Ministry in Chaos

Matthew 14:22-33
August 7, 2011

I spent a little time this week looking at paintings depicting this scene from the gospel of Matthew – Jesus walking on water. Given the fame of this passage, you can imagine how many people have tried to capture the story in art.

There were some similarities in all the paintings – in all of them Jesus walking on the water, for example . But, one of the things that varied wildly was what the water looked like – or rather what state the water was in.

In most, the water looked like a typical large lake when there is some wind in the air. A few waves and ripples. In some it was a placid lake, and Jesus is walking toward the boat on something akin to glass. In one, there is a wave breaking and Jesus is, I swear to God, standing on the wave. He looks like a California surfer!

All of these fall short, I think, of capturing the picture the text is trying to paint for us.
Instead, the ones I think get the closest to portraying the text are the ones that show the sea in turmoil, dark, foreboding, menacing. Think Lake Michigan in the middle of a massive storm. Huge waves, wild splashes, people throwing up over the edge of boats being tossed about.

In the bible, the sea is both literal and symbolic. In addition to the stormy sea being a potential reality the disciples faced every time they stepped in a boat and set out for the other side, it would also have represented for them the chaos that existed before God brought the world into order at creation. And culturally, for anyone living at that time, the sea meant demonic spirits, underwater monsters, darkness, and danger. It was not a safe place. For the disciples, even on the best weather days, the sea most certainly was not serene.

Neither is the world in which we seek to follow Jesus. There are serene pockets, but most of the time, when we are called into ministry in the world, we are called into the chaotic sea.

Ministry is at times hard, it can be enormously complicated, and things can get quite muddled. It’s hard because sometimes it means going places that make us uncomfortable, sometimes it means being with people we don’t like. Sometimes we expend all our energy and it seems like nothing changes. It takes time we don’t have. Sometimes it means running afoul of authorities or cultural norms. Sometimes it means ridicule and hate. It’s hard.

And, it’s complicated. Addressing the problems and sufferings of this world is not a simple, straightforward matter. The problems we face – poverty, war, healthcare injustices, debt ceilings, a growing gap between the rich and poor – if these were easily solved then, well, they’d be solved. Instead, there are different ideas about the best way to solve these things, intelligent people who disagree, no clear path, and it’s pretty much two steps forward, one step back most of the time. Sometimes we don’t know if our attempts to help aren’t actually hurting instead.

And, it can be muddled. It’s not always clear that when we set out into the world to serve we are following God’s call. This question came up in our Friday noon bible study recently. How do we know if we are living our lives faithfully? It’s a really hard question. It’s tempting to use ease of life as a measure – in other words, if things are going along smoothly and all the pieces are fitting together, we must be on the right path. But in this passage, the right path is through stormy waters…it’s not easy…it’s choppy and dangerous – it’s downright terrifying. The disciples wonder if they see a ghost when Jesus approaches. How do we know if we are following Jesus or just a ghost?

But, regardless of all this, Jesus calls us out of the boat to follow him. He calls us to walk faithfully in the midst of this chaos, even when every bone in our body tells us we’re going to sink.

When I was a seminary student, I interned at a small church in El Cerrito, CA. This was another one of those “small, but mighty” churches. There were about 40 active members, but active they were. They were extremely justice oriented. I often found myself wearing my stoll in marches of all kinds. One of the things this church was involved with was labor rights. There was a group in N., CA that was specifically a faith-labor coalition that worked for justice for those at the bottom of the working world rungs – and our church was part of that group.

This was a tricky ministry, to put it mildly. Unions are, like literally all other institutions, a mixed bag. There was so much that was good about this partnership. Many things they stand for and work for are in line with my Christian values….fair pay, access to good health care, job security, etc. And, partnering with labor leaders meant tapping into their considerable networks and access to politicians and people who were actually making the decisions about these things. They had credibility, visibility, and access. It was a good partnership.

But, they also had agendas beyond and, in my humble opinion, at times contrary to the values we shared in common. And they really wanted the religious folks to sign on to the whole shebang, because it gave everything they did a kind of moral credibility. “See. The church is with us,” they could say. “It must be good.”

Navigating these complicated waters was no easy trick. It was tempting to be co-opted by the labor leaders. It felt good to have access to people in power. It felt hopeful to have a voice and be heard. Things actually happened. Cities adopted living wage ordinances, new hires were receiving good benefits, and people were free to organize in places it had once been impossible. I don’t have to tell you how satisfying it is to actually feel like your faith in action is accomplishing something good.

But power corrupts…even the best of us . I had to stay constantly on my toes, evaluating each new issue that came before us from the labor leaders to make sure what we were doing still aligned with my values. I had to think through consequences, I had to understand labor/management dynamics, I had to know the history of unions, I had to discern when something was right and when it just felt good to have some power. I had to figure out how to distance myself at times when labor was pressuring me to stand by their side. It was hard. It was complicated. And at times I was confused about who to trust and what was “right”. Was I following Jesus or the ghost of Jimmy Hoffa?

But, none of that negated the fact that it was important work, and I truly believe the church should have been right in the middle of it all. It was the faithful thing to do, even if times it felt chaotic and I was unsure of myself. I’m sure I made mistakes, I’m sure I missed opportunities, and I’m sure there were times I was used by people for political gain. But in the end, I think it was a good ministry – helping the least among us.

We are called into this world to do ministry. This world. The seas are rough, the waves are high, and doing ministry can at times feel about as easy as walking on water.

“You of little faith,” Jesus says to Peter. I think Peter’s lack of faith was that he wanted Jesus to save him by plucking him out of the chaos and setting him back in the boat at the first sign of difficultly. When he cried, “Save me!!”, he didn’t mean, “show me how to stay out here and continue the journey with you.” He meant, “Get me outta’ here! I can’t be with you on the stormy seas of life!”

We’re called to ministry in this chaotic world. I do think we are called out of the boat to walk through stormy waters, and I think in many ways this church is already are out of the boat.

Of course, at times we feel at times like we’re sinking – that the water is over our heads and we wish for a Jesus that would get us on safe ground and do all the work himself. We feel like we’re sinking when things get hard, so we sometimes do whatever we can to get back in the boat. We pull out, we leave it up to others, we make excuses. But if we want to stay in the water with Jesus, we can stick with it, finding the support we need when things are tough. We can lean on each other, and put one foot in front of the other as we walk toward Jesus.

We feel like we’re sinking when things get complicated, so we are tempted to oversimplify. We ignore complexities and then, like bulls in a china shop, we can cause all sorts of damage. But if we want to stay in the water with Jesus, we can use our God-given ability to reason through things. We can be wise and thoughtful. And then we can step forward – knowing there are times we have to choose between the lesser of two evils and sometimes we will get it wrong. But knowing also that’s the reality of ministry in a chaotic, complicated world.

Finally, we feel like we’re sinking when things feel muddled, so we look for people to follow who claim certainty. We turn to charismatic leaders with all the answers who are happy to lead us wherever they want to go. But if we want to stay in the waters with Jesus we can regularly practice discernment; checking in with ourselves about who or what we are following. Using scripture, trusted friends, fellow church members, we can listen for Jesus’ voice amidst the loud storms of life.

Jesus is our model for faith in the midst of chaos. And he calls us out of the boat into the chaotic world to minister, like he did, to the lost and least, the lonely and abandoned, the oppressed and the poor. It won’t always be easy, it won’t always be clear what to do, we won’t always be sure we’re following Jesus rather than a ghost. But if we stay grounded in the life of Jesus, we won’t sink. Amen.