Our adult daughter Katie is a developmentally disabled adult on the autism spectrum.This doesn’t slow her down much and she often has insights the rest of us miss.
The scripture she quotes most often is Matthew 15:21-28. Jesus is approached by a relentless Gentile woman screaming “Lord help me” and begging him to drive an evil spirit out of her daughter.
Jesus pointedly ignores her. When she persists, he dismisses her emphatically.
“I was sent only to the children of the house of Israel.”
Katie’s commentary is precise.
“Jesus made a bad choice.”
Perhaps Katie is seeing a side of Jesus we rarely talk about. The human Jesus, tired and harassed by crowds seeking his attention. The human Jesus who, out of exhaustion, might say, “Don’t bother me.”
We know Jesus relents because of the woman’s faith and we may think Jesus was just testing her.
But Katie sees another side of Jesus.
“He made a bad choice.”
In Matthew 14:22-33, we see another side of Jesus we haven’t seen before.
The disciples are used to – dare we use the phrase? – gentle Jesus meek and mild, the unflappable Jesus who teaches in parables, the Jesus who patiently persuades people to enter the kingdom of God, the Jesus ever ready to cure the sick, the Jesus who welcomes sinners and tax collectors into his presence.
In Matthew 14:22, he’s not asking. He’s telling. He’s ordering his disciples: get in the boat.
The updated edition of the New Revised Standard Version puts it clearly enough: “he made the disciples get into the boat.”
The writer of Matthew chooses the word anagkazō. This word means “to compel, to constrain, to force.” The New American Standard Bible translates it plainly: He “compelled” them. This verb appears only nine times in the entire New Testament, and in every instance it carries the weight of compulsion rather than invitation.
New Testament scholar Zina Jacque notes Jesus had no intention of allowing the disciples off the hook. “He put (the disciples) in that boat the way a teacher puts a test on your desk. You did not ask for it. You may not be ready for it. But it is here, and you are going to take it.”
This is where the rubber of faith hits the road. The disciples have been talking a good game but their faith has not yet been tested. Now they have been compelled to board a small boat that is being tossed about violently on a churning sea.
“Look how Matthew describes it,” Dr Jacque writes. “Verse 24 says the boat was basanizomenon, tormented, by the waves. Our English Bibles may say ‘battered”’ or ‘tossed.’ But the Greek is far more violent. Basanizō is the word used elsewhere in Matthew for demonic torment (8:29). This is not rough weather. This is the kind of experience that exhausts every resource you have brought with you. The disciples’ arms are spent. Their strategies have failed. Every skill they have for managing a boat in a storm has been used up. This test has left them defeated and in despair. And this is precisely when Jesus shows up.”
That’s the test: will we have the faith to endure the worst, trusting that Jesus will show up?
There are many in our church history who summoned great courage to pass the test. Foremost among them was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor, teacher, and writer.
For Bonhoeffer the cost of discipleship was severe. He had left a tenured position at Union Seminary to return to his native Germany to oppose the Third Reich. On April 9, 1945, barely a month before the war in Europe ended, Bonhoeffer was cruelly executed by the Nazis for participating in a plot to assassinate Hitler. Piano wire was wrapped around his neck and he was strung up until he slowly strangled to death.
Eberhard Bethge, a student and close friend of Bonhoeffer, writes of a man who saw the execution:
“I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
For those who ponder discipleship, this account should be kept in mind. When Bonhoeffer decided to become a Lutheran pastor he may have anticipated a quiet life of writing and teaching. Instead, he died a martyr at 39.
He passed the test. God grant that we will never be tested that severely.
Back on the tossing boat, the disciples are struggling to submit to God’s will.
In this scene, the storm is not merely the setting for a miracle; it is the place where Jesus reveals himself as the sovereign I AM and teaches his disciples where true rescue begins.
As the disciples hold on for dear life on the raging sea, we must remember that the tempest is not merely the backdrop for a miracle.
Jesus appears walking on the water with reassuring words: “Take heart. I AM. Do not be afraid.” (Tharseite, ego eimi, mē phobeisthe.)
“He says the bare, unfinished, unqualified I AM, the name that needs no completion because it contains everything,” says Dr Jacque. “He is the one who walked on the waters at creation (Job 9:8), the one who rules the surging sea (Psalm 89:9), the one who was present before the foundation of the world. The one who can help them finish this test.”
But Peter, who makes us think of the student in class who reminds the teacher no homework has been assigned, is determined to get extra credit for the test.
Peter cried out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” (Matthew 14:28)
Jesus may have stifled a smile when he said, “Come.”
We all know what happened next.
“Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and began to sink.” (Matthew 14:29-30)
Moments later, sitting on the boat as lake water drizzled from his nostrils, did Peter feel embarrassment? Chagrin? Did he feel liken he had flunked the test?
The lesson, ultimately, is not to seek extra credit or to strive to be head of the class.
Peter sank beneath the waves and had no power to save himself.
The test Jesus compelled Peter and the disciples to take is distilled into a three word lesson:
Kyrie, sōson me. “Lord, save me.”
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