Faith and the Sea of Life

Don: Faith is often mentioned alongside grace. works, and will; as well as alongside two sort-of subsidiary words: belief and hope.

Metaphorically, we are on a sea of life which is sometimes tumultuous, stormy, violent, and always unpredictable. It is comparatively quieter and safer to remain on land. But the grass seems greener on the other side of the sea, so we can’t help but take the voyage. Metaphorically, we may try to swim over under our own power, or we can sail buoyantly in God’s lifeboat of grace.

The disciples had just witnessed in broad daylight, on terra firma, the miracle of the feeding of five thousand people—a tangible, sensory miracle that could be seen, smelt, tasted, and eaten. Such a plain miracle helps build and sharpen faith. It is reassuring, it calms our fear, it offers and sustains hope. But the ups and downs of the sea of life are unpredictable. Life is lonely, uncertain, and fearful in its dark vastness.

We don’t know what would have happened to the disciples’ ship of grace had it been allowed to have its own head. Probably, it would have bobbled around until the wind died down, or might even have been driven back to the shore from which it started. But the disciples rowed hard against the tide—the metaphorical tide of life. Little wonder that…

… they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened. (Mark 6:52)

They tried through their own will to get through the rough sea of life and land themselves on the other shore. Being carried in a ship of grace does not make us immune to our natural human tendency to want to row and to help God with His grace.

Utterly exhausted, their senses numbed with fear, wallowing in rough seas and surrounded by darkness, they saw a man walking on the water. In the light, all the senses active, faith comes easily—so easily that earlier, in the daytime, on terra firma, by their faith they had planned to make Jesus the miracle maker their king. But here in the storm-tossed boat, it was different. The miraculous vision only evoked even greater fear. Their cry to Jesus was a cry of fear hoping to draw a comforting reply—which they got:

“Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” (Mark 6:50)

In Greek, “It is I” is a compound word that is elsewhere translated: “I am”—as declared by God when Moses asked Him His name. This brought immediate comfort to the disciples, but it can have a long-term effect, too. For Peter, though, it did not last. Like Doubting Thomas, who doubted the Resurrection, Peter withheld his belief until Jesus called him to walk on the water—a sensory experience. It seems that in contrast to grace, faith required a sensory experience. What Peter wanted was for his faith to carry him above the waves of life, free from their buffeting, able to skate smoothly through life as if on a sea of glass.

But the sea of glass is to be found only in heaven. On Earth, the seas are turbulent, and the wind blows. As this dawned on Peter, he started to sink. Faith does not let us walk on water, nor will it pluck us from the sea. Divinity alone can control the wind and the waves. There is a chance, from time to time, that God may offer us the miracle of a walk on water. Such miracles are rare, and risky for God in that they tend to make us think we can call them up any time.

Our lot as sinful human beings puts us at the mercy of life. But the metaphor in this story is tremendously powerful. Faith may not pluck us from the sea, but it brings us closer to God. Jesus said “Come!” and Peter went. Jesus said he would be with us in the turbulent sea of life and in our moments of greatest need, of direst distress, of overwhelming fear. In such moments Jesus promises to hold out his hand and pull us up.

The outstretched hands of Jesus to Peter were accompanied by a diminutive nickname: “Little Faith” (the Greek for “Ye of little faith” is another compound word meaning just that.) At other times, Jesus called Peter “The Rock”, and once even “Satan.” Peter would probably have preferred to be called “Great Faith” like the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his son. Jesus said that with even a mustard seed of faith one could move a mountain.

In the incident on the boat, Jesus augmented grace with his presence. In the end, the disciples were comforted and…

So they were willing to receive Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. (John 6:21)

There was no work, no effort, no straining at the oars. Grace took them there, as it will take us to the eternal shore, without effort on our part and in keeping with God’s will. The only requirement is to subjugate our will to His, to leave the rowing to God.

Donald: People are discontented by life’s ups and downs, yet it seems unrealistic to expect it to have smooth sailing. Perhaps grace helps by smoothing the downward lurches.

Betsy: I am reminded of Isaiah’s prophecy that a Savior would be sent to us:

“I will go before you and make the rough places smooth;…” (Isaiah 45:2)

There will always be rough patches in life, no matter how carefully our parents try to smooth the way for us, and for those we need the Savior, Jesus.

Donald: We exercise so that we experience peaks and valleys and thus know how to respond when life is not smooth. If life were smooth all the time, then a rough patch would be very difficult to manage. Is “a smooth life” even a good goal?

David: This incident on the water took place soon after the sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus told us that if we want to be blessed, we need to be really down and depressed, at least sometimes! Those are the times when the comforting presence of God is felt. If we are always on an easy upper in life, perhaps we can never be really close to God. Faith does not seem to be a factor in this—certainly not faith in the Bible. We are blessed through grace, by the acceptance of which we acknowledge the will of a higher power and thus signify our faith without words or actions. The Rich Young Ruler rejected grace by rejecting God’s will that he make himself poor. He lacked faith.

Jay: I think of faith as a human construct, and grace as a divine construct. Our faith is in inverse proportion to the ups and downs of life, like a wave moving through time. As our faith increases, as we believe in a God of love and grace, then our will aligns with God’s will naturally. It is difficult if not impossible for us to maintain this peak of faith as the next wave arrives, but grace will be there in its trough. Perhaps we are never far from God, either through our peaks of faith or through God’s grace. Like the Rich Young Ruler, our faith only takes us so far toward aligning with the will of God. That’s why we find it impossible to give everything we have to the poor, to cut off our offending hand or pluck out our offending eye, to hate our brother and sister and mother and father, to pick up the cross of Jesus and follow him. We cannot do these things of our own volition. Only divine grace can enable them and thus bring us closest to God.

Kiran: It seems that grace comes unbidden, but faith is human-driven. It seems that although a measure of faith is given to us, it is less than a mustard seed’s-worth.

David: I don’t think Jesus was suggesting that we are capable of growing our faith if we work at it. On the contrary: I interpret his mustard seed comment as meaning that we do not now and never will have even that much faith. The good news is that when we really need it, the faith is inside us and grace will bring it out.

Michael: It seems to me that despair is a sign of lack of faith. Suicide is perhaps the ultimate expression of a lack of faith. It reflects zero faith.

Jay: I don’t think we are expected to strive to grow our faith. There is always enough grace to fill the gap.

Owen: But that does not mean we should not try to close the gap, that we should not try to have faith.

Donald: Despair, rather than doubt, seems to be the opposite of faith. Grace abolishes despair.

Jay: We are told that faith without works is dead. Despair and works don’t seem to go together, so neither do despair and faith. Grace begets works—including the sharing of one’s grace with others.

Kiran: Faith is a relationship with God. We soured that relationship in the Fall from the garden, and we are striving to re-establish it, but it comes and goes. We have ups and downs in our human relationships, too, yet they sometimes survive and strengthen; so having ups and downs does not of itself define a bad relationship.

Owen: Maybe it’s a matter of give-and-take. Some days we are strong enough to give; other days we are weak and need to take the grace that is offered.

Chris: I would propose that we cannot come close to the perfection needed to align perfectly with God’s will. We have sin within us. So I don’t think it’s worth striving for utmost faith because we can never get there on our own. We have to have faith that God’s grace can get us there—and that in itself is quite a lot of faith.

Betsy: How do we grow our faith community through service? After Jesus was resurrected, he met the disciples again on the water. Jesus said “Come have breakfast, and then bring in your fish.” Peter again jumped out onto the water, though we are not told what transpired. Perhaps we are making this too hard. We all just need some breakfast, we need to bring in our catch, and support our families. Are we making this too hard?

Jay: There is no single optimal point on the wave: All points are optimal. The faith/grace relationship is in play to do God’s will. When you impose the wave of life over its inverse—the wave of grace—the two cancel each other out and you end up with a smooth flat line.

Kiran: If suicide is zero faith, Judas had none but killed himself after betraying Jesus, whereas Peter, who also betrayed Jesus, did not commit suicide. If grace is a divine gift, why did Peter apparently receive it Judas did not?

David: I think it’s a matter of human will whether God’s gift of grace is accepted. Suicide results from the exercise of human will, not God’s. A loving Father does not will his children to die. To step back from the very brink of suicide, even while still in utter despair, is to do God’s will, and in and of itself is a powerful statement of faith: “I don’t know what happens next, but I am not going to die of my own will.” Ultimately, faith is believing in the existence of a good, loving God. With such faith comes grace—the feeling of God’s comforting presence—and the acceptance of God’s will no matter what happens next. The three Hebrew worthies were just as ready to accept death in the furnace as to accept release from it. Whatever happened would be God’s will, they reasoned, and would therefore be right. If faith must be accompanied by “works” (and I would dispute the assertion in the book of James that it must) then the passive acceptance of God’s will and grace must count as a “work”!

Chris: Faith without works, and works designed to do God’s will, are different things. It is impossible for imperfect humans to know and do God’s will. That’s why we need grace.

Don: We’ve linked faith to the human senses. Faith seems strongest when accompanied by a sensory experience, and vice versa. Are works a sensory business?

Mikiko:

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8)

Michael: Is faith that results from a sensory experience fake, because it is ephemeral?

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