11 Pentecost, 2026-A: Responsive, willing witnesses

Lectionary: 1 Kings 19:9-18; Psalm 85:8-13; Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33  

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador... 

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

I begin today with some discussion of our Episcopal identity. Lesson 1: The Anglican Church was not founded by King Henry VIII so that he could divorce his wife and marry his mistress. Henry lived and died a Roman Catholic.

What Henry did was establish the Church of England, which was subject to his authority, not the authority of the Pope. Our true founder was Henry’s daughter by Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, who, at the height of the Reformation Era, enacted the Elizabethan Settlement, which consisted of two parts: 1) the Act of Supremacy, making Elizabeth (again, not the Pope) the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and 2) the Act of Uniformity, requiring the use of a worship book she commissioned; a book that intentionally included elements common to both Catholics and Protestants, hence the name: The Book of Common Prayer.

“The Elizabethan Settlement sought to be an inclusive middle course between divergent religious positions.” Elizabeth’s goal was that all Britons would live in peace, which they did throughout her 45-year reign. So, from our beginnings, we have valued diversity and inclusion.

Lesson 2: We have only two dogmas, that is, things you must believe to be an Episcopalian. Who can tell me what they are and where to find them in the BCP?

They are: 1) that God is Trinity in Unity and 2) that Jesus, who is the second person of the Trinity, is the Savior. Come to the next Episcopal 101 to find out where to find this in our BCP. 

Those are our only two dogmas, so the rest, as they say, is up for discussion, which is what we do as an institutional church at our conventions: parish, diocesan, and General. We agree to move forward together, having prayed and studied whatever issue is before us. Not everyone is happy with the movements we take, or how long it takes us to get there, but we commit to staying in relationship, praying together, and trusting God to show us how, when, and where to go.

As we ponder today’s Collect and lectionary, I hope we hear them as a diverse group of beloved ones who survive by staying in relationship with God and one another. If I could rewrite one word in our Collect, I’d say give us “the spirit to think and do always those things that are righteous,” that is, reflective of a right relationship with God and one another.

Paul does a good, if confusing, job describing righteousness in his letter to the Romans. Essentially, it is a visible agreement of our words and actions grounded in our faith in a loving, generous, inclusive God, manifested in Jesus, the Christ. Also, I think Paul might have been an Episcopalian at heart, because he says, “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

The gospel from Matthew offers us a wonderful opportunity to remember our commitment to diversity. Some people believe that Jesus and Peter actually walked on water. Others believe the story is mythological.

It’s perfectly legitimate to believe that it actually happened. It’s also OK to believe it’s a myth, provided we don’t limit our understanding of a myth to something that is untrue or ahistorical. In his book, “Life Lessons from the Great Myths, Prof. J Rufus Fears says that a myth is “the vehicle by which cultures throughout human history have passed their most important values and beliefs on to future generations.” (The Great Courses, Chantilly, VA, 2011, p 1) In that sense, this gospel story is certainly mythological.

We will discuss the gospel today from both perspectives. Let’s begin by looking at the deeply symbolic language used by Matthew, who, you remember, was writing to a Jewish audience.

After feeding the 5000, plus women and children, Jesus sends the disciples to “the other side” of the Sea of Galilee, referring to the Gentile side. Then Jesus goes up the mountain alone, a familiar phrase to Jewish listeners that meant going to be with God to pray.

It was evening, so the light, which is the means by which we see and understand, was diminishing as the disciples moved away from Jesus’ presence, their boat being carried out into stormy waters. This is a reference to the Creation story in Genesis, where God separated the water from the firmament, establishing a firm foundation to stand upon.

The gospel says their boat was being battered by waves, and the wind was against them. The boat is the community vessel, in our language, the Church. The storms of the world were battering them, and the wind seemed to be against them. As we heard in 1 Kings, winds strong enough to split mountains exist on earth, and God is not in them. God wasn’t battering the disciples; the world was.

The unique geography of the Sea of Galilee explains how sudden and severe storms can happen. Sitting 700 feet below sea level and surrounded by mountains means cold air from above can suddenly clash with warm air by the water, resulting in waves of up to 10 feet that crash onto shorelines and can sink ships.

Jesus returns to them, symbolized by the morning light, but they were terrified because they couldn’t understand what they were seeing. Jesus was walking on the water!

To walk, in Biblical language, is to be in a close relationship with God, e.g., Noah, Moses, and Abraham walked with God. It can also refer to how we conduct our lives, how we behave. The Offertory sentence I use most often begins: Walk in love, as Christ loved us...

So, Jesus walks calmly toward them on stormy, chaotic waters. How could they understand this? It was an impossibility. Terrified, they cried out their best guess - he must be a ghost, literally, a phantasma, an apparition. Jesus calms their fears by saying, " Don’t be afraid. It is I. Matthew is using Biblical language for the name of God, referencing the story in Exodus when God sent Moses to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and Moses asked, Who shall I say sent me? And God said, tell them I AM sent you.

Jesus is claiming his divine identity while still in his human form. The Word made Flesh. God Incarnate. No wonder they had trouble understanding... 

God bless Peter, who says, Well, it if IS you, command me to come to you on the water. Come, Jesus says, though it’s more of an invitation than a command.

When the world is storming around us, we may hear this simple invitation: Come. Walk into the storm. I Am here. Do you trust me?

Peter does trust and walks out onto the water. In the realness of the storm, however, Peter becomes aware of how dangerous it is, and how unsafe he is, and he begins to sink in fear.

We all know what that feels like, don’t we? The harsh reality of the ferocity and destructiveness of some in the world can overwhelm us. Fear can interrupt our walk with God, and when it does, we begin to sink into darkness.

The beauty of Peter is, when his faith faltered, he cried out to Jesus, “Save me!” And Jesus did, immediately reaching out and catching Peter. Whenever we feel overwhelmed, when our faith falters, be like Peter and call out to Jesus, who will reach out and catch us, too, lifting us back up into life.

Jesus’s question to Peter, why did you doubt? is important. Not because Jesus is chastising Peter for doubting (he isn't), but because by naming it, Jesus is validating that when we doubt, he will remind us that he’s there. To doubt is human, and it enables us to grow through it into maturity of faith, just as it did for Peter.

Back in the vessel of their community, the boat, the wind ceased. Christ’s peace, which is different from the peace of this world, was established, and everyone on the boat witnessed this happen and began worshipping Jesus.

We learn from this story that our goal is to live our lives faithfully, remembering that what we do and say is being witnessed by someone: our children, our friends, our neighbors in our boat, and the global connections we have on social media. Ours is an ever-growing faith that will falter. Sometimes we will doubt, fear, and sink into darkness, but when we do, we call out to God in Christ, who catches us and raises us up to life again.

Our witness, like Peter’s, is NOT about being perfect. It’s about being responsive to Christ’s invitation to us, being willing to keep walking in love, growing in our faith, and whenever possible, to be the hand that reaches out in Jesus’ name, to someone else who is sinking into a stormy darkness. Amen.

10 Pentecost, 2026-A: How to be the Church in the world.

Lectionary:Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

En el nombre de Dios: creador, redentor y santificador.... In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

As we reflect on the stories in our lectionary today, I ask you to consider a) what do you believe about God, and b) how do you use that in your life?

I learned at our Bible study this week that our Collect for today was written about 1500 years ago. That puts in in the era of the Early Middle Ages, aka, the Dark Ages. The Roman empire had just fallen, destabilizing the world. Trade routes for food, goods, and manufacture that had been safe under the Pax Romana, were now treacherous as local, tribal groups began to build or rebuild kingdoms in the vacuum of the Roman absence. War was everywhere. People were struggling to eat, to work, to survive. Their focus on survival resulted in little to no advancement in education art, music, and literature - hence the name: the Dark Ages.

It is in this context that our Collect was written. It’s a familiar context for us today. We are witnessing global destabilization in real time and it’s scaring many of us. When folks come to me with fear and anxiety over what’s happening in the world, I remind them that humankind has survived this before. God promised reconciliation of the whole world and God keeps God’s promises.

This Collect gives us words to pray when we’re afraid and our faith is faltering. The Church, however, is the people of God (us), not an institution (it), so we might rephrase the Collect saying, “because we cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern us always by your goodness.”

The goodness of God is a truth we can always count on. Despite what many so-called Christians say about a vengeful, punishing God who hates sinners, the psalmist reminds us that God is gracious and “full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness”...and “loving to everyone.” There is no “except for” here. God’s love is inclusive of everyone.

This psalm has been attributed to King David and was believed to be written near the end of his life, so it reflects a spiritual maturity David gained in his lifetime. Not only is God good, kind, loving, and compassionate, but God is also generous to meet our needs, near to us whenever we call, and protects us against those who would harm us.

The inclusive nature of God’s love is also attested to in Isaiah. Ho, everyone... Isaiah says, if you are thirsty, come to the waters. You don’t need money. Come buy wine and milk without money, without price. Eat what is good, delight in rich foods.

Then God, speaking through the prophet, says, “come to me, listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant” and he names David a faithful witness. And we just heard David’s witness: that God is good, kind, loving, compassionate, generous, near to us, hears us, and protects us.

These Old Testament texts provide us with a foundation for our understanding of the inclusive, loving, attentive nature of God. How does your understanding of God fit with this? What did you learn about the nature of God growing up - especially if you are LGBTQIA2S+ , an immigrant, poor, or female?

Did you feel included in the love of God in the Church? As a female, I didn’t. My gay child and friends didn’t, because the Church used their power to exclude those whom God had always intended to include.

It’s still happening today in the Church and by the people of God in the world. I read this week that the Missouri Secretary of State is threatening to block state and federal funding from a library in Columbia that read LGBTQ+ books to children at a recent public event. If they didn’t violate the law, one of our Senators said he wants to change the law to prohibit this from happening in the future. According to their official government pages, these men are professed Christians.

How do we use what we believe about God? To include or to exclude? To serve or to dominate?

Our Gospel story today teaches us how we are to use what we believe about God in Christ. It is, in my opinion, Jesus’ first lesson to the disciples on how to be the Church in the world. It is also, the real first Eucharist, but we’ll get to that later.

The context is this: Jesus has just learned that his beloved cousin, John the Baptist, has been beheaded by Herod. So, Jesus retreats to a deserted place by himself. Anyone who is deeply grieving can understand this. Add to that, John’s murder by the state was unjust according to Jewish law, manipulated, and horrifying by any standard. In addition, Herod strangely believed that Jesus, who was born just months after John, is the reincarnation of John, so he’s out to kill him too.

Jesus is confronting political insanity, which is generating horrible, unjust violence against perceived enemies. Somehow, this feels familiar these days, which is why we can identify with that feeling of being depleted by what the world around us is doing.

The gospel says, “when they heard it” (and we’re not sure if that refers to John’s beheading or Jesus’ retreat), the people followed Jesus on foot. Jesus comes ashore to find a great crowd waiting for him - and he had compassion on them and cured their sick. As the psalmist says, The Lord “fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them.”

We don’t know how long Jesus spent among the crowd healing them, but we do know it lasted until the end of day, because when evening came, the disciples wanted to send the crowd away so they could eat.

Here comes that first lesson from Jesus on how to be the Church in the world. They don’t need to go away, Jesus says. YOU give them something to eat.

I hope we hear “something to eat” as more than just consuming food. Being fed by God is much bigger than that, isn’t it? In fact, it’s what we Episcopalians do each Sunday when we gather together as God’s people, the Church. We share a Eucharist, which features the holy food of God, aka, Holy Communion.

How will we do that, the disciples ask. We have only five loaves and two fish. This resonates with Mary’s question to the archangel, Gabriel: How will I bear the Son of God when I haven’t been with a man? The answer both times: nothing is impossible for God. Be the vessel. Let God act through you.

Jesus tells the disciples to bring all they have to him. I hope we hear that as more than just bread and fish. Bring all they have, all they are. Then he enacts the first Holy Communion, the first sacred meal that makes a community out of varied and diverse people gathered together, drawn there to be fed by God.

Jesus blessed and broke the bread and gave it to his disciples. Sound familiar? Then he told the disciples to give the bread to the crowds. God’s holy food for God’s holy people. No exclusions. No course to take or test to pass. No secret handshake to learn. Give it to everyone who wants it, Jesus said.

And everyone who ate was filled. And there was an abundance left over because that is the generous nature of God’s love.

Do we have ears to hear this? This is Jesus telling us how to be the Church in the world. How does this fit with what we believe about God and how do we use that in the world today?

In the Diocese of Missouri, our bishop enables us to live this faithfully by offering Holy Communion to all who are present. You’ll hear the invitation later in our service.

At Emmanuel, we welcome all whom God draws near, just as they are, embracing them with friendship and inviting them to participate in all parts of our parish life. I’ve had several conversations in just the past two weeks with folks who have been told by the church of their childhood that they are intrinsically disordered and barred from communion, marriage, ordination, and participating in parts of their parish’s life and work. They have been condemned as sinful, and their life problems were blamed on their sin. It’s truly heartbreaking, and so I give thanks for this wonderful lectionary that reminds us of who God really is, and who we are in relationship to God and one another.

To sum up then: God is good, kind, loving, compassionate, generous, meets our needs, is near to us, hears us when we call, and protects us against those who would harm us. We, the people of God, the Church, are to do likewise in the world: loving all God’s people, hearing and responding to the cries of those in need, protecting the vulnerable from those who would harm them. We are to gather in community to share our thanks and the holy food of God, feeding anyone and everyone God draws to us from the bread of life, given to us in Jesus, the Christ. Amen.