Walking on Water
The sermon preached by Fr. Ernie on August 13, 2023.
Sooner or later we all need to learn to walk on water.
Perhaps that seems a strange thing to say. I mean, human beings really aren’t meant to walk on water, are they — unless the water has frozen, of course. Take a step onto liquid H2O, though, and it just gives way beneath you. You plunge directly into its depths, which is why so many of us learn to swim. It would be a very strange thing if we tried to jump into a swimming pool only to bounce back as if the water were a trampoline. Luckily, it’s not like this. When we jump into a swimming pool on a hot day, the result is a splash as we sink under the surface, feeling the cool liquid all around us.
So, what do I mean when I say that sooner or later we all need to learn how to walk on water? I mean just this. I mean that sooner or later we need to learn how to put all our trust in God to help us with things that would be impossible for us without that help. Like Peter, there are times when we have to get out of the boat and depend on God alone to keep us from drowning. And let me tell you, that’s never easy. Many of you have already had to do this in the course of your life4 , so you know what I mean: it’s never easy.
Most of the time we build boats to keep us afloat. And even though we know that boats can sink we feel pretty safe in them. We build houses to give us shelter. We get jobs the pay the rent. We get health insurance to have doctors to keep us healthy. We all try to get these things — these “boats” so to speak — and the more we have the more we begin to think that we will never drown. We began to take our safety for granted. … Until something goes wrong, of course.
My wife Sondra and I were in that position 11 years ago. We both had good jobs. I was a priest, and Sondra was an attorney. Together we were making a good salary, especially Sondra. We owned our own house. It was a small house — a mobile home, in fact, very modest — but it was ours, and it enough. We had no debts. All in all, we felt pretty secure in the little boat we had built for ourselves. We saw no reason why that need ever change. And yet it did. The change came suddenly one afternoon.
I’ll never forget it. It happened on April Fool’s day 2012. Sondra was exercising one afternoon when suddenly the equipment she was using broke and completely smashed her left hand. I was visiting a sick parishioner at the time. Sondra called me from the emergency room. She was crying. She was in terrible pain, but that wasn’t why she was crying. She was crying because her broken hand had swollen so badly that they were going to have to cut off her wedding ring and she didn’t want them to that. This was the ring we had bought together.
“Tell them not to do that,” I said.
“They say they have to,” she answered. “Otherwise I’ll lose my finger.”
Let me tell you, that stopped me. Only at that moment did I grasp how serious her injury truly was.
“I’ll be there at once,” I said.
When I arrived, Sondra showed me her hand. It didn’t even look real. It looked like one of those grotesque plastic mummy hand kids like to wear for Halloween. It was bloody, grotesquely swollen, and crisscrossed with dozens of stitches. I just stared at it, unable to take it in.
“Is her hand going to be OK?” I asked the doctor.” He just shrugged. The poor man looked exhausted.
“The hand will heal in time,” he said wearily. He then paused. “The question is, will there be neurological damage? We won’t know that until later.”
“What do you mean by “neurological damage?” I asked.
The doctor seemed suddenly uncomfortable.
“Well, whenever you see a severe injury like this — especially one involving the hand — you have to consider the possibility of long-term pain issues,” he said. “But it may not happen.” “Let’s just wait and see.”
That was enough for me, and I dismissed the idea, concentrating on the immediate problem, getting Sondra’s mangled hand to heal. And yet, it turned out that the doctor was right. Within weeks it was not just her left hand — her injured hand — that was hurting. Slowly the pain had begun to spread up her entire arm, then to her right hand, then to her right arm too. And not only that, but the whole character of the pain began to change, becoming more and more intense. Then suddenly, to her horror, the pain began to spread first to her feet and then to her legs too — terrible pain, relentless pain.
Shocked and confused, we went back to the doctor who sent us to the Stanford Pain Clinic. Fortunately, there were doctors there who knew exactly what the problem was. It was something called CRPS, which stands for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. In a way we were lucky. There are many people with CRPS who go undiagnosed for years, with doctors telling them that it’s all in their heads. And in one sense they are correct. As the doctors at Stanford explained it to us, Sondra’s injury had been so severe that it had disrupted the pain center in her brain. The pain center was meant to send out alarms in the form of pain whenever something was wrong — a cut, a burn, a hammer blow. The trouble was, Sondra’s pain center was broken now. The alarm never stopped. She was feeling pain constantly— terrible pain — pain in her feet, and her legs, and her hands, and her arms. The pain was as severe as it gets, too, as bad as childbirth at times.
Suddenly, our life was completely upside down. Everything changed. Entirely unable to work now, Sondra had to quite her job. My work too became complicated because Sondra suddenly depended on me for even the most ordinary things. Our secure, happy little boat had sunk. We were over our heads and unable to help ourselves. We had just two choices. Either we both learned to walk on water or we drowned. But how do you learn to walk on water? How do you do the impossible? Helpless and afraid we were like Peter faced with the strong wind. We cried out, “Lord, save us.”
The months and years that followed have not been easy. The pain did not go away. We were told that it never will and for the first year Sondra was bedridden 24/7 and the pain was constant, but there were treatments. The doctors tried one medication after another, one pain management class after another, and slowly … slowly… it became more manageable as Sondra found ways to live with it. There was never a normal day, but some days were better than others and I watched in awe as Sondra just found ways to adapt to a life controlled not only by pain, but by uncertainty. It was clear to me that she was not doing this alone. She had help. Somehow, she just seemed to grow stronger. It was at once sad and inspiring to watch her take her life one day at a time, sometimes one hour at a time. She was learning to walk on water, and it was not easy, but God was with her.
You see, sooner or later, we all have to learn this. We can only rest in our boat for so long, then things change. We lose our job … or our marriage. Or we have to give up our home, or we develop serious health issues. Or someone very dear to us dies. Or we grow old. Sooner or later it happens, and we have no choice but to cry out to God, “Lord, save me,” and God will be there.
Yes, it requires faith to reach out to God knowing that there is nothing else that can help us, but any amount of faith will do. Don’t forget what Jesus says about the mustard seed. Even faith as small as that will be enough. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus will say as he reaches down to help you. It won’t be a reprimand, though, because he’ll be smiling. He’s been with us all along, because he’s always known that we will need him. He’s always known that sooner or later we’ll need to learn to walk on water. That’s why he’s there. He’s always there, exactly when we need him most. AMEN
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