August 9, 2026 | Word Out!
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READINGS
First Reading: 1 Kings 19:9-18
9 At [Horeb, the mount of God,][Elijah] came to a cave and spent the night there.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lordwas not in the earthquake, 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” 15 Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. 17 Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”
Second Reading: Romans 10:5-15
5 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that “the person who does these things will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness that comes from faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) 7 “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say?
“The word is near you,
in your mouth and in your heart”
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), 9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For one believes with the heart, leading to righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, leading to salvation. 11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
14 But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? 15 And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Gospel: Matthew 14:22-33
22 [Jesus] made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side [of the Sea of Galilee,] while he dismissed the crowds.23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
28 Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
SERMON— Pastor Dan Peterson
The “I” of the Storm
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, Jesus Christ our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit our Sustainer, Amen.
Several years ago, I preached a sermon on our gospel reading for today called “WWPD?”, that is, “What Would Peter Do?”
What would Peter do?
In it, I argued that while most interpreters consider Peter’s attempt to walk on the water a failure—especially as evident in Jesus’s words, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”—I consider what he did courageous.
After all, while the other disciples remained in the boat out of fear and uncertainty, Peter at least took a risk, a leap of faith, if you will.
Therefore, when we are called to have faith amid uncertainty and fear, we might ask ourselves not only WWJD—What would Jesus do?—but also WWPD: What would Peter do?
Risking the leap of faith is better than taking no risk at all. Peter failed, yes, but at least he tried, and for that, I submit he should be praised.
***
For today, I’d like to focus on the first half of our Gospel Reading.
This is the part, as you heard, where Jesus Himself walks on the water, where the disciples, upon seeing Him, cry out in fear, assuming, as we read, that He is a ghost, and where Jesus comforts them, saying, “Take heart,” which is to say, have courage;
“It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Have courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.
This story, I’m going to point out in a few minutes, contains one of the greatest secrets in the entire New Testament about Jesus’s identity.
But before I share that with you, I want to say a few words about the story itself.
(That was meant to entice you to make you interested. That’s the hook. There is a Secret in the middle of the New Testament concerning Jesus’s identity, but only am I going to tell you in a few moments. So hang on.)
As you all know, Matthew is the first of the four Gospels in the New Testament. According to most scholars, however, it is not the first Gospel to be written. In fact, Matthew bases many of his stories on the account we first find in Mark.
Mark is the one who has the honor of being the first of the four Gospels to be written. It is the shortest of the four Gospels, a mere 16 chapters compared to Matthew’s 28, and it is easily the one with the “lowest Christology.” Now, that’s a fancy word theologians use to talk about who we understand Jesus to be. A lower Christology is a Christology that emphasizes his humanity, his human traits, his fallibility, his limitations, his vulnerability. A higher Christology, like the one we find, for example, in the Gospel of John, emphasizes his divinity, his omniscience, his power, etc.
Matthew and Luke fall somewhere in between. Mark, again, however, is probably the lowest. One of my professors in graduate school used to put it this way: while the other Gospels are pumping Jesus full of helium and watching as he rises up into the clouds, Mark is grabbing his feet and keeping them on the ground. The Messiah in Mark’s Gospel is a vulnerable one, and for some scholars, a totally human one.
This raises an important question for you and me: Did Mark really believe that Jesus was divine, or was he merely a human being, albeit an exalted one, whom God authorized to bring about God’s kingdom on earth?
Now there is certainly a lot of material in Mark’s gospel to suggest the latter, that he was merely a God-appointed human being whose task it was, on God’s behalf, to usher in God’s reign. Indeed, on multiple occasions, Jesus in Mark’s Gospel clearly exhibits limitations.
In Mark 6, for example, upon returning to his hometown, Jesus fails to perform a miracle of healing. Why? Mark tells us because the people around him did not believe. They did not, like Peter in today’s Gospel, have faith.
Again, in Mark 8, when Jesus goes to heal a blind man, he has to perform the deed of power not once, but twice.
In Mark 10, when Jesus is addressed as “a good teacher,” Jesus replies, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
In Mark 13, he admits he does not know the future. “Only God the Father knows when the coming of the end of the age will be.”
And in Mark 15, when he dies on the cross, instead of saying “It is accomplished,” or “It is finished,” triumphantly, as he does in the Gospel of John, he says, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have you left me?”
Perhaps it’s not surprising, therefore, that some scholars argue, according to Mark, that Jesus was not divine, but as one scholar puts it, “an idealized human figure whose task it was again to bring about or usher in the reign of God. His identity as “God’s son,” at least in Mark’s Gospel, refers, accordingly, not to his nature as the incarnation of Yahweh, but to the role he plays as Isaiah’s fully human Messiah in manifesting God’s Kingdom.”
Now, as evident in today’s story, which first appeared in the Gospel of Mark, it seems pretty unlikely that a mere human being could walk on water, like Jesus did, right?
But remember what Jesus said to Peter! Peter sank, not because he was a human being; he sank because he lacked faith. Jesus is not suggesting in this case that you or I go out to the Puget Sound this afternoon to see if our faith enables us to walk on water. (Please, young people, don’t try this at home.) It’s simply pointing out that Peter, as a human being, presumably and to some extent, did, exactly what Jesus did, if his faith was even stronger. The ability to walk on water, in other words, doesn’t necessarily make Jesus divine in our story. He did it, but Peter, to some extent, did it also. It wasn’t his humanity that limited him; it was his lack of faith.
What I like to suggest, therefore, is that it’s not Jesus even walking on water that makes him divine. Instead, his divinity is revealed by something he says in today’s Gospel reading, and this is the secret I mentioned earlier.
What I’m going to suggest, in other words, is that Jesus is not simply “only human” in Mark’s Gospel, as other scholars claim. I’m going to suggest that he is divine, and that the best, most subtle clue for his divinity lies in the very text we read from Matthew 14, which takes its cue from Mark 6. There are other clues both in Mark and Matthew that allude to Jesus’s divinity, but this one, the one I’m about to share, strikes me as the most profound:
So take a look, if you will, at verse 27 from our Gospel Reading.
Verse 27 from our Gospel Reading.
This is where Jesus comforts the disciples who assume he is a ghost.
“Take heart,” he says—again: Have courage.
“It is I. Do not be afraid.”
Now I want you to focus here on the phrase “It is I.” The Greek for “it is I,” ego eimi, —repeat that after me—literally means—wait for it, wait for it—The Greek for “it is I” literally means “I am.”
I am.
Now listen to what happens when we replace “it is I,” which is a paraphrase, with the literal meaning of ego eimi, in the words of Jesus.
He says to his disciples here, in the context of fear and uncertainty, “Take heart. I am.
Do not be afraid.”
Take heart. I am. Do not be afraid.
The disciples, of course, do not grasp the significance of what they have encountered, but Mark and Matthew’s audiences probably would have received the hint. As one commentary puts it, ‘”It is I,” literally “I am,” is a reference to the divine name that God gave Moses according to Exodus 3:14. There, Moses asks for God’s name. God doesn’t say “Bill” or “Jessica” or “Jack” or “Leslie.” God says “I am.” And thus, what we have here is an identification, subtly, of Jesus with God. “Take heart; ego eimi.”
“Have courage. I am.”
Jesus, in other words, is the “I” of the storm, or rather, the “I” in the storm, and this is pure gospel, pure good news! The God of Israel, once remote, has come near again in Jesus Christ, comforting His followers in a moment of uncertainty and fear. He is no longer simply God above us; He is God withus, the One who accompanies us in the storms of our lives when we, like the disciples, experience uncertainty and fear.
In those moments, Jesus says to me and you, “Take heart, I am.”
Do not be afraid. Have courage, in other words. You are not alone.
Now, when it comes to fear and uncertainty, there is plenty of it to go around in our world today, isn’t there? Show of hands. How many of you lose sleep, or at least worry about the rapid development of artificial intelligence?
Okay.
Again, show of hands. How many of you lose sleep, or at least worry about the effects of climate change, both now and in the future?
Again, show of hands. How many of you lose sleep or worry about the state of our nation, the fragility of our democracy, or the loss of civility and common human decency in our culture? Raise your hands.
Do you know what Jesus’s message is to each of you?
“Take heart, ego eimi.”
Take heart, I am. Have courage. I am. More specifically, I am here. Do not be afraid. Can I get an Amen to that, please!
Now that doesn’t mean God in Jesus is magically going to intervene or solve these problems for us. It does, however, give us strength to face them ourselves, knowing, trusting, that we are not alone.
God is with us in Jesus Christ. That’s the name Emmanuel given to Jesus at the beginning of Gospel of Matthew’s Gospel, and is also the last words he says to his disciples at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. “Lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Take heart, in short, do not be afraid. I am—more specifically, I am here with you.
Now, it’s not only in the world that we find ourselves in the midst of uncertainty, but in the coming weeks and months, you as a congregation are going to likewise be entering a time of uncertainty. As you all know, my last day with you as your pastor will be at the end of this month. From there, of course, you remain in good hands. The Synod, working with very able church leadership, will have a process in place; one that begins with the congregation taking a holy breath for the month of September, and concludes, probably about a year from now, with you calling a new pastor to this congregation.
While I do not believe you are entering a storm—the church is in too good of a shape for that—You may encounter some choppy waves along the way, just as the disciples did. In those moments, in those choppy waves, I want you to remember the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading, properly translated.
Have courage, he says. I am,; or Take heart. I am here. Do not be afraid.
You, in short, will not be alone. God in Christ Jesus will be with you the entire way.
It’s easy to assume that Jesus is merely human based on a cursory reading of Mark’s Gospel, but that’s because his words, at least in the case I’ve pointed out, have been lost in translation. The secret to His true identity, His divine identity, lies in two simple words he uses in Mark, as well as in our reading today from Matthew. You all know them by now.
“Take heart. ego eimi,” which means, “I am.”
This truly is the Gospel of our Lord. Amen.