Sunday, August 9, 2026… Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Orphan Grain Train Sunday
“Lord, Save Me!”
Scripture Readings: Psalm 18:1-6; Job 38:4-18; Romans 10:5-17; Matthew 14:22-33
Service Order: Divine Service III, Lutheran Service Book
Hymns: “My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less” #575; “Holy, Holy, Holy” #507; “When Peace, Like a River” #763; “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” #715
Dear Friends in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
What would be a perfect prayer? The Lord’s Prayer, certainly, if we pray it with all our hearts, is a perfect prayer. There are books full of long and fancy collects we can pray, and those have their place, I guess. There are prayers we can memorize and repeat over and over, novenas and rosaries and all those things (though we don’t do that around here!) Our Catechism says prayer is simply “speaking to God in words and thoughts,” and that simplifies things a bit. St. Paul says our prayers can come out as “groans that words cannot express,” and that simplifies it even more.
You’d think, though, that if a prayer was perfect, it would always get you the answer you want; but that’s not always the case either. Sometimes God says yes, sometimes He says no, and sometimes He answers, “Wait until the time is right” (which is the parental equivalent of “we’ll see.”) God answers our prayers “in His own way and in His own time” (which, I admit, can be frustrating). We can’t use our prayers to demand of Him or try to manipulate Him, though, because He alone knows what’s best for us.
The very best prayers come from the heart. That’s true whether they’re prayed in thankfulness and confidence and joy; or, like St. Peter’s prayer in our Gospel today, spoken out of sheer desperation. St. Peter, to give the man credit, was willing to get out of the boat and walk on the stormy sea and take those few halting steps toward Jesus – that is, before his courage failed him and he began to sink beneath the waves. But his prayer then – a prayer gasped out by a drowning man – was perhaps the most perfect prayer a person could ever pray. His prayer that day was only three little words: “Lord, save me!” -- and that is still a perfect prayer for us to use in our times of need, and a prayer that our dear Savior will never fail to answer.
Our Gospel from Matthew today takes place after Jesus had spent an entire day with the crowds, healing all their illnesses and diseases. Then He performed that mighty miracle of feeding them all, 5000 men plus their wives and children, with five little loaves of bread and a few tiny fish. Afterward the disciples, long and exhausting as that day must have been for them, would have been happy just to lay down on the beach and go to sleep. But Jesus had other things in mind; these disciples of His were in need of more discipling!
So, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowd.” Going out onto the lake after dark would have been no big deal for them; most of the commercial fishing on that lake was done by night. It was a familiar lake, a familiar night, and maybe even a relaxing little trip for them, after the day they’d just had.
And “After He had dismissed them,” our Gospel says, “Jesus went up on a mountain side by Himself to pray; and when evening came, He was there alone.” It was the first time that long day that Jesus had a chance to be alone to rest and pray. The day’s work was done. The people had been blessed, healed, encouraged, and fed, and sent home satisfied (at least for one day). Now wasn’t it time for a little “me time?” Nothing wrong with that, is there? Not selfish at all, but essential, for Him and for us as well.
The Scriptures talk about a need for “a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” Jesus said about prayer, “When you pray, go into your room and shut the door.” We do need to care for others and expend our time and energy to do it; that’s just part of being a Christian. I’ll put in a plug for Orphan Grain Train here, who are doing the work of helping the poor, hurting, and suffering people in this world with clothing, medical supplies, and food. “If you love Me, feed My lambs,” Jesus said; and that’s what Orphan Grain Train does. (Please help if you can). We can’t ever say, “I can’t do it today because I’m tired,” because the needs don’t ever take a day off. But we also do need to take time to let God care for us. Balance is a good thing.
It wasn’t time for rest just yet for these poor disciples in the boat, though. They set out in the boat as Jesus had asked them, and everything was going just fine… and then here came the wind. Soon enough, says our Gospel, when the boat was “a considerable distance from land,” it was “buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.”
It was a contrary, in-your-face wind they were suddenly facing. Where did it come from? Was it a natural phenomenon that just happened from time to time? Or was it a storm Jesus stirred up for them for “training purposes?” (And might He stir things up for us sometimes, if there’s something we need to learn from it?) They should have been able to make that familiar five-mile crossing in two hours or so, under normal conditions. But hours later, they were still out there fighting the wind.
Then, “During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.” Under the Roman system, the nighttime hours were divided into four watches: The first watch of the night was from six to nine p.m.; the second watch from nine p.m. to midnight; and the third watch from midnight to three a.m. The fourth watch, from three to six a.m., was the darkest part of the night, the part where it’s “always darkest before the dawn.” Jesus had been watching His disciples from the mountain with those all-seeing eyes of His and praying for them. And yet He waited until the darkest dark, when they were at their tired-est tired, at their point of exhaustion, at the point of their extremity – before He moved to rescue them.
Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea. Not across a still, peaceful, ripple-less pond (which would have been amazing enough), but walking atop those tossing waves; the contrary wind and the stinging spray was in His face, too. He could have flown out to them, sent them a Coastguard chopper or the angelic equivalent of it. He could have suddenly appeared among them, lifted up the boat, and brought them all instantly to shore, with just a word or a pointing finger or a nod of His holy head. Or He could have simply called for the wind to stop, any time He so chose. He chose to walk to them on the sea instead, just for the teaching opportunity, and for the sake of the point He was trying to make.
And “When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified,” says our Gospel. "’It's a ghost,’" they said, “and cried out in fear.” Did Jesus know that’s what their reaction would be? Is that why He did what He did? The disciples, the boys in the boat, were still subject to fear, still of “little faith,” still “tossed about by every wave that comes along.” They were trying their best to be faithful, but still apt to panic in a crisis (just like you and me). It’s not that they were without faith; they were just in need of a booster shot. They’d asked Jesus once, “O Lord, increase our faith;” and that’s what He was doing here. There were worse storms than this coming down the road for them, and they’d need to be ready.
The Hebrew people had their legends and ghost stories, like every culture does, stories of demons and dragons and terrifying creatures. We have our own ghost stories about Bigfoot, abominable snowmen, haunted houses, zombies, the walking dead and all that stuff. (People really do believe in those things; someone even told me a story once about a “maiden of the deep” that lives at the bottom of Oxford Pond!) Ancient sailors and fishermen were an especially superstitious lot. They had their stories about sea witches, sea monsters, and terrifying demons of the deep. Jesus had been teaching them better; but how easily those old fears come back.
But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Out of the darkness, out of the murk of terror and fear, there comes… that voice! “The sheep know My voice,” Jesus says. “I know My sheep and My sheep know Me.” It looks like a ghost floating there on the water -- but the voice belongs to Jesus!
“Take courage,” Jesus tells them; “Be of good cheer, be confident.” When He says, “It is I,” the Greek there is ego eimi, I AM, the holy name of the Lord God Almighty. You may be afraid, and maybe for good reason -- but who is with you? “Do not be afraid” is a commandment, not a suggestion. Giving in to your fear when God Himself is with you is blatant unfaithfulness. Doubt in the face of God’s “I will be with you always” promise is always a sin. This is really hard sometimes, I know, especially when the thing you’re afraid of is as real as a wind or a wave or a medical diagnosis. But it’s what the Lord says, nevertheless: “Do not be afraid.“ Lord, help our unbelief!
"Lord, if it's You," Peter calls out to Jesus from the boat, "tell me to come to You on the water." Literally, again in the Greek, Peter says, “Master, ei su ei” – “If You is You.” The problem here is the “if”, and the doubt that’s implied by it. Lord, if it’s You, prove it to me. If it’s really You, say the word and then I’ll be able to come to You. Peter’s words are said out of fear, to be fair to the man; but he’s putting God to the test, nevertheless. What he says echoes the devil’s temptations to Jesus in the wilderness: “If you are the Son of God…”
So, "Come," Jesus said. “Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.” Peter did gin up the courage to get out of the boat; we’ll have to give him credit for that. That was more than the other disciples did, and more than you and me would likely ever do. We can’t give him any credit for walking on the water, though, because that wasn’t from him. Peter wasn’t Superman, just a Galilean fisherman, an ordinary human being. He was only able to walk on the water because Jesus enabled him to do it. It was God’s power working in his behalf, Jesus enabling him and holding him up.
So, it comes down to all-too-human, fearful, sinful little us, upheld only by a supernatural, wind-and-wave controlling Savior. Without Him, we can do nothing; but with God, “all things are possible.” “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” Jesus once told His disciples, “you could say to this mountain, ‘Throw yourself into the sea,’ and it would be done for you.” So why do those mountains stay where they are?
But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" There it is; the perfect prayer for every situation -- three little words that confess, “Lord, I cannot, but You alone can.” It’s the perfect prayer to pray when you come to the end of yourself, the end of your schemes, your ideas, your pride, and your strength, and there’s nowhere else left for you to go. It’s a prayer of final surrender: “Wash me, Savior, or I die.”
Peter’s little prayer brings us to the essential and necessary thing, which is to give up on yourself and put all your trust in God, the God who loves you so much that He died on a cross for the sake of Your sin. And if it takes God half-drowning you to get you to that point, that He will willingly do; whatever it takes to bring you home to Him. And when you do come home to Him at last, exhausted, soaking wet, with seaweed in your hair, He’ll wrap His arms around you and cover you with forgiveness and grace.
St. Paul says in the Book of Romans that we can’t climb up to heaven on our own, and we can’t reach up to heaven and bring Jesus down to us. The power is His, the grace is His, the mercy and the willingness are His. What hope I have for a life beyond this one has to come from Him, if I’m going to have any hope at all. It’s only because He lives that I get to live. But if all I have left in this world is the strength to croak out, while taking on water, “Lord, save me!” -- won’t that always be enough?
“Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him,” says our Gospel. "You of little faith," He says to Peter, "why did you doubt?" Forgive me for one more Greek word, but the word for “you of little faith” is oligopistoi, which literally means, “littlefaith.” Calling Peter, or the other disciples, or us, a “littlefaith,” isn’t a rebuke or a condemnation; it’s more of a term of endearment, a gentle kind of nickname our Savior has for us. O you littlefaith, why did you doubt?
Jesus is the Lord and Master of the universe, the One who “laid the earth’s foundations” that we read about in the Book of Job, the One who “makes the proud waves halt;” and we’re just the fragile, fearful, soft-headed little creatures that we are. And He knows perfectly well who we are, and how weak our faith can be, and how often we flail and fail and fall. And yet, littlefaiths that we may be, He loves us anyway; always with the gentle voice, always with the hand reaching out; and always (hopefully, anyway) with the lesson learned, and our faith left a little stronger, and another day to try again to do it better.
“And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.” The wind having served its holy purpose, Jesus gave a nod and shut it off again. “Then those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’” That is the good and necessary confession, the saving confession, the one that will get you at last to heaven. “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’,” says St. Paul, “and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved… Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame… "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
And so we pray, from wherever we are, and from the deep of whatever life may be doing to us, St. Peter’s perfect and desperate prayer: “Lord, save me!” And there is Jesus, holding out His nail-scarred hand. O you of little faith, why did you doubt? In Jesus’ name; Amen.
Rev. Larry Sheppard, M.Div.
Trinity Lutheran Church, LCMS, Packwaukee, WI
St. John’s Lutheran Church, LCMS, Oxford, WI
pastorshepp@gmail.com