Thalassophobia

Gospel
Mt 14:22-33

After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boatand precede him to the other side,while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore,was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night,he came toward them walking on the sea. When the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were terrified. “It is a ghost,” they said, and they cried out in fear. At once Jesus spoke to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter said to him in reply,“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” Peter got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened;and, beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught Peter,and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” After they got into the boat, the wind died down. Those who were in the boat did him homage, saying,“Truly, you are the Son of God.”

Sermon by John Pridmore

"THALASSOPHOBIA" has been defined as "the persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of the sea". The fishermen among the disciples certainly feared the sea, but not because they were thalassophobics. There was nothing irrational in their recognition that big seas can do bad things to small boats. Far from being a sick phobia, their fear of the sea was entirely healthy.

They had been taught by experience - by having to wrest a living from it - to dread the sea, but they had learned the same lesson from their scriptures. In the Hebrew Bible, the sea is the primal image of all that is malign and menacing, of all that continues to resist the purpose of God. All the seas of scripture are serpentine - not serpentine in name and shape like the lovely lake in Hyde Park, but serpentine in essence and character.

The language of the ancient myths evokes the terrors of the seas. "You rule the raging of the sea. You crushed Rahab like a carcass" (Psalm 89.9). Rahab is not the hospitable lady whose clients included Joshua's spies (Joshua 2), but the sea-monster we meet in many an ancient Near Eastern text.

She has many names, but a single malevolent purpose: to frustrate and defeat the creator God. Rahab is better known as Leviathan - "Leviathan, the twisting serpent . . . the dragon that is in the sea" (Isaiah 27.1).

If God's vision for humankind is to be achieved, Leviathan must be overcome. The New Testament is the story of how that victory was gained when, one Friday, someone stepped into Leviathan's jaws. The most eloquent and profound literary commentary on the atonement, understood in these mythological terms, remains Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

Christ's decisive victory over Leviathan is anticipated in earlier battles that he won, when he stilled an angry sea (Mark 4.35-41), and when, as we hear this week, he came to his terrified friends, walking on the water.

Jesus walks on the water. As with all the miracles, we must ask what this story means. The question of "what actually happened", while not wholly unimportant for those who believe that something did happen, is a distraction. (Do any of those ancient modernists survive who used to tell us that, in fact, Jesus was walking along the shore, or on a sandbank?)

Jesus tramples the ancient enemy underfoot. He does what God does. "It is God who by himself spread out the heavens and trod on the back of the sea monster" (Job 9.8). Lest we fail to see the significance of his action, all three Gospels that have this story record the telling words with which Jesus reassures his terrified disciples. "I am," he says (Matthew 14.27; Mark 6.51; John 6.20).

Having done what God does, Jesus says what God says; for these are the very same revelatory words that Moses heard from the burning bush (Exodus 3.14). It would be impossible to imagine a translation more grotesquely mistaken than "It's only me."

The miracle is a divine disclosure, a "theophany". Matthew - and only Matthew - makes doubly clear what the story is saying by recording the disciples' response in worship to what they have witnessed. "Truly," they say to Jesus, "you are the Son of God."

Jesus does what God does. All the more the remarkable, then, that Peter asks to do the same. Peter, too - with the saving help of his best of friends - does what is divine. He leaves the boat. He, too, confronts Leviathan.

In Matthew's Gospel, Peter represents the Christian community. He represents us. Like Peter, our way to Jesus is in and through the contradictions and adversities that the sea-beasts of scripture symbolise, not along some pleasant detour round them.

I write these notes, as is my custom, early in the morning. In need of fresh air, I break off to walk the few yards down to the sea-front. Nearing the beach, I become aware of a torrent of raised voices mingling with the thunder of the waves. A group of some 30 men, women, and children, most wearing white robes with red sashes, is assembled on the otherwise deserted beach, a few yards from the water's edge.

They stand facing the sea, as if to confront it and rebuke it. Each worshipper, arms raised, is making his or her own prayer, crying out across the deep. Some hold their Bibles high, and shake them defiantly at the waters. At last, their prayers subside and the service ends. In twos and threes, they make their way back to the promenade.

I ask one of the worshippers why they should choose to stand facing the sea. He tells me that, when they see the sea, they think of all their troubles. This morning, they have not walked on the waters. They tell me that they come from north London, where soon they will be returning. Leviathan will be waiting for them there. So, too, will the one who has defeated him.