If your viewing of the Olympics includes women’s gymnastics, you will know that the beam on which they perform stands some three or four feet off the ground, and is only four inches wide. The gymnasts of course do all sorts of complicated routines on it, but for a beginner it’s actually quite hard just to walk from one end to the other without wobbling and falling off. Even to do that you have to relax, take a deep breath, look straight ahead, and keep walking. As you do so, however simple or complicated your routine may be, you have to believe you can do it. A moment’s hesitation, a moment’s doubt, and you’ll be picking yourself up off the floor.
What happened to Saint Peter in our gospel reading this morning must have been something like that. Jesus says æCome’ and he sets off full of confidence, but then he sees how perilous his situation is, his confidence deserts him, and he begins to sink. æLord, save me’ he cries. The visionary Peter who has been confidently walking on the water, has looked away from his Master’s face, he has seen how rough it is out there, his confidence has evaporated. As he cries out for help, he is already knee deep in the water and sinking fast. But Jesus reaches out his hand to catch him and take him back to safety in the boat. I don’t know whether Jesus and Peter really walked on the water, but the story is certainly credible at a different level, as an illustration of Peter’s faith. He was the first of the disciples to make the bold leap of faith, declaring Jesus to be the Messiah (Mark 8.29), but then, almost immediately, distracted by his human perception that the Lord of all things must not be allowed to suffer, he loses sight of the truth about Jesus that he has just grasped, he becomes foolishly belligerent û as indeed he will again in the garden of Gethsemane – and he has to be sharply rebuked.
The great prophet Elijah is not unlike Peter in some respects, a man of vision, courage and action, but one whose faith needs a steadying hand. He has just triumphed on Mount Carmel over the prophets of Baal. In a public contest, their prayers have remained unanswered, whilst his have drawn fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice he has laid out, and then the rain clouds have gathered to end seven years of drought. High on the adrenalin of success, he has run 20 miles ahead of the king’s chariot and the coming rain to celebrate his triumph. But then the reaction has set in. Ahab’s wicked queen Jezebel is not impressed. She has vowed revenge for the slaughter of her prophets, and Elijah û depressed by the continuing opposition, and physically and emotionally exhausted – has fled into the wilderness fearing for his life. After 40 days he has reached Mt Horeb û the holy mountain where Moses received the law. Like Moses on the same mountain, he is granted a vision of God, but the vision is not what he expects. He has been angry and zealous for the Lord his God, he has shouted and raged at Ahab and Jezebel, he has called for God to manifest himself in fire and flood, and fire and flood there has been, but as he stands in the mouth of his cave on Mt Horeb, witnessing storm and fire and earthquake, he becomes aware that the Lord is not present in these great and noisy demonstrations of unlimited elemental power. Instead he senses the presence of God in the æsound of sheer silence’. Twice he is asked, what are you doing here Elijah? The first time, before the vision, he blusters about his angry zeal against God’s people, and one senses that he expects God’s sympathy and approval. God does not answer him directly; he just places him on the mountain to watch as he passes by. When the question comes a second time, after the storm and the fire and the earthquake û and them the sheer silence û it is a chastened Elijah who stands in the mouth of his cave with his head wrapped in his cloak. He answers with the same words: æI have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ But one senses that this time the great prophet falters a little as he makes his complaint. The silent forbearance of God’s presence has changed him. And this time there is an answer û God has not given up on his people, Elijah is not as isolated as he supposes û there are thousands who have remained faithful û and he is sent back to get on with his work, Hazael and Jehu to be anointed as kings, Elisha to be anointed as his own successor.
Again we remember Peter. The storm is over, the sea is calm, and the disciples are as awe-struck in the sudden silence as Elijah was. There is another parallel with Peter’s experience later on, when his courage has taken him into the high priest’s house, but then deserted him when he is accused of being an associate of Jesus. The moment of denial must have felt like the moment when he began to sink below the stormy waves on Galilee. And once again, Jesus was there to hold out a rescuing hand. We don’t know what the risen Christ said to Peter when he appeared to him. Perhaps no words were needed. All we know is that Peter was restored and comforted, and then û like Elijah û he was ready to be given his next task, to æfeed my sheep’.
Peter lived 2000 years ago, Elijah more than 3000 years ago, but their experience of God’s response to crisis and stress is not strange to us. Elijah faces conflict and stress because he is in a position of leadership, where he has to stand firm against the prevailing culture. Peter at this stage in his life is just a fisherman caught in a sudden storm, a man facing the sort of situation which can overtake any one of us when things go wrong, and we have to react to a sudden crisis. But God hears them both as they appeal to him in their moment of most desperate need, and they sense his presence in a moment of stillness. For them that moment of stillness is unexpected, an awe-inspiring moment of revelation, but we should notice that for Jesus himself, finding time to be still in the presence of God was a regular part of his life. That very night, the disciples were crossing the lake without him because he had gone up the mountain by himself to pray.
When Paul is discussing how to attain a right relationship with God, he too dismisses any proactive attempt to chase after Christ whether by ascending to the heavens to bring him down or descending into the abyss to bring him up from among the dead. Echoing Moses own final instructions to the people of Israel, Paul reminds us that the word of faith which saves us is very near to us, on our lips and in our hearts. And what is that word? It is the saving conviction that Peter had at his best, when he trusted Jesus utterly, when he recognised Jesus as Lord.
When we leave this place, we go out to engage in the rough and tumble of our daily life, as Jesus did, as Peter did, as Elijah did. We have work to do, work which at times is bound to be stressful. But we can cope with the stress if, like Peter, we look steadily into Jesus’ face when he says æCome’, or if, like Elijah, we recognise the presence of God in the sound of sheer stillness. Fr Stephen withdraws from time to time to Tymawr, where he is beginning his sabbatical to-day, others go on retreat to Burford or elsewhere, but all of us value that moment of stillness week by week when we kneel at the Lord’s table to take the bread and the wine that are to us his Body and his Blood. As we offer to him our moments of triumph as well as our setbacks, our joys as well as our sorrows, the strains and stresses fall away. Like Elijah and Peter, as we experience God’s presence, we are rescued, renewed, refreshed and strengthened. Or in Paul’s words, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10.13).
Handley Stevens