Sermon thoughts and other musings

Reality. I think "reality TV" helps us take a fresh look at the word "reality" because reality TV is so ... unreal. (By the way, Mark Burnett, who started it all with "Survivor" and also created "The Apprentice", uses the phrase "unscripted drama" instead. And I think he's right - these are not reality, these are dramas created in the editing room, based on players who were operating without a script.)

So what is the "real world"? Is the real world one where we are bound by the laws of nature - or one where we are not? After all, God's world is one where walking on water is a normal occurrence. The Hebrew Scriptures understand walking on water to be God's thing: "He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea." (Job 9:8, NIV)

When Jesus beckons Peter onto the water, Jesus is inviting Peter into God's world. Peter, if only for a few steps, gets to live in God's world - a world where the restrictions we've been taught to submit to no longer apply, and where scary storms are no longer to be feared. On the water, the impossible becomes possible, and "can't" becomes "will".

Sure, at one level we probably think it would be cool to live in that world. But remember, God's world - the world where walking on water is normal; in other words, a world where those who would sink will rise above the waves - is also the world where the last are first, the poor and the lame have the best seats at the banquet, and the last workers in the vineyard are paid as much as the first. Are you still ready to get out of the boat? Jesus is calling us!