Sunday Sermon - The Rev.Dr.Hillary Raining (Aug 9 2026)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The holy gospel of our savior jesus christ according to matthew. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Glory to you. [00:00:10] Speaker A: Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up by the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But by this time, the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning, he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. Peter answered him, lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, come. So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on water and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink. He cried out, lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt? When they got into the boat, the wind ceased and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. The Gospel of the Lord. [00:02:16] Speaker B: In the name of one God. Father, if you are of the age of story time and you would like something to do during the sermon, feel free to grab one of those little activity bags in the back. And if you are of any age and you don't want to listen to the sermon, go ahead. I won't take offense. A few years ago, I went on retreat. Part of that retreat that I had been looking forward to was a massage that was offered to calm the body, mind and soul, like, kind of like a physical meditation. Could not wait for this because I was really stressed. Now I had my initial meeting with the masseuse, who told me to lay flat down on the table, putting my head into that little face pillow prison thing that they have. And just as we were starting, she looks at my back and says the two words you never want to hear aimed at yourself. That's weird. We were not off to a strong start, but she followed it with the equally strange. What's that? She queried as she poked at my back. Now, luckily, I knew what she was talking about already. You see, I have an extra vertebra in my spine, which makes it so sometimes look a little crooked to the untrained eye. And so I explained to her, oh yeah, no big deal. Just the extra vertebrae I was born with. Vertebra, no big deal. Thought that would be the end of it. Well, she was not deterred and she hit me with a rejoinder, with an air of absolute sincerity and confidence. Oh, well, you know what that means. I didn't, but she did. She kept going and said, well, it means with the air of a foremost expert, it means that one of your ancestors was a fairy. It was a good thing she couldn't see my face because it was like, what? What? But I'm such a people pleaser that what I said was a very agreeable. Oh, yeah, sure, yeah. She goes on. Yeah, you know, a fairy, a Fae, a wood nymph. You know, one of your ancestors was magical. Duh. Friends, as I'm sure you can no doubt tell by this opening story, this is a sermon about prayer and contemplation, obviously, because I had, as I said, been going into this moment to find a deep sense of peace and calm and centering and meditation. But here I was now, officially and completely not meditating, and was so, so thoroughly distracted by that opening salvo that this could no longer be a prayerful event. No matter how hard I tried, me and my magical spine couldn't focus on anything else for the rest of the hour. The whole time I'm just looking down, eyes popped open, thinking, who is this person? How do I not laugh for the rest of this? What's my ethical obligation here? When will my latent magical powers from my spine manifest? I was in no way centered and peaceful upon leaving that massage. This is how it is sometimes, maybe most times when we try to pray or sit in contemplation and meditation. Maybe you've had something happen like this to you. Okay, maybe not this exact experience, but have any of us ever gone to prayer and found yourself so completely, completely distracted, often by silly frivolous things that you're not able to focus for even like 10 seconds. Has anybody else ever had this problem? Great. Okay, good. We're not alone. Great theologians from all over the Christian experience have talked about this problem, about this in their own prayer life. Some call it the monkey mind when your thoughts swing from one to the next, never stopping, never centering on Jesus. Peter from our story today can tell us a thing or two about what it's like when you can't focus on Jesus in prayer. Now, in the Gospel of Matthew, where this story is taken from, Matthew starts us off with a different prayer story. He starts us off with Jesus, somebody who is obviously satisfied, steeped in his prayer practice. In verse 22, Matthew tells us that after he dismissed the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain by himself to pray. This is not the first time we have heard about Jesus going away to pray like this. Just last week, our story started the exact same way. And it happens over and over and over again. In the gospels, Jesus prayer life is documented with him going off to a lonely place, sending away all the distractions of this world and centering himself on alone time with God. It's only after Jesus has prayed this way when we see him able to work miracles or face the storms of life. Jesus prays and then he works miracles. Jesus prays and then he walks to Jerusalem towards his own martyrdom. This centering is what connects Jesus to God's plan and who he is in God's story. So Matthew and the gospel writers are creating a straight line for us in this pattern. That prayer changes a person and centers us in God. What we know from neuroscience is that it's very much the way the brain works as well. When we meditate after deep contemplation practice after years, the brain is different. The brain of somebody who meditates even as little as 20 minutes daily over eight weeks shows different physical structures including increased gray matter density and a shrinking of the stress stress center and the amygdala. That sounds pretty good to me as a matter of fact. And those are just the physical changes. People who are deeply centered in their prayer life often have a maturity about them that keeps them equanimous even in the storms of life. Think about the most holy person you know. It's not as though they haven't had hard things happen to them, I'm sure. But it's that they are so centered on God that the waves don't disrupt their peace. Their center of gravity is on the Holy Spirit. You get the sense that Jesus is like that when he prays. He stays grounded. That's great for Jesus, but what about us, the everyman? Enter Peter as he always does whenever we need a stand in for ourselves. Peter is shown here and will be shown throughout the rest of the gospel as somebody who perhaps has a faith in need of a little developing. Like all of us. When Peter sees Jesus walking on the water, he is terrified. Yet when he sees him coming, he still says, lord, if it is your command, bid me come out on the water. And he walks focused on Jesus. He can even walk on the waves. So I want to start by giving Peter some props. He spent enough time with Jesus in his life to be willing to take that first step. That's not nothing. But notice once he is distracted by those Waves, whatever they may be, the storms of life, we see that Peter's faith is still a little lacking. He is eager, but not yet deeply rooted enough. But friends, there's good news for Peter and for us. In verse 31, Jesus says, O you of little faith, this is an important phrase. The word here for little faith in Greek is olegopistos. It's a compound word that does not mean the total absence of faith like a chastisement, but rather a faith that is underdeveloped, short lived, easily distracted by circumstances. Yeah, I can get that. That's how my prayer life can be at times, and perhaps yours as well. But remember, Oglios Pistos is that sort of faith is the same word that Jesus uses as uses one chapter before in chapter 21 when he describes this mustard seed faith, the smallest of faith, that having faith even the size of a mustard seed, if you plant it, it will grow larger than all the other plants in the garden, very deeply rooted. That's how this works. If we have even a mustard seed seed size of a faith practice, it can grow. Back to the neuroscience. We see it there too. Even two to three minutes of meditation, two to three minutes can cause our brain waves to shift into calmer and more attentive states. Five to 15 minutes and we see immediate stress reduction peaks, helping to lower reactivity, calming mind chatter, lowering anxiety, even improving sleep and sharpening concentration. Pretty good, right? When those waves of life start to swell, it would be good to have that kind of a brain wave and a soul wave. And we see this in the story when Peter keeps his eyes on Jesus, even with his little faith, he can walk on water. So what about us? If we want to practice this, how do we do it? How do we go from a Peter prayer life to a Jesus one to a mature faith that seeks to have the goal of having God's heart center us at all times, even in the rocky moments. Well, it takes practice. We have to start somewhere. The journey is never done, but it does have a beginning. Some of us may have a sense of that, but all of us need to keep developing our faith to have more and more ways to follow Christ. Even if you pray every day for an hour, or whether you haven't prayed in years or ever, there is always the moment to let that mustard seed grow. Prayer is a practice that compounds with time. So if you start with your mustard seed faith, it will grow. Now a word about this kind of prayer before we practice it together. There are as many ways to center yourself in prayer. As there are human beings in the world. Many times I hear people tell me that they have a hard time with meditation or centering prayer because their minds race. Some of us have adhd, some of us just can't sit still. It's important to note the idea here is not to stop your thoughts. That's impossible. Our brains are made for thoughts. If they aren't thinking, it means you're dead. So it's okay to have thoughts, but the idea is to surrender them, to let them go as much as possible. In other words, if you were sitting underneath the water, to let each thought roll away like a wave. You see it come in and you let it go. Now, this is achieved by trying to find as much quiet as you can. So let's say you can't sit still. Try a walking meditation, but don't bring your headphones. Leave your phone back. I know, that's the tricky part. Let's say you don't mind sitting still, but you still need to fidget or give the body something to do. Prayer beads were invented just for this, so having a set of prayer beads is helpful. Or if your mind is going a mile a minute, return to your breath over and over again. Just remember to inhale and exhale just to bring yourself back to let the thoughts go. So we're going to give this a shot. It only takes two minutes to feel the effect. Right? We've got two minutes. We're going to do this. Feel free if it is comfortable to you to shut your eyes or at least lower your gaze, perhaps looking towards the floor. And as much as possible, allow your thoughts to begin to pass like waves. We're going to start, as Jesus does, with a little benevolent detachment, send thoughts to God instead of holding onto them. Take a deep inhale and exhale. Imagine giving everything and everyone you're thinking about to God. Temporarily send them away into God's loving hands. Take another inhale and exhale. Every time a thought comes by, let it pass you like a rolling wave, detached from it and not clinging to, Relaxing with every breath, continuing to detach. With your eyes remaining closed. Take another inhale and exhale. And listen to these words of prayer. Holy and gracious God, we give you thanks for the gift of prayer, for the ability to be centered in you, even in the chances and changes of this life. Lord, this week, as the storms around us rage, let us turn to you for our centeredness, for our help and for our joy. Take another inhale and exhale, bringing your hands together with your eyes remaining closed, you can rub them together to add some warmth. Place them over your eyes in a form of blessing, opening your eyes underneath the palms of your hands to not let too much light come back in all at once and slowly lower your hands back down when you're ready. This is available to you at all times. A little breath, a little silence. A little time for God. This helps us to be on the waves and yet not be tossed about by distractions, pains and worries. We can begin with the smallest prayer and trust that God meets us even with our faith as small as it is. One step at a time. Amen. It.