11th Sunday after Pentecost 2026

Sermon: 11th Sunday after Pentecost 2026

Texts: Matthew 14:22-33

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Growing up in the Caribbean, you get to be very acquainted with powerful storms and hurricanes. The question never is: “will the storm hit us?”, rather it is “how will we face the storm?” once it does. Storms are part of the cycles of nature, they destroy and unsettle, as much as they also purify and reset our priorities and growth. When the storm hits, you have to pick up the pieces, and draw near what gives you strength to rebuild for the future. Our individual and collective human lives participate in similar cycles, we weather storms of many types, and each storm leaves its lesson, as well as its scars. Whether that is sickness, death, loss, uncertainty , violence, or any other kind of brokenness, the most important aspect is to find the anchor that can help withstand the battering of the waves and the wind. This persevering struggle sometimes is not all negative, however. Sometimes, there is a hidden resource that comes to light in the midst of life’s greatest storms, that even if we would rather have no storm at all, it nonetheless reveals a great truth that blesses us with a greater heart and strength, a new perspective that reforms us with a greater sense of living meaningfully on this Earth.

Different people extract these hidden resources from different places. As I was preparing for this message, I was caught by the words that Jesus tells the disciples as they were struggling through the storm with great fear and they see Him incomprehensively walking on the stormy waters, so much so that they thought He was a specter, and He says to them: “Tharoeíte, ego eimi”, “take heart, it is I”. To take heart, “Tharoeite”, means in the Greek, to be bold, confident, to be of good courage;

in this case, Jesus is summoning from the disciples, to muster confidence or trust, to be bold in the midst of the storm, because He is approaching them within the storm. Like all words we use, this Greek word meaning “to take heart” has its history. And for many Greek speakers, this word was employed in the sense of drawing from within oneself the trust in some truth or reason that allowed a person to stand fast and calm against any threat to one’s existence. Yet the Christian gives a little twist to the history of this word. For the Christian does not draw from within oneself the truth that allows them to weather the storm. Philosophies and self-help in the face of life’s storms are all well and good in themselves, but reasons come and go. The Christian has been given Someone they can be confident in. The Christian draws from another One that gives them strength, from another One that can calm the storm, for this One has defeated death and the powers of this world through His Risen Life. In the midst of our storms, to us approaches the resource that helps us weather the waves and the wind.

In the text we can see, the disciples are afraid they will perish in the sea. The storm is raging, and they are in it’s grasp. They have every reason to be anxious, for all around them is maelstrom. But amid this chaos, there is Christ approaching. Anxiety may run a thousand circles over our heads, this does not stop Christ approaching us. When we don’t allow ourselves to see anything else that is not the storm, Christ remains to be the faith and the reason for a different outcome than our fear. And in the same way that He spoke to the disciples: “Take heart, it is I”, He says the same to us. How many times we need this reminder, for the storm consumes all our attention. Take heart, be confident and keep your peace, for Christ, the face of the Living God, the One who

loves us and cares for us forever, is with us. Take heart, for in Him is assurance of joy and salvation. Take heart, because in His name is the love and mercy we seek. Take heart, because no storm can overrun the promise given, that we are held together in the hands of God forever. Take heart, Jesus says to the disciples, because indeed it is no ghost, it is Him who they have seen bringing the Kingdom of God to their lives. It is the divine I that calms the storms and has always been present throughout history strengthening the weak and oppressed with His grace.

Christ wanted the disciples to redirect their attention. One thing about anxiety is that it robs us of thinking anything else that is not the object of our anxiety. Anxiety is good at feeding itself from our fears. But Christ comes to wrest us away from that cycle, to change our field of vision at least a little bit to focus on Him. To focus on the fact that the storm might throw things outside of our control, yet we are secure in Christ. He calms the power of the storm over us. If we think about it in our own lives, we can affirm that we belong to a people that have gone through many storms, yet each storm has not had the power to bring us down. For the I that approaches us, is the I of the God that has us in His hands. God’s goodness for us cannot be eclipsed by the storms of this life, they will pass, and we shall remain with God.

The second half of this story in Matthew tells us as much, that our boldness of faith, our steadfastness in paying attention to Christ through the storm, allows us to walk over the stormy waters. This boldness is to affirm a life beyond the storm. The storm will not determine our fate. The Christian looks at Christ and sees the goal and essence of life. In Him is the victory over the storm, the calm of knowing all things to be well in the end, because God is just and will fulfill His Word. Peter exemplified this

boldness. “Command me to walk over the water”! And Jesus welcomes this. But in the end, Peter exemplified that frail humanity, that anxiety can still creep over our boldness, and shift our view from Christ back to the storm. To have faith and act boldly is not a passive action. It takes everything that we are. We will struggle. We might often sink by the weight of our doubts and fears. But let us not be ashamed either of being bold or vulnerable. Let us take the most powerful lesson of the storm, that there is a hand that is stretched out for us. Peter cries out: “Lord save me!”. There is no more potent or more genuine prayer than that cry. And it is the one thing the Christian holds the closest to their believing heart: the fact that the Lord saves! That assurance is what feeds more boldness. That cry of vulnerability is what invites more grace, so that we might understand that God holds us close, there is no need to doubt, even if naturally we might do so. One thing is certain, irrespective of Peter’s boldness of faith or our doubt, Christ saves. Christ saves and will continue to summon us into greater acts of trust that glorify the name of God’s love.

We all have our storms that we have braved and have sunk us. We are collectively as a global society, facing a storm right now where uncertainty reigns in many hearts. But the promise of Christ remains, as I read from the writer Carmen Acevedo Butcher, “No matter how broken or broken-hearted, we are loved”, we are assured the mercy of God fulfilled in Christ Jesus. We are assured the justice of God that will make all things right for the oppressed. The end is always that Christ will not leave us to brave away alone, he joins us on the boat of life, and sails with us to the end, until we reach the shore of God’s eternal rest. Like that ancient Christian allusion to the epic poem the Odyssey, the storms of this life will take us to and fro but tied to the mast that is the

Cross of Christ, we will persevere. So do not fear the storm, Beloved. The great I AM, revealed in the face of Christ is with us. Let us confidently tread over the waters into the hands of Christ, and when doubt shatter our resolve to brave the storm, let us not fear of crying out “Lord save me!”, relying on the great I AM’s ultimate assurance that we are His to save. As the mystic Julian of Norwich wrote: ““God did not say, ‘You shall not be tormented, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be grieved’, but God said, ‘You shall not be overcome.’” Indeed, in Christ, we shall not be overcome. So let us then pray: