’s not a soul out there to hear our prayer, or so it seems. It’s this common human experience of hopelessness, fear and despair which the passage before us today addresses. And the text is Matthew, Chapter 14, verse 27: “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.”
The disciples were in a boat, as you recall, on the Sea of Galilee. It is written that the boat was “battered by waves . . . far from land . . . [and] wind [was] against them.” This may be intended merely as three different ways of saying the same thing, but I think each detail lifts-up a slightly different aspect of our lives. To be “battered by the waves” is to make very little progress in our life’s journey, it’s to start-out with a purpose in mind, a goal, a destination, but to be so tossed-about by the turbulence that comes up suddenly, so as to be thrown off-course. To be “far from land” suggests being stuck out in the middle of the sea; you can’t see the shore to which you’re going, can’t see the shore from which you came, you’re out there in the middle of the storm, just hanging-on. And to have “the wind against” us invites us to call to mind the awesome challenge of faithfulness in this world, to hold firm to God’s Word as the winds of culture keep beating against us, trying to push us in another direction.
Now, here’s the good news. Maybe a person has to be out there in the boat for awhile – battered by waves, far from land, with the wind blowing – to appreciate that our only sure deliverance is in Jesus Christ. There’s no help or hope to be found within the boat.
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn died this week. He was a hero of mine. The Western world has never known quite what to make of Solzhenitsyn. His courageous resistance to tyranny, his penetrating intellect, and his masterful writing attracted admiration at first, culminating in his being awarded a Nobel Prize. But as it became clearer that his thinking was grounded in the Russian Orthodox faith, that he refused to abandon religion, as intellectuals are expected to do these days; and as he increasingly came to critique the West in general, and America in particular, as decadent and superficial, and doomed to collapse without a religious foundation, well, he became less endearing and more isolated. But his is a voice of first importance for church and culture. Solzhenitsyn wrote that it wasn’t until he was a prisoner in the gulags of the former Soviet Union, suffering torture, beatings, brutal winter weather and starvation, that he began to come to terms with his own soul’s journey and his own relationship with God. “It was only when I lay on the rotting prison straw,” he wrote, “that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good . . . and that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, ‘thank you, prison, for having been in my life’.”
Might we call to mind times in our lives, when we were at our lowest, when all was doom and gloom, so we were anxious and afraid, and as best we could tell, there was no one out there to hear our prayer? And then, precisely at that moment, in the midst of the misery, Christ came, and we sensed within ourselves the first stirrings of faith and hope?
That’s what happened with the disciples, recall. Huddled in the boat, miserable and anxious, they “saw Jesus walking [toward them] on the sea.” They were afraid, thinking the figure was a ghost. Their response is typical, isn’t it? We cry-out to God for help, but when help comes, we don’t believe it or trust it.
It is written, next: “Immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.” All thanks be to God! Mama Mia! We’re not abandoned here, without help and hope. There’s deliverance from the storms of life. Christ is present. He cares. He hears our prayers.
Now, this might make a suitable end of the story, right here. But the passage continues a bit longer, directing our attention next to Peter. Always the most adventurous of the disciples – (Peter’s the one who probably drove his Fourth Grade teacher nuts!) – Peter “got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came to Jesus.” He began to sink, of course, as you know. And although he sank, yet Peter’s often praised for the audacity of his faith, and held-up as a role model for bold discipleship. Fair enough. I agree with that. Peter is presented, not only here, but elsewhere in scripture, as well, as impulsive, decisive, daring, robust and passionate . . . good things, all, in regard to faith.
The character Yolanda in the play Crowns, which was mounted brilliantly this summer at the Circle Theater, says of herself: “Don’t want to be/boxed-in/by some dead or dying traditions/and I don’t know how to be one of them.” This might have been said by Peter, as well. He didn’t want to be boxed-in. He didn’t even know how to just go-along with the others, “to one of them.” Peter asserted his own rebellious spirit – sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
But this story isn’t principally about the character of Peter. It’s about the character of God. We see that character displayed in the moment when Jesus “reached out his hand and caught” Peter. Once Peter was rescued, Jesus took the opportunity to teach him a thing or two about faith and life. But Christ’s act of service preceded his teaching about it.
This to the same model of Christ-like presence in the world we saw and heard presented today by our Senior Highers, in their report of their trip to Milwaukee. They didn’t go there intending first to talk about Jesus Christ. They went to reach-out in loving concern for others, and then as situations presented themselves they talked about Jesus. The outstretched hand always comes first, the embrace, the act of service.
Here’s a brief essay I recently read, which I’d like to read to you now, because it’s an up-to-date illustration of this great truth. It goes like this.
One morning I stood on a train platform, waiting for the train
and watching families returning from church in their Sunday
best.
Through the crowd came a very tall woman in a big yellow hat.
She was holding the hand of a man who appeared to be her son.
She looked to be in her 60s and he in his 30s. The man appeared
to be developmentally disabled, and they walked slowly.
Suddenly, the man began to have an attack of some kind. He was
convulsing and yelling. People began to stare and step away.
With not a moment’s pause, the woman calmly took in a long,
deep breath and, pulling her son’s head to her chest, began to
sing the most beautiful gospel song. As she swayed back and
forth, her son was comforted and became quiet.
The crowd gathered until she was done, and applause broke
out at the end. I will never forget the moment, her incredible
voice and the inspiring way to turn an upsetting moment
completely around. (New York Times, July 28, 2008, p. A19)
Life may be convulsive and confused, at times — like this man’s, like Peter’s, like our own — but Christ comes to us in the midst of the tumult, reaching-out to us, holding us close, turning our upsetting moments completely around.
