In Over Our Heads, But Not Alone

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 23 and Acts 9: 36-43 Sermon title: In Over Our Heads, But Not Alone Preached on May 12, 2019 You might know the comic strip, B.C. It runs daily in the Marietta Daily Journal, as well as most other papers, and is set at the dawn of time in the age of cavemen and cavewomen yet offers subtle commentary on our lives today. Last Wednesday that was especially true. In the first frame of the comic, the caveman or “cave-husband” announces, “I’ve invented the dishwasher.” Obviously, this is the first dishwasher ever invented, so in the second frame he demonstrates how one would place a plate in the rack of his new invention, as this is something that’s never been done before. But as he’s bending over and placing the plate in the rack, in the third frame the cavewoman comes up behind him to say, “Good grief! You’re doing that all wrong!” Husbands, has that ever happened to you? Every day that happens to me. Only, the truth is, to do things correctly, I often do need supervision. That’s true of many of us. On this mother’s day we have to give thanks to God for those women who keep us out of trouble. Most men need their mothers, spouses, sisters, and daughters for exactly this reason. If it weren’t for them many of us would be wearing only the t-shirts on top in our drawers and the same ties we bought fifteen years ago. However, I should be careful about making generalizations. Not all men are this way. Take Thomas for example. A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon on the disciple Thomas who doubts the other disciples when they tell him the Lord has risen from the dead. I tried to make the case that when Thomas doubts them, asking for proof, he’s actually being courageous. That would be consistent with his character illustrated elsewhere in the Gospels. In the Gospel of John Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” You’ve heard these verses. They’re read at most funerals. In response, you can imagine all the disciples saying, “Sure, we know the way.” However, Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” because he was the only man courageous enough to ask for directions. What he didn’t know, he asked about. That was Thomas. What about Peter? Peter is the one in the spotlight this week. He’s been called on to raise a beloved woman from dead. Sounds easy enough. The thing about Peter is that Jesus always believed in Peter more than Peter believed in himself. Do you remember when Jesus was walking out on the water and he called Peter to walk out with him? In the 14th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus was walking on the sea. Peter saw him with the other disciples and said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come,” so Peter got out of the boat they were in, and started walking on the water, but then he noticed a strong wind, became frightened, and started to sink. What did Jesus do? Peter cried out in his distress and Jesus saved him. That’s what Jesus does when he’s around, but what happens when Jesus isn’t there to bail him out? That’s a question many mothers ask of their children: “What are you going to do when I’m not here to remind you to do your homework, pack your lunch, do your laundry, pay your bills, and make sure you pay attention to road signs?” On Wednesday, page two of the Marietta Daily Journal, was an article titled: “Bridge beam struck, take 19.” If you need a good reason to subscribe to the Marietta Daily Journal, coverage of trucks ignoring the height restrictions on the historic Concord Road Covered Bridge alone makes our local paper invaluable. The truck that did it last week was hauling a trailer, and I can imagine that the driver’s wife or mother wasn’t with him in the truck. Why? Because if she had been, she would have been doing the same thing the cavewoman was doing in the BC comic: “Good grief, you’re doing this all wrong! It says it right there on the sign. The trailer is too tall, honey.” You can imagine what it would be like if Peter were driving that truck. Without Jesus helping him through life he gets in all kinds of trouble. He wants to walk out on the water with the Lord. Jesus tells him, just don’t be afraid. Have faith. Peter can’t do it. He starts sinking. What will happen to Peter without Jesus around? Today is Mother’s Day. A day to acknowledge that without some people, like Peter, we would be a mess. I used to send our girls to preschool un-ponytailed. I’d have to say to their teacher, handing her a rubber band and brush, “Would you please help me with this? I just can’t do it.” We pack to go on a trip. Sara asks our girls and me whether or not we packed enough underwear. This is how it is. On Mother’s Day we have to give thanks for the people who were there helping us figure out how to make it in this world. And we do have to figure it out, because at some point we have to do it without mama there to help us. For Peter it wasn’t mama. It was Jesus, but it’s the same thing. He had seen Jesus do what the widows were asking Peter to do, only it’s one thing to ride in the back seat of a car and it’s another thing to drive. When Peter found himself in an upper room with Tabitha laying in state, clean and completely dead, you can imagine why he asked everyone to leave the room where she lay. It’s so he could panic. “Please come to us without delay,” was the message these widows sent to Peter. “I thought they just wanted me to preach,” I can imagine Peter saying, only there’s more to being a disciple than preaching. Being a disciple also demands a lot of doing, so Peter went, and I’ve been asked to do enough that was out of my comfort zone and beyond my abilities to have some idea of what it must have felt like for him to be there in that room with Tabitha, a crowd of her friends full of unrealistic expectations right on the other side of the door. There are so many moments in life that demand too much from us. And the worst is when I realize so clearly that there’s no one else to help. It has to be me. Mama wasn’t there to do it for him. Jesus wasn’t around to do it either. It had to be Peter. Do you know what that feels like? I can just imagine what images thinking this way might bring up to your consciousness. In this room today are sons who became fathers. Daughters who became mothers, and some who then became mothers to their own mothers. Right here in this sanctuary are those who long ago went to doctors when they were sick, then became doctors themselves, only now in retirement they have to get used to being the patient again. And I’m up here preaching this morning, but who’s in the choir? The man I grew up listening to. Here I am, and if you think it doesn’t terrify me every time, you’d be wrong, because it does. Only walking out in faith into unchartered territory is what life demands. Jesus calls us to walk out on the water and into the room where the dead woman lies, for if we only do what we’re comfortable doing, we never find out what He’ll do through us if we just trust him. If we never have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we never learn that just when we think we’re all alone, we’re not. though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; [why?] for you are with me. That’s how it was with Peter. He “put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed.” What did he pray, you might wonder, and I don’t know what he prayed, but had it been me my prayer would have been something like, “Lord, I don’t know how I got into this, but you’re going to have to get me out, so work through me please!” It must have been like the prayer uttered by all those who have to say goodbye but don’t believe they have the strength to do it. The kind of prayer voiced by those who need a miracle to make it in a world without their mother by their side. It must have been like the prayer moaned by the desperate and overwhelmed who know what it feels like to drown, in or away from the water. Peter must have prayed the same prayer that we all pray when we suddenly realize that “if it is to be, it is up to me.” That’s a Harvey Mackay quote. He is a seven-time New York Times best-selling author, who among other books, wrote one called “Beware of the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt.” Jean Ray quoted him to me, and it struck me because I have an idea of what it must have felt like to be in that room. To know that it fell to you to speak, but to realize as you utter the words that you’re not alone at all, because this is exactly what they prepared us for. After praying he turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” It’s a powerful moment, but it’s in moments like this that we so truly know that we’re hardly alone and that we are capable of far more than we ever dreamed. However, our fear would keep us from even trying. Too often we’re so consumed with fear we just sink down into the water. Fear that we’re not enough and never will be ensures that we never live up to what we’re capable of. Last Thursday in the paper was a quote from Laurence J. Peter, a Canadian born educator who said, “Television has changed the American child from an irresistible force into an immovable object.” I got a lot of material out of the MDJ this week, didn’t I? But Mr. Peter is right. Those how only watch TV fall asleep to what they’re capable of. While those kids who walk into our Club 3:30 program hear something else. Their graduation was last Wednesday night, and the speech that struck me the most was from one of the graduates of the program, now a college graduate, and former recipient of the Peggy Bullard Scholarship. Daniel Leon got up there and said, “I want to thank all of you who helped me with my homework, but especially Libba Schell, who would say to me week after week, “one day you’re going to be my doctor or my lawyer.” What gift that was to him, as now he goes out into the world knowing he has the potential to do far more than he’d ever imagined. Like him and like Peter, we have to walk out onto the water, knowing that life may be overwhelming, but we’re never alone. Even when it fell to Peter to say the words, still Christ was with him. For when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with us. And even when we walk out these doors to do who knows what and to go who knows where, we may be in over our heads, but we are never alone. Amen.