I was about ten years old. Our extended family was at the ocean on a beach vacation; I was having the time of my life making sandcastles and tossing a football and bodysurfing with my cousins. I remember bobbing up and down in the waves on my tiptoes with my chin just above the waterline. And then a big wave crashed over my head. The undertow dragged me out further than I intended, and I couldn’t touch the bottom anymore. I gasped for breath; another wave broke. I swallowed salt water and began choking. And then strong hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me toward shore. My oldest cousin had seen me struggling and came to my aid.

That day I experienced how the terror of drowning and the wonder of rescue can coincide. Maybe that’s how Peter felt with Jesus amid the storm on the Sea of Galilee. The Gospel writers all describe Peter as having a sort of reckless, impulsive, “leap before you look” tendency. So his strange test for Jesus was in character: “If it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” There’s a common reading of this moment that praises Peter’s stepping out of the boat as a display of bravery in the face of fear. Debie Thomas puts bluntly, “I think this reading is dangerous. Nowhere in the Gospels are we called to prove our faith (or test God’s character) by taking pointless risks that threaten our lives.”

Thomas continues: “[Peter] has every right to be afraid when his boat pitches in the dark sea; feeling scared in the face of danger is not the problem. The problem is that fear leads him straight to suspicion and distrust. His fear leads him to test and question Jesus’s identity, instead of taking Jesus’s self-disclosure at face value.” Jesus’ question, after reaching out a hand to save the sinking Peter, was, “Why did you doubt?” Not, “Why did you doubt you could walk on water?” But, “Why did you doubt me? Why didn’t you trust me when I told you who I was?”

Jesus had finally gotten to claim the alone time he needed after feeding and healing a crowd of thousands. He had to fight for it. He made the disciples get in the boat without him. So from the outset, there was tension and resistance, and perhaps fear? My guess is the disciples, experienced sailors, looked out at the sky and the water, and they knew what was coming. By nightfall, the boat was battered, or in the Greek, tortured by the waves. This language hints that demonic forces were at work, In antiquity, the sea was a symbol of chaos, the home of destructive monsters that were constantly battling with the Creator seeking to unravel earth’s life-sustaining order. So it’s not surprising that the disciples were terrified when they saw a ghostly figure walking toward them on the heaving waves. And yet the words of Jesus called them toward wonder too.

“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” “It is I” can also be translated simply “I AM,” which hearkens back to the time when Moses, tending his flock in the wilderness, encountered an amazing sight, a bush, that blazed with fire and yet was never consumed by it. The voice from the bush commanded Moses to go to the Pharaoh of Egypt to demand freedom for the enslaved Israelites. And Moses—unqualified, inclined to refuse—demanded to know the name of the God who was sending him. “I AM who I AM,” God said.

So Jesus’ water-walking is not the most amazing part of this story. It points us toward something far more wondrous. As the disciples battled to keep their tortured boat from capsizing, they encountered, in Jesus, the one called I AM. At the heart of Jesus’ presence was a profound and life-changing reassurance—the Creator who gives life and holds the world in love is trustworthy. The disciples experienced this truth concretely when Jesus, without hesitation, extended his hand to steady and save his faltering friend. “Truly you are the son of God,” the disciples exclaimed. I think this is not so much a doctrinal statement as a moment of awakening. Walking on the stormy sea; healing the sick; feeding hungry crowds; feasting with outcasts and liberating captives—Jesus’ way of showing up communicates that God can be trusted.

Recently a reporter from a local news outlet, The Mill City Times, got in touch with me. Could she interview me about the church and our upcoming 175th anniversary? (She’s a friend of Bill Lindberg’s, so thanks to Bill for making this connection.) Among the insightful questions she sent was this one: If someone who had never attended church walked through your doors this Sunday, what would you hope they would experience? Here’s part of what I wrote: “I hope they feel that our worship is alive. I hope they experience something that moves them to tears or laughter or deep thought. I hope they appreciate the beauty of poetry, scripture, music, visual art and preaching woven together in a coherent yet diverse conversation, and understand there’s room for their voice too.”

I believe our life together as a congregation holds us in a creative tension; it leads us into a space in which fear and wonder can meaningfully coincide. Wherever you are on your journey, you are welcomed; you belong; you are valuable. At the very same time, there’s always something more and something deeper pulling on us, invitations to consider, offerings to make, opportunities to be transformed. Amid all that is frightening about this stormy moment in history, as demonic forces threaten to capsize our little boats and the weight of griefs pulls our heads beneath the waves and we grow tired, weak and worn, in this place, among these friends, a steady, trustworthy hand reaches for our hand and God-with-us tugs at our hearts, opening us to wonder.

Today’s story does indeed urge us to take risks. Those risks don’t involve leaping recklessly into the waves, or testing God and one another with fear and suspicion. Today as we prepare for our congregational meeting, it might, on the surface, seem that the risks and rewards before us are all about money or the building, or whether we will like the color of the paint. However, there’s a reason that, in ancient times, the ship at sea became a key symbol for the church. Not the church as a building; the church as a community. I believe that all this work we are doing to care for this sacred space we’ve inherited, to celebrate our anniversary, to launch a capital campaign, is (underneath the surface) about risking trusting relationship. Amid those howling storms bent on using our fear to alienate us from each other, the holy leap of faith before us is the possibility of mutual love and service, both among ourselves and increasingly in collaboration with a broader coalition of folks who choose to be in this boat alongside us—rescuing food, supporting seniors, making music, defending neighbors, play with toys, and even roleplaying as vampires. Friends, together, we are indeed called to do wondrous things in these terrifying times. May wonder lead us, indeed. Amen.