Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Well, it's family Sunday, so I would like to invite all the kids who are here that are willing to come up. And you'll sit on the floor, I'll sit on a cushion, and we'll have a little playtime here.
You readers, you did an amazing job.
Those are. Yeah, What's that?
Oh, you got a little lost. Well, you know what? I get a little lost in those readings, too, sometimes.
They're long, they're complicated. And you guys did an awesome job.
Your mom whispered the words to you. That's what moms are for.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: I heard it, like, going, like.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Well, yeah, those were long, difficult readings.
But the story from the Gospel is pretty short and pretty sweet. It's one of my favorite stories in the whole New Testament. And is it okay if I tell it again?
Yeah, because sometimes we sort of miss it on the first hearing. I think maybe.
Well, sometimes I do. Maybe I should speak for myself.
So did you like the gospel story?
Yeah. Was there something in that story that really kind of jumped out at you? That.
Yeah. See?
What's that?
Oh, yeah, that's from the Old Testament reading.
Best line in that.
Here comes that dreamer.
Let's kill him.
What, throw them in a cistern?
Yeah, but don't let that stop you from being a dreamer. You know, I encourage you to dream a lot, to imagine what this world could be and what you could be in this world.
Being a dreamer is one of the most beautiful things that we can do, I think. But the gospel story, okay, it starts off kind of.
It starts off kind of strangely because it actually starts in the middle of another story, right? It says, as soon as the minish, the meal was finished, he, meaning Jesus, insisted that the disciples get on a boat and go on ahead to the other side. What meal are we talking about here?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Thanksgiving?
[00:03:04] Speaker A: Yes, in a way, she said Thanksgiving. In a way, right. Because right prior to this, in the story, Jesus has, like, thousands of people who have gathered to hear him, to listen to him. And after he gets done teaching them a lesson, his disciples come to him and they say, a lot of people here, and they're all really hungry, so you ought to send them home now so that they can fend for themselves and find some dinner. And Jesus says, no, don't tell them to leave.
You feed them.
You all feed them. And they said, well, we got five loaves of bread and we got a couple fish.
How are we going to feed them?
He says, bring me the fish, bring me the bread. And he blesses them. And then they go out and Somehow, miraculously, they feed thousands of people with five loaves and two fish.
How did that happen?
Magic or the grace of God, the love of God makes.
When we think we don't have enough. When we think we don't have enough resources or enough strength or courage to help other people.
Jesus blessing allows us to do miraculous things, things that we didn't even think we could do. So he feeds all these people, then he sends them home. And then he sends his disciples, his close friends, his besties, to get in the boat and go ahead to the other side.
So they're on the Sea of Galilee. And he's telling, oh, by the way, the Sea of Galilee, you know how big the sea.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: I've heard that at my school.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: You have? Yeah. Yeah.
You know how big the Sea of Galilee is?
[00:05:09] Speaker B: Very big.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Pretty big.
It's a little bit bigger than Jackson Lake or what I'm going to call from now on the Sea of Jackson.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: It's a lake.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Well, it's a big lake that they call the sea. To them it was the sea.
So he tells them, get in the boat and go to the other side.
So is he telling them, you all are on your own now?
Sort of.
Sort of beat it more like. Yeah, maybe beat it more like an encouragement. You all got this. Get in the boat, go on to the other side.
So they do. And Jesus goes up onto a mountaintop to be by himself and pray.
Have you all ever climbed a mountain around here? If your parents ever dragged you up a mountain?
Well, the thing about climbing a mountain is it's hard and it's also really beautiful. And so that's where Jesus goes when he wants to be alone and pray.
So Jesus goes up on the mountain, sends his besties across the Sea of Galilee in a boat and.
Yeah.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Watches them drown?
[00:06:38] Speaker A: No, it doesn't watch them drown.
Although it's a possibility. Right, and we'll get to that part.
Yeah.
So have any of you ever been on a boat on Jackson Lake?
So. So sometimes, yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful, isn't it?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah. We're all.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Going on Jackson today.
You're going with your besties on a boat on Jackson Lake today.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: One of you will go up the
[00:07:17] Speaker A: mountain and pray, and then you'll go up the mountain and pray.
You guys are living this story.
I love it.
So here's another question. Have you ever been on a boat on Jackson Lake on a sunny Sunday afternoon and had a storm blow in?
Maybe.
Okay.
I have never had that experience myself, but I have friends who have told Me what that experience is like to be out on the lake, cruising along, everything's good. Then all of a sudden the black clouds come rolling in over the Tetons and the water starts. This isn't going to happen today, I don't think. The water gets huge and the waves start crashing in and the wind is really scary. It can be a really scary place when that happens.
So Jesus sends them off on the boat, they're out on the lake. Jesus comes down off the mountain at 4 o' clock in the morning.
Have you ever been up at 4 o' clock in the morning?
Wait, wait, wait.
Well, half the night your dad gets up to go up early.
Yeah, I do that sometimes too.
Yeah.
Anyway, if you've ever been, if you've ever been awake at 4 o' clock in the morning, you know that it is the darkest time of night, right?
Now, I hope that none of you have ever lain awake at 4:00 clock in the morning, but I'll bet you that some of the people out there have done that.
Well, Woke up at 4 in the morning, a little bit scared, a little bit confused.
And first thing you do is go outside.
Well, that's a great idea.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: And then sleep on the floor or you sleep on.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: You do whatever you need to do to soothe yourself at 4 o' clock in the morning.
And I bet a lot of your parents and a lot of the other adults in this room can relate to waking up at 4, 4 o' clock in the morning feeling like you're lost at sea, feeling like the waves are too much for you, feeling like you are lost and you don't know what to do.
Afraid.
So that's kind of a common experience of being out on the sea at 4 o' clock in the morning with the waves crashing in and the wind blowing in your face.
That's where the disciples found themselves that night, at sea, lost, probably feeling a little hopeless, probably praying, help, help me, help me. Right.
I'll bet they were praying.
Well, they were helpless, weren't they? They were powerless. They were in a position of powerlessness.
And so they're out at sea. And much like laying awake at 4 o' clock in the morning or being out in the middle of Jackson Lake in a storm when it's dark.
Do you know what happens, do you know what happens next in the story?
It's especially scary in a kayak.
The next thing that happens in the story is, is here comes, here comes Jesus.
Here comes Jesus in the dark, 4 o' clock in the morning. And they see Jesus walking on the water towards them.
He probably didn't have a PFD on. Do you know what a PFD is? Well, we used to call them life vests, but now we've got a fancy name for them, which is Personal Flotation Device.
Always, always, always, always wear a personal, Personal flotation device when you're on the water.
A pfd. Okay. But Jesus is walking on the water towards the boat where his besties are being flipped around and turned around, and they see him and they think he's a ghost.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: He left them on the boat.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: He left them on the boat. They were kind of on their own there for a little bit, but they think he's a ghost and. Yeah.
Why are you human?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Why would he make his a ghost?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Well, because he's walking on water. They can't explain that in any other way than to use their imaginations and think, this must be a ghost. And Jesus says a beautiful thing there.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: And that scares them even more. But Jesus says a beautiful thing there. He says, courage. It's me.
Don't be afraid.
Peter, who is the main character in this story, except for Jesus, Peter suddenly becomes a little bit impetuous. That's a big word. Do you know what impetuous? Okay, impetuous means the. That he just sort of acts without thinking.
But he gets bold. He gets bold. So he says to Jesus, jesus, ask me to come to you so that I can walk on the water, too.
And Jesus says, come on in. The water's fine.
Peter has enough trust and enough faith to get out of that boat and start walking toward Jesus.
Then he gets afraid.
He must think, I'm walking on water.
Can I really do this? And as soon as he loses his trust, as soon as he loses his courage, he starts to sink.
Blub, blub, blub. And then Jesus reaches down his hand to Peter and he says, Come ahead.
Peter says, master, save me. I'm sinking here.
And then Jesus takes his hand and pulls him up out of the water and says what I think is the most beautiful line in this whole story.
He says, faint heart, Peter, what got into you?
He doesn't say, peter, you've lost your faith. What's going on here? Shame on you. No, no, no, no. He says, peter, faint heart, what got into you?
Yeah.
And then the two of them climb back into the boat and the wind stops and the water becomes calm and serene again.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: And then his friends, his besties, who have seen this whole thing happen, they say, this is amazing. We have seen something amazing happen here.
You are surely the Son of God.
So what's this story really about?
Yeah, I think it's about trust.
I think it's about when we are lost and feeling a little bit seasick and feeling like we're at sea.
Jesus is always reaching out his hand to us. The love of God is with us in the good times when everything is going right and. And in the bad times, when everything is going wrong.
And all we have to do is. It's okay. All we have to do is trust.
All we have to do is reach out our hands and we will be drawn up into the boat.
The wind will calm. There might be another storm coming. In fact, there probably is.
But we are in the boat with one another, with God's love holding us in God's hands.
There is another story where Jesus is sleeping on the boat, but we'll get to that other story some other time.
Amen.
Amen.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Did he bring a pillow?
[00:16:47] Speaker A: I don't know if he had a pillow or not.
I like to think he did.
