John
6:15-21
July 29, 2012
When Jesus realized that they were
about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the
mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got
into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and
Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was
blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking
on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to
them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat,
and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
If you’ve been a member of Calvin Presbyterian Church for
a while, you’ve probably figured out that Mahatma Gandhi has been a spiritual
hero of mine. I’ve admired, and been inspired by, him since I first heard about
him around age 9. I was fascinated with how a seemingly meek and mild man could
transform his country, gain independence for it, and transform the world in the
process. Over the years I’ve read at least three biographies on him, and have seen
the film, Gandhi, at least 7 times,
which may be 6-7 times more than most people. What’s inspired me was his
ability to translate the spiritual into the practical. What he achieved in gaining
Indian independence was miraculous.
It’s not Gandhi’s non-violence that’s inspired me so much
as it was how he achieved the miraculous through prayer and centering. Whenever
Gandhi faced a struggle, his reaction was to center himself, pray, seek God’s
way, and then act, no matter how long it took. I know that there are Christians
who question Gandhi’s ability to hear God because he wasn’t a Christian.
There’s a reason why he was never a Christian. He was deeply inspired by the
Bible, and especially by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. He considered the Sermon
to be the greatest religious writing of all time. It guided his life and his
movement. Gandhi wanted to become a Christian, and while in South Africa he visited
an Anglican church to learn more about Christ. But he was turned away at the
door, being told that his kind couldn’t worship in the white, Anglican church.
So Gandhi remained a devote of Jesus’ teachings and life, but would not become
a Christian because he felt that Christians were bigoted and did not live out
the Gospel.
In many ways
Gandhi lived out the example of the Gospel, especially in seeking God’s will
and way, better than most Christians. Let me give you an example. During
India’s decades long struggle for independence from the British Empire, Gandhi
kept the people focused on achieving independence in a way that promoted love,
respect, and the transformation of enemies through this love and respect.
During the 1930s there was a point at which the Indian independence movement
was stalling. There was tremendous pressure for Gandhi to do something,
anything, to get the movement back on track. In frustration at their lack of
power, people were beginning to lapse into violent protests. The British had
been cracking down more severely, and especially economically. They were trying
to create a culture in which the Indian people would become so dependent on the
British economically that they wouldn’t be able to afford to gain independence.
For example, one way they attempted to keep the Indian people economically
dependent was to make the manufacturing of salt illegal without a permit, and
only British companies could gain permits. Thus, this essential mineral, used
everyday in cooking, cleaning, and more, could only be purchased from British
companies.
It was in this context that people clamored for Gandhi to
do something. And he did Gandhi do something, but it was not what his followers
expected or wanted. They wanted quick, decisive action. Gandhi gave them
prayer.
Gandhi retreated to his ashram (a commune where he and
his followers lived), praying and seeking God’s will, despite pleas from
millions that he do something, anything. A week went by. Two weeks. A month. Two months. Three months. Five
months. Seven months. Still no word from Gandhi. People wondered why he was
remaining silent. The reason was that Gandhi was praying, and he told those who
asked why he wasn’t doing anything that he simply hadn’t heard God provide an answer
to what the next step was.
Then one day, as he sat by a pond, he received God’s
answer. He told his followers to pack their things, to join him in prayer, and
to prepare to walk. After dinner and worship, Gandhi and his supporters began
to walk. Day after day he walked through towns and villages, and many of those
villagers joined the procession. Gandhi kept silent about their destination and
objective until he eventually got to the coast and stopped on a beach. With thousands
of followers behind him, and many British soldiers surrounding him, he walked
calmly to the edge of the water where a large chunk of salt had been formed by
the evaporation of seawater in the hot Indian sun. He picked up the salt,
walked over to a British soldier, and said, “I have manufactured salt. You must
arrest me!”
So what? What was so great about that? It was important
because in this small chunk of salt Gandhi had found a symbol of Indian
freedom. In a simple gesture, Gandhi had shown the absurdity of British law in
India by presenting the British with a dilemma. If they arrested Gandhi for
making salt, they would reveal the absurd oppressiveness of their laws to the
Indian people, the British population, and the world. If they didn’t arrest
him, they would give implicit permission to the whole Indian population to defy
the British in this and every other economic concern. Gandhi’s picking up of
the salt was genius, a genius inspired by God through centering and prayer. They
arrested Gandhi, but his imprisonment ended up giving freedom to the Indians as
millions made their own salt by pouring seawater into pans and letting it
evaporate on their rooftops.
It’s easy to become mesmerized by the salt march and the
results, but I think that when our focus is on the miracle of it we miss the
true key element. The key to this event is not so much what Gandhi did, but the
centering that preceded it. Centering and seeking God’s way is the soil out of
which miracles sprout. In the same way, when we focus on our scripture for
today, we tend to focus on the miracle of walking on the water. It either
becomes a source of inspiration for how great Jesus was, or a source of doubt
for skeptics who claim that Jesus never could have done this. In both cases the
key point is missed.
The key to the story is the
centering that precedes the miracle. In the Bible, centering almost always
precedes miracles. Unfortunately, because people focus on the miraculous, they
ignore the centering.
Go back and read the passage again. What was Jesus doing
before he walked on the water? The people had wanted to make him a king, hoping
that he would rise up, overthrow the Roman Empire, and usher in a new era of
Jewish independence and dominance. Jesus dealt with them the way he dealt with
all temptations. He left them to go off to the mountain to pray. He wanted to
become re-centered in the Father’s will. He wanted to become rooted again in
what God wanted. The reason he walked on the water was due to the fact that the
disciples had gone off without him. He was catching up to them. The miracle is
almost mundane—like someone running off after a bus that had taken off without
them. Except that in this case they had gone off in a boat. I truly believe
that what matters in the story is the centering that preceded the miracle
because in the Bible that’s the foundation for all miracles.
You see this same pattern—retreat, centering, miracle—in
the same story of Jesus walking on water told in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew adds
a bit more to the story, though. In chapter 14 we read, “And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the
water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water
and came to Jesus; but when he saw the wind,
he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus
immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘O man of little
faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’”
Peter, upon the invitation of Jesus, centered
himself in Christ, and it allowed him to walk on the water. He had abandoned
himself, surrendered himself, to Christ’s care, and the result was the he could
do the miraculous, too. But then he became afraid of the wind as they whipped
up the waves. That fear wiped out faith. That’s what happens to all of us. We
want to have faith. We want to trust God, but anxiety gets in our way. What if
we trust God and good things don’t happen? What if we trust God, but God isn’t
paying attention? What if all this stuff that we’ve learned is false? How do we
keep from becoming disappointed? How do we protect ourselves from the bad
things that might happen if faith doesn’t work?
Centering in God helps us to overcome that fear. This is
the reason centering and prayer was so essential to Jesus’ life and ministry.
Think about it. Before he sets out on his ministry, he spends a month in the
wilderness in prayer so that he can be prepared spiritually for what’s to come.
When he delivers he Sermon on the Mount, it comes after he has tried to go up
the mountain to pray. Before he goes to the cross, he goes to the Garden of
Gethsemane to pray. Centering is the model Jesus gives us to facing any
situation.
The lesson centering teaches us is this: miracles, big
and small, do happen when we take time to center our lives in God. Miracles do
happen, but the people who experience them the most aren’t necessarily the
Christians with the greatest theological knowledge, or those who live the most
outwardly “Christian” lives. It’s the people who are most adept at centering
their lives in God and God’s way. It’s those who make time for calming, for
opening, for seeking, for waiting, and for then acting in faith based upon
centered hearts and minds.
A lot of us, perhaps most of us, seem to careen from
moment to moment, reacting to whatever happens. Whether it’s at work, at home,
with others, we react to situations around us. Often we react without even
thinking. Someone says something to us and we get irritated or upset. Someone
does something we don’t like, that threatens us, or that doesn’t fit with how
we think things should be, and we react without thinking. We’re faced with a
problem, and we react and respond without thinking, or at least we respond
after thought mixed with anxiety and concern.
Christ gives us a different example of how to respond to
the demands of life. His example is on of being faced with problems, with
overwhelming times, and with all sorts of concerns, and taking time for
centering—for quiet, calm, and for seeking God’s wisdom and way—before acting
or reacting.
So my question for you, after all this, is a simple one: Do
you live a centered life? If not, what
do you need to do to gain one?
Amen.
