Texts: 1 Kings 19: 9-18; Matthew 14: 22-33

In the final scene of Martin Doblmeier's film Bonhoeffer, the Nazi guard accompanying Bonhoeffer to the gallows notices that he seems to be shaking, asks him if he is afraid to die. Stating that he was just shivering from the cold - he had been stripped of his clothing and it was a chilly April morning at the Flossenburg concentration camp - he walked calmly to what was a particularly brutal hanging - strangulation by a wire rather than a drop to break the neck. His writings and his final statement make it clear that he did not fear death at all. I'm not sure that I would have been without fear in the same situation. To be honest, I'm not sure what I fear more: dying or what might lie beyond the grave.

Fear is a normal response not just to that which we do not know but also to that which we know very well. Our bodies respond quickly to a sense of impending disaster: our hormonal balances change as we have a rush of adrenaline; as much as our knees shake when we are really afraid, our muscles actually tighten and become stronger; our body's natural defenses go to work; our blood coagulates in case we are injured; our blood pressure and heart rate shoot up. But these natural defenses have their down side as well. We don't think as clearly; focused only on survival, we lose touch with our surroundings. Without Navy Seal or Army Ranger training, we act as did our primitive ancestors. It's just part of being human.

Fear affects us all, even prophets and disciples. Look at our two stories from Scripture. First we have Elijah the Tishbite, so named because he was from Tishbe, a village in the mountainous region of Gilead, now in present day Jordan. Told by God to call King Ahab to task because "he did more to provoke the Lord than all the kings of Israel before him," as the scriptural framework states, Elijah at first tells Ahab that the wrath of the Lord will be visited upon him. Ahab, of course is furious, as is his wife Jezebel and Elijah is forced to take shelter in a cave because Ahab was out to get him. Now, quite frankly, Elijah's response to the threats of Ahab and Jezebel is quite human. We muster up the courage to speak our minds and then shrink back when our words or actions come back to haunt and hurt us. Just look at what happens to women who stand up to abusers: they can get killed. It's one of the reasons we have domestic violence shelters.

Fear is also connected to doubt. We often like to think we have more courage or strength than we really do. Some of that is connected to our inability to have faith in ourselves - or in God. The word faith is closely connected to the word belief, which in the Greek means to "give one's heart to." As one writer notes, the word "belief" has been impoverished in that it has come to mean little more than a head over heart intellectual assent. Often when we ask people, "What do you believe?" we are usually asking, "What do you think?" Although I'm hardly one to belittle the importance of thinking or intellectual activity, to circumscribe belief - as well as doubt - to intellect only is to impoverish the deeper meaning of those words.

Doubt and fear are closely related, to be sure. Just look at the story from Matthew This is one of the quintessential stories of the meaning of faith. Now, my idea of the water is a pool - with sides. Once I take my glasses off, I would swim to England before coming back to shore. And that movie, you know the one I mean, Jaws - you would never, NEVER in a million years catch me even thinking of watching that movie. In spite of the fact that I can swim, I agree with Peter Yarrow; swimming is survival in the water. I'm with the disciples here. Here you are, in a storm on a boat with 30 feet of water beneath you and some apparition appears on the water. Peter is like most of us; thinking he has more faith, which creates courage - or foolhardiness - take your pick - he's ready to walk on water. Right. He sinks just as any of us would do.

As an aside, you should know, that Pat Robertson has teamed up with the Israeli right wing to build a "Walk on Water Theme Park" on the Sea of Galilee. The trick is to build a slightly under the water stone walkway so you too can walk on water! How's that for ingenuity? Sure to erase all your doubts! But, seriously, sinking is what we would do. I daresay that all of us would sink - not because we don't have this elusive quality called faith but because we are, in the end, only human.

Being only human is in some ways a blessing as well as a curse. Dare I call it a curse? Being human allows us to accept our foibles, our limitations, our inability to forgive others at times. Recently a man I know who has plead guilty to what is politely called invasion of privacy - looking at women in the household shared shower by means of a hidden camera - told his wife that he now has a clean conscience now because he had asked God to forgive him and God had done just that. The wife, still angry after only a few months of this betrayal, shot back, "Well, I'm not God!" And as much as we often think we would like to be God, down deep, we're really glad that we're not. What a burden it would be to forgive everybody!

It's really a terrible thing to say, but sometimes it's our anger that keeps us going. It's also a very dangerous passion for much like fear, it not only clouds the mind, but also clouds the heart. Note that Elijah doesn't have his own anger but is nothing more than a conduit for God's anger of the idolatry into which Israel has sunk. That idolatry was more than just bowing down to some stupid statue, of course; it was closely linked to injustice. Ahab's covetousness of Nabob's vineyard is just one example. When the kings of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, it was always connected to some form of injustice, whether fabricating a story about what Nabob did or living high on the hog while the people starved. When there is sin, there is some form of retribution, some way we reap the whirlwind, whether it's Nabob's vineyard or our own insensitivity to the poor.

Recognizing our limitations is just part of being human. It also means recognizing our capacity for love as well as our limitations for loving. In spite of our best intentions, human beings cannot love unconditionally, totally without reservation. Loving someone does not mean we accept or even tolerate everything the object of our affections does. Sometimes people grow out of love; people change and they do stop loving each other. Loving does not mean erasing anger, disappointment or sadness. God may love us unconditionally but that love hardly erases God's sadness at our self-centeredness, our inability to stop killing each other, or our stubbornness. I use the word sadness here advisedly because the Spirit of God that fills us and carries us, imparts to us that sadness when we sin by our deliberate acts or by just being human. As Christians, our goal is not to be more than human but to be better human beings, to be more like the Spirit and Power that created us and to be more like the One we follow.

Anger and love are often related and sometimes it is because we love that we become angry when we see injustice or a lack of mercy or just a lack of care. If we did not love, we would just be apathetic. But being human means we are not apathetic and we do become angry with the world, with each other, and with ourselves. Learning how to channel that anger into something positive is not easy but it is necessary to get past our fears, our doubts, our uncertainties. We should take heart from the examples of Elijah and Peter, both of whom sought to be faithful. When we fail or fall short, we are often given other opportunities. Being in community with each other is one of those opportunities. Drawing strength from each other with God's grace we can become not more than human but better humans.

Let us pray: Creating and redeeming God, we know that we have often failed you, those whom we love, and often ourselves. Grant us your grace to see beyond our own limitations into a world of possibilities. Imbue us with your Spirit and Wisdom so we are better able to follow the One you sent us as an example of your love. Amen.