Brother Against Brother

Envy, jealousy, and littleness of faith...

p14a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Joseph’s brothers said, “Hear comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

Anyone with experience of a large family will know something about sibling rivalry. But even if you have never experienced it yourself, the Holy Scripture lays out more than enough to satisfy the most insatiable curiosity. Right from the beginning, right from the very first brothers ever to breathe the air of God’s good earth, we find conflict and worse: for Cain killed his brother Abel, striking him down out of jealousy and envy.

Fast forward just a few chapters in Genesis and we find Isaac and his half-brother Ishmael, originally content to play together, soon separated by Isaac’s mother. She is jealous that the son of her servant might inherit along with her son — here it is not the two brothers who are rivals, but their respective mothers!

Isaac will later get payback from his descendant rather than his ancestor, though largely through the machinations of his own wife Rebekah, when his two sons Jacob and Esau set up a rivalry that verges on being as bad as that of Cain and Abel. Jacob cheats his brother out of his inheritance, disguising himself with his mother’s help and deceiving his old, blind father Isaac into giving him his brother’s blessing.

In today’s reading from Genesis we catch up with Jacob some years later. He has settled in Canaan with the large family he has started. And what a family it is! He has four wives — count ‘em, four: Rachel (who died in giving birth to his youngest son, Benjamin) and her sister Leah, and their respective servants Bilhah and Zilpah, and in addition to Benjamin he has eleven other sons and at least one daughter, Dinah — and who knows who is in the kitchen with her!

His favorite son, though, is Joseph, who with Benjamin are the only children born to the his true love Rachel, the one for whom he worked for seven years only to be tricked by his father-in-law into marrying her older sister Leah. (And this is not the only trick to be played on that trickster Jacob before the tale is done! Perhaps this is part of his payback for having cheated his own brother Esau out of his birthright and his blessing.)

In any case, Joseph’s brothers know their father “likes him best” — does anyone remember the Smothers Brothers routine, “Mom always liked you best!” “Lower your voice.” “Mom always liked you best!” — and to make matters worse Jacob broadcasts his favoritism for this teenage boy — giving him a fancy outfit to wear. Think of your own sons and how they might feel if you gave one of them the latest Air Jordans while the rest were stuck with lame tennis shoes or sandals. They might not throw their brother, the one with the fresh kicks, down a pit, but they won’t be happy!

Another thing to note about this fancy outfit is that it is a long outfit, not suited for work: long sleeves mean that Joseph doesn’t have to do yard-work; in many ancient cultures having a long robe with long sleeves meant you were among the upper classes, the royalty who had no hard work to do, who had others to do the hard work for them; they couldn’t be bothered to roll up their sleeves and work themselves. Joseph the tattle-tale — one more strike against him: notice how he informs his father when his brothers are slouching in their work — Joseph is home, spending time around the house, at most sent on errands out checking up on his brothers. And today we see what sets the story in motion — the story that will eventually lead Israel into Egypt, and will set the stage for all that is to come as God’s people are formed in that crucible of slavery and then brought out of it in the Exodus.

But we’re still at the prelude here: Joseph is set for a fall; he’s got three strikes against him, and his brothers simmer with jealousy. To add insult to injury, Joseph is a dreamer. He is also innocent enough to tell his brothers and his father the dreams of them bowing down to him — dreams which for some reason those who planned our lectionary this morning have chosen to omit from our reading — but this is why the brothers refer to Joseph as “this dreamer”! Anyway, the scene is set for sibling rivalry of the most dangerous sort, and his brothers gang up on the boy with the intent first to kill him, and then to sell him into slavery. As we hear by the end of the tale, Joseph is bundled off to Egypt. We’ll hear more about that and the aftermath next week.

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For now I want to focus on the thread that ties together all of this sibling rivalry in the book of Genesis: all that ties it together up through our own time. And that is the sin of envy, manifested as jealousy. From Cain through Sarah through Jacob himself and then on to his sons — and on to every human heart if we are honest — jealousy and envy, wanting what someone else has, is the craving the leads to the biggest part of human misery, whether brother against brother or nation against nation. No one said it better than James the brother of the Lord, in the epistle that bears his name: “You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.” (James 4:2) There can be no doubt that the story of Joseph was close to James’ heart: James is the English form of Jacob, after all. And he begins his letter with an appeal to the Twelve Tribes who were descended from Jacob’s unruly household. So his description of jealousy and envy — sins he saw at work in the early church — is sharp and to the point.

The French philosopher René Girard has developed a theory that jealousy forms the basis of much human behavior. I’m not sure it takes a philosopher to read that from the evidence of human history, but René Girard suggests its mechanism. He calls it mimetic desire — but the old words imitation and jealousy will do just fine. Two children — let’s call them Isaac and Ishmael just to keep it in the family — they are sitting on the floor in the romper room happily playing with their toys; perfectly happy, perfectly content, each of them playing with his toy. But then momma comes in and gives Ishmael a new toy. What happens? Anyone want to guess? Little Isaac, until then perfectly happy with his own toy, now wants to have the toy Ishmael has — and so the war begins!

Of course, it is not always a toy; I wish it were. Sometimes, as with Cain and Abel, it is jealousy of God’s blessing. Sometimes it is a birthright or inheritance. How many families have squabbled over grandma’s kitchen table, and who gets it? Sometimes it is an article of clothing — how many young men have been stabbed or shot in the Bronx because someone wanted their jacket? Sometimes it is a father’s favor. Sometimes it is gold, or oil. Sometimes it is called the Gaza Strip, or East Jerusalem, or the Crimea or the Sudan. Whatever it is, as James said, “You want something and do not have it,” — and so follow murder, theft, war, destruction and death.

How soon we forget the verse that ends, “You do not have because you do not ask.” How much of the world’s goods could be shared instead of being fought over? How many sibling rivalries could be stilled if people would set aside jealousy and envy, and cultivate instead the virtues of charity and generosity — to ask, so that it might be given; to knock, so that the door might be opened.

In our Gospel today, Jesus chides Peter because he starts well in his walk on the water, but then begins to doubt. Let’s be honest — doubt is part of our life: it is hard to trust others, it is hard sometimes to ask someone to share what they have; look, let’s face it, sometimes it is hard to share when you are asked! There is always that fear that there won’t be enough to go around; that if I give of what I have I won’t have enough left for myself.

But my friends, we are not called to doubt, to fear — we are called to faith, to trust in the generosity of God, and to “take heart” in the knowledge that he is with us — we can walk on the water if we trust him! He is the same one who fed thousands in the wilderness, who turned a few loaves into enough food to feed a multitude. How much of the world’s five loaves and fishes could be transformed if Isaac and Ishmael would share instead of fighting? There is no need for envy or jealousy — the products of a world-view that is based on scarcity and desire and envy — when the abundant grace of God is there — for the asking; for the asking, my friends. To have great faith instead of that little, stingy, mean faith — the faith that is hardly faith at all, when abundance is around us. Remember, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

So let us not fear asking God, asking our brothers or sisters, let us not dwell on jealousy or envy, but trust in the abundance of God, and the good news that God is with us, and can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. To him be the glory, from generation to generation in the church and in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Ignorance, Doubt and Fear

The disciples' fear, doubt and ignorance is overcome, by the grace of God -- a sermon for Easter 3

SJF • Easter 3b • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Peter said, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.

It may seem odd in the midst of an Easter season, in spite of today’s weather, that I should be preaching a sermon on the themes of ignorance, fear and doubt. However, that is what we are presented with in today’s Scripture readings. And the irony in all of this, particularly in the part about ignorance, is that the ignorance itself plays a crucial part in the story of salvation, what theologians would call a “happy fault.”

One of the important things to note about ignorance is that it is not the same thing as stupidity. Very smart people can be ignorant; in fact, the smartest people of all are the ones who know when they are ignorant about certain things, and don’t try to pretend they know more than they do. (Someone tell our political candidates, please!) For ignorance is simply the absence of knowledge: not the inability to have knowledge.

The ignorance in question today is the ignorance of those who conspired to bring down Jesus, and to bring him to the cross and his death upon it. In today’s reading from Acts, Peter is beginning to make his case that Jesus is the Messiah — and he will very shortly be on trial before the Council for making that case and thus have the opportunity to make it even more dramatically and eloquently. He has just performed his own first miracle of healing, and the crowds are amazed. And Peter tells them, essentially, “See, Jesus really was the Messiah; he has promised that such things would be done in his name — I did not perform on my own merits but through the power of God that was at work in Christ — this miracle proves it. You and your rulers put him to death but God has raised him to life, and we are eyewitnesses. But I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your rulers.”

Peter is arguing that this ignorance served a purpose, God’s purpose. Jesus himself had prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!” Peter affirms that they were ignorant and that their ignorance of who Christ really was furthered the work of salvation. Had the rulers and the people accepted Jesus, he would not have suffered death at Roman hands at their instigation. There had to be a kind of “suspension of belief” so that salvation could come: universal salvation, to the whole world — not just the delivery of Israel from Roman rule. Had all the people accepted Jesus, and crowned him as merely an earthly king of Israel, he would not have fulfilled his role as the savior of the whole world, not just for this world, but for the next — not just to defeat the power of Rome as an earthly monarch, but by dying and rising to life again to destroy death itself.

In some sense God must have willed that the people and their rulers would not accept Jesus as Messiah, as had been prophesied, in order that his saving death could be accomplished — much as God had hardened Pharaoh’s heart in the days prior to the Exodus in order that God’s glory might be shown in the power of deliverance, when he brought his people out of Egypt with great signs and wonders.

And I called this a happy fault to echo that older and first happy fault of the fall of Adam and Eve. As the old English Christmas carol says, “had not that apple taken been” — had humanity never fallen — the Son of Man would not have had need to become incarnate as one of us to save us from that fall and raise us up again.

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In our Gospel passage, however, we turn to the darker side of ignorance: the ignorance that leads to doubt and fear. Jesus is standing there before his disciples and they still do not accept him as raised from the dead. They think he is a ghost! I suppose their fear is understandable — I would be rather unsettled to see someone I knew had died come walking into the room, particularly through closed doors. But they’ve just been told by the two who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus that they have seen him, and that Simon has seen him too.

Yet some of them still, even with him standing there, and in their startled terror, disbelieve. Even after showing them his hands and feet, the wounds of the nails still visible, they are still disbelieving, though in a somewhat happier way — I guess like someone who finds it hard to believe she has won the Lotto and keeps looking back and forth between the winning numbers on the screen and the same numbers on her lottery ticket. It is hard to believe that something so amazing has happened.

But am I the only one here who detects a little bit of exasperation in Jesus saying, “Have you got anything to eat?” In any case, Jesus then lays out the whole story before them — in much the same way Peter would later do with the people and their rulers — though perhaps a bit more like a very patient teacher with a somewhat slow-on-the-uptake class. He dispels their ignorance by opening their minds to the Scriptures.

And suddenly, for them, the veil is parted. Suddenly it all makes sense. This is what the prophets were talking about when they said the Messiah would suffer. All those bible stories we heard as children, all those psalms we sang in the synagogue, all the sermons we listened to with care, and for that matter the sermons we slept through — this is what it all was about. It has happened, finally, actually happened, for real, in our lifetimes, and in our own neighborhood.

It is this realization, coupled with the descent of the Holy Spirit (which we will hear more about on Pentecost) that empowered the disciples to change the world. Some skeptical modern doubters say that Jesus did not rise from the dead
and that the disciples just made it all up. If that were true then the disciples would have to be the greatest con-men in the history of the world. To “sell” such a con, and risk their lives to do so, would take massive amounts of self-confidence and ample supplies of that Jewish virtue chutzpah, if not the Greek vice hubris. But do the disciples show any evidence of chutzpah or hubris prior to the appearance of the risen Lord? Don’t they do just the opposite: don’t they cower in fear and doubt — even when he appears to them! To think that these fearful, doubtful, weak-willed men concocted a plan to fool the world, and had the gall to carry it out — well, that defies belief. If I doubt anything, that is the most doubtful thing of all — that the disciples made it all up.

No, ignorant doubters and those who live in fear do not act with such conviction and power — power enough just prior to our reading from Acts today to heal a man unable to walk, and in the portion read today to confront a crowd of doubtful, ignorant people with the “good news” that they are all ignorant murderers — but have the chance to be redeemed, by turning to the one whom in their ignorance they handed over.

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There is a powerful lesson for us in all of this: not just not to be too sure of ourselves when we don’t know what we are doing, but to have confidence in him when we do what he commanded us to do. We are not eyewitnesses, but we have the charge to continue the testimony that they so powerfully delivered to us. It began in Jerusalem and it spread to the four corners of the world, and it is spreading still — to new ears and hearts and minds — the saving Gospel that enlightens all ignorance with the grace and majesty of the presence of God with us, still among us, powerful to heal and strong to save. To him be ascribed all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and for ever more.

Living Faith

SJF • Proper 22c •Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The righteous live by their faith.+

Although the Old Testament reading this morning ends with encouraging words, “the righteous live by their faith,” the lead-up is far from comforting. Who can hear this passage about terrible destruction and warfare and not feel that the prophet is talking about our own times rather than the ancient years gone by. The sorrow and terror is kept alive by the continuous wars and rumors of wars in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and even the actual land of the Chaldeans the prophet refers to — Iraq. Even into the most innocent-seeming things in our lives — baseball!

Did any of you see Ken Burns’ documentary this past week, the last episode of his documentary history of baseball, aired just this past week? Even there we were treated to images of the fall of the towers on 9/11. And seeing those images again, and hearing word of past and present destruction, the falling towers, the burning, the warfare, the continuous threats of further terror — why, I just heard this morning there’s a travel advisory on for Europe — I felt like the prophet, when he lamented to God — or at least would like to speak out to Ken Burns! — “Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise… Be astonished! Be astounded! For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told.”

How many of us, on those dark days nine years ago, felt such feeling of disbelief as we watched the TV news coverage, thinking, “this simply can’t be happening; this can’t be real”? I felt like it again this past week, watching the baseball special — seeing those towers fall once again. And how many times since, watching the evening news, do we shake our heads, astonished and astounded at the horror, that such behavior can be carried out, much of it in the name of religion.

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The prophet complained to God, much as we are tempted to do, Why is this happening, Lord? “How long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?” Why do you look on the treacherous and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” How many of us have said or thought such things ourselves over the last years? How many times have we wanted to plant ourselves on the rampart, and demand an answer from God.

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And yet God is not silent. God does give us an answer, as he gave an answer to the prophet Habakkuk, the same answer now as it was then. It is an answer for the ages. It is an answer so important that God tells Habakkuk to write it in letters so big that even someone running by will be able to read it, we might say, to post it like a giant billboard by the superhighway so that no matter how fast the traffic goes by the message will not be missed. And the message is this: Justice will prevail. The unrighteous proud will fall; but justice will prevail. “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay… The righteous live by their faith.”

That is God’s everlasting promise, the promise of the power of faith over evil, of right over wrong. Faith will triumph in the end; although it may be delayed, it will not be denied. Faith is life abundant, and nothing can ever conquer it. Faith is what we live by, the source of our trust in the God who is our life. Faith endures.

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So what does it mean to say we live by our faith? Doesn’t it mean that our faith is an actual source of our life, something that keeps us alive, because it is alive?

To look at the other side, I am reminded of a short scene in Shakespeare’s comedy, Twelfth Night, in which Viola asks the joker Feste what he does for a living. He says, “I live by the church.” She responds, “You are a churchman, then” — meaning a minister. He answers, “No, I do live in my house, and my house is by the church, and so I do live by the church.” That is not what the prophet means when he says we live by faith: faith isn’t just something convenient in your neighborhood, something you can pick up or put down as you please. No, faith is not just near you, it is in you, inside you, the source of your life, something without which you would be dead.

And because faith is living, because it is alive, faith can be passed on.

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The Saturday after the 9/11 attack I baptized a child right here in this church, right there in that font — though it was over there at the time! That child is still here, still coming to church week by week, coming to this altar rail week by week to be fed with the bread of heaven. And that simple action then and that continued action now says to me the same thing: even in the midst of tragedy and wrong, the tragedy of almost a decade ago and the tragedies that have happened since, life goes on: the life that is nourished and fed by faith. The life of faith goes on, the new life in Christ that begins in baptism goes on in the Holy Communion, and can never ever be taken away from us. Faith is alive! Write it in letters a mile high, my sisters and brothers: faith is alive and we live by it and through it.

It lives in us, and what is more, we pass it along to those who come after us, who make up the church make up the living body of Christ on earth, the blessed company of all faith-full people. And neither the Chaldeans nor the terrorists can stop it, no matter how much they try.

The life of faith goes on, passed from hand to hand like the sandbags that hold back the flood of evil from swamping the world. Faith lives, and is transmitted by the faithful. Paul reminded his own young disciple Timothy of this, reminding him about how his faith first lived in his grandmother who passed it along through his mother and on to him. And Paul recalled Timothy to that faith, as we today are recalled to our faith in the face of much opposition: called to rekindle the gift of God that is within us through Baptism with water and the Holy Spirit, “for God” as Paul told Timothy, “did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”

This is the miracle of faith and this is the power of faith. Faith lives, and is passed on generation to generation, even as the older generation passes away. Faith lives and is passed on from person to person, as the church takes on new members and grows in strength and power, fed with the bread of heaven and nourished with God’s abiding presence.

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Now it is true that sometimes we may not feel as strong in our faith as we would like to be. We are challenged, the world faces us with sinister evils sometimes. We look around, as Habakkuk did, and tremble and maybe even doubt. How many people lose their faith amidst the storms, and cast about seeking a savior other than the One Lord? How many turn to the cheap substitutes that seem to offer the ready answer rather than the living faith that endures and in which alone salvation is found? How many refuse the faith when faith is all that can truly give them life?

One such doubtful man once fell off a cliff, but happened to catch a tree limb as he fell. He hung there a while, yelling out, “Is anyone up there?” A voice came back, “I am here. I am the Lord. Do you have faith in me?” The man called back, “Yes, Lord, I have faith, but I can’t hang on much longer.” And the Lord replied, “All will be well; if you have faith you have nothing to fear. Just let go of the branch.” The man paused, then called out again, “Anybody else up there?"

It is no good calling for other help when faith in God alone will save us. We live by faith, and not by sight — faith that God is up there on the cliff as we hang from the branch, even though we cannot see him; faith that God is below us to catch us as we fall, even though we cannot see him; that God surrounds us — above, below, to our left and to our right — and will never let us go. Other helpers have we none: we depend on God alone, our faith in him is our life in this present time and is our life beyond death, beyond the grave, into the world to come. The righteous live by their faith.

And it doesn’t take a whole lot of faith, you know. Just that little bit the size of a mustard seed. For that little seed gets planted and gets watered in baptism. And when I sprinkle the congregation with water from that baptismal font four times a year on the festival days, and I preach God’s word week by week, I hope to water your faith — and mine too — so that it may flourish and grow and become so large that the birds can nest in its branches.

For we bear the word of God in our hearts, and we hear the word of God each week, not just to divert ourselves from our daily lives during the week, but to give those daily lives the faith-full meaning they would never have without that weekly reminder. Faith is what we live by. Even if it is as small as a mustard seed, the power of God’s Word and Sacraments will help us to grow, reminding us all of our own part in Christ’s church, as we too pass that faith along to others. By that faith we will do the great deeds that are required of us all in these violent days. Such is the power of faith, and such is the power of our Lord and God. He will not stand idle, nor remain silent. If he seems to tarry, wait for him; he will surely come, he will not delay. He will increase our faith within us, and give us the assurance of his justice and his power to save.

So let us, as God said to Habakkuk, write our assurance large, let us write our faith in letters big enough for runners to read them, big enough for the people caught up in the rat-race of this world to pause and be recalled to the truth and life and light of salvation. Let us shout from the ramparts so that all can hear. Above all, let us each and every one wear our faith in our faces, our faith shining with trust in our salvation, so that when we go forth from this place, we may be lights those who dwell in the dark places of fear and violence, to bring the hope and power of faith to those who need to know the greatness of our Lord and God. To him be ascribed all might, majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and for ever more.

Half-Way Saint

Saint James Fordham • Proper 14a • Tobias Haller BSG
When Peter noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Is anybody here afraid of heights? Well, having nearly fallen off the eleven-story roof of my grandmother’s apartment building when I was eleven years old, I confess I have ever since been a little nervous about being too close to the edge of an unprotected high space. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I just ran up to the edge of the roof, jumped up on the ledge and just teetered there, looking down 11 stories — one for each of my young years. Fortunately there was enough of me on the leeward side and the winds were mild, so I slipped back onto the roof of the building. I then crawled my way back to the stairway, gritting my teeth and fighting the urge to decorate the roof with some colorful regurgitation!

Ever since then, I’ve been uncomfortable on a ledge or open high space. I don’t mind being in a safely glassed-in area, or even on a balcony or viewing platform with a substantial guardrail. But low or non-existent guardrails make me uneasy.

And, of course, “low” is a relative term. When I last lived in Manhattan, almost thirty years ago, I was just as glad that my apartment on the 25th floor didn’t have a balcony. But I also remember being very apprehensive when I visited a friend in one of the apartments that did have a balcony. This guy was over 6-foot-five tall, and thin as a rail. I’d always get antsy when he would go out on the balcony and lean against the railing, which on him came to just below the waist! I was always dreading that he would just tip over!

Now, as I say, my fear of heights is moderate and has to do with the ledges being too low; I have no trouble with bridges or flying, and actually enjoy the window seat and am usually glued to the window admiring the scenery. But there are some people whose fear of heights can be overwhelming, so much so that if they get into certain situations they will just freeze up in panic, unable to move. When this panic strikes a driver on a long, high, suspension bridge, the fear of heights can be more than an embarrassing inconvenience — it can become a real danger. I was reminded of this when I heard on the radio today about a terrible accident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in my own home state of Maryland.

Imagine, now, that you are a person with a fear of heights, and you’ve just heard this terrible news story about a tractor-trailer pushing several cars off the bridge and plummeting down itself — imagine yourself as someone with a fear of heights who has to drive across that same bridge. The long expanse stretches before you, slowly rising in the air. You begin to notice how very long the bridge is, and how very narrow, and how very much further you have to go. You can’t help but perceive how thin the cables are that hold the bridge up, how insubstantial the whole thing seems to be. It looks like a thread held up by a spiderweb, on which you are slowly inching your way across the dark and distant water far below.

As you continue your climb to the top of the arch your hands tighten on the steering wheel, and sweat begins to bead on your forehead. And as you reach the top of the arch the full panic hits you. It’s as if you’re on the top of a frozen Ferris wheel — Brother James can tell you about that, because that’s something that drives him batty — and in your panic you step on the brake as irresistible terror clutches your heart, helpless and hopeless, in the middle of the very thing that terrifies you most, unable to move.

This is no fantasy. Such panic attacks happen so often on America’s longest and highest bridges that most of them provide a free service: an attendant is available to drive terrified motorists across the bridge. The bridge authorities have found it is less expensive to keep a driver on staff than risk the tie-ups and accidents a panic attack can cause. For instance, attendants at that Chesapeake Bay Bridge — four miles long and 200 feet high — escort over a thousand fearful drivers across the bridge each year. You might think this wasteful, but think of the savings in avoiding two or three accidents or traffic jams every day!

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Matthew’s Gospel shows us Saint Peter in very much this situation. I like to think of Peter as the Patron Saint of Half-Way There. He gets out of the boat in answer to Jesus’ call, but a few steps along he notices the wind, becomes frightened, and starts to sink. I can’t help but be a little bit amused at Peter’s plight, when I realize how much he looks like one of those cartoon characters who rush straight out off the edge of a cliff, and only begin to fall when they realize what they’ve done! Peter is like Wiley Coyote or Yosemite Sam, half-way out in space without any visible means of support and suddenly realizing it. And it is only then, only when he realizes where he is, that he begins the plunge. So, what does Peter do? He yells for help, and reaches out to grab the outstretched hand of Jesus as he catches him.

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Isn’t that how we all are, so much of the time? We start off confidently in a new job, but soon find ourselves in the midst of problems, sometimes overwhelming ones. But if we’re people of faith — even a “little faith” — we call for help, assured that there will be a helping hand stretched out to rescue us. Peter was a man of faith, even if only “a little faith” — but it was enough for him to call out to Jesus, and to grasp that outstretched hand. As was once said, A person without faith is someone with no invisible means of support. But faith, that invisible support, is what you need when you’re walking on water, or even on what passes for solid ground amidst the changes and chances of this earthly life, these temporal things we pass through on our way to the eternal country.

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Peter is the Half-Way Saint, and there is another half to his story. Peter’s “little faith” wasn’t enough to let him walk on water, but it was big enough for him to reach out for help when he needed it. But his “little faith” was also big enough for him to reach out to others. At the Last Supper, Jesus told Peter, “Strengthen your brethren”; and after his resurrection, “Feed my sheep.”

And so Peter did. Peter was Half-Way, as all of us are, between being helped and helping, between being rescued and rescuing. And there is a profound and practical truth in this. I’d be willing to wager that a man with fear of heights wouldn’t stop half-way across a bridge in frozen panic if he were driving his pregnant wife or sick child to the hospital. You see, helping someone else can have the wonderful effect of putting your own problems and difficulties into perspective. That’s part of the reason so-called “self-help” groups, are so successful. It’s not just that you are reminded that you’re not in it alone — but that your participation, your presence, helps others to realize that they are not alone either. When you reach out your hand to help someone else, you find your own problems lessened. You help yourself by helping others. That is why most acts of heroism are performed by very ordinary people — people who forget their own fears in the midst of helping to save others.

The great psychiatrist Karl Menninger was once asked what you should do if you feel a nervous breakdown coming on. Should you go to a psychiatrist, find the nearest clinic? Menninger surprised the questioner by answering, “Leave you house, lock the door behind you, go across the railroad tracks, find somebody in need, and help that person.”

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All of us, like Peter, are potential Half-Way Saints, living in the midst of the storm-tossed sea of life, gifted with “a little faith” that is still a big-enough faith to call on Jesus and reach out our hand to grasp his. The miracle is that sometimes, perhaps most times, we will find that the outstretched hand we grasp is not that of a savior, someone who saves us, but the hand of someone we have been blessed to save. We are, all of us, joined in a chain of clasped hands that reaches from the lowest depths of despair up to the throne of glory. And all we need is that little bit of faith that keeps us hanging on. May that little faith still strengthen us, in the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.+