August 9, 2026
Pentecost 11 / Proper 14, Year A
The Rev. Dr. Elaine Ellis Thomas
St. John’s Episcopal Church, Essex, CT
Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28 ~ Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b ~ Romans 10:5-15 ~ Matthew 14:22-33
I think most of you have probably figured out by now how much I enjoy these stories from the book of Genesis, the patriarchs and matriarchs and their mistakes and foibles and absolute inability to make God give up on them even when it sure looks like they deserve that. And now we come to the part of the story that the rest of it was, in some ways, leading up to. The origins of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the great deliverance of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt begin with this episode where the ten older brothers of the obnoxious favored son have finally had enough and sell him into slavery. Perhaps there might have been better ways of dealing with Joseph and his many-colored coat than dumping him in a cistern, but then we wouldn’t have a good story, would we?
So, Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites or the Midianites, take your pick, who take him down to Egypt. Now, our Sunday readings fast forward through several chapters before next week, but in the next chapter after the one we just read, Judah – the brother who suggested they sell Joseph as a slave – gets into a “complicated” situation with his daughter-in-law, and then the chapter after that opens with the words, “Meanwhile, Joseph had been taken down to Egypt” (Genesis 39:1).[1] And in this meanwhile (you will know this if you’ve seen the musical), Joseph serves in Potiphar’s household, gets thrown into prison on trumped-up charges, interprets dreams for Pharoah, and then, thirteen years after his brothers had done their dirty work, this Joseph had risen to become the most powerful man in Egypt after Pharoah. And because of this, when famine comes to the land of Canaan, his brothers can come down to get food, and ultimately, Jacob and all the rest relocate to Egypt. Next week, we’ll hear Joseph forgive the brothers who caused all that misery for him because, had they not done so, he would not have been able to save his family.
God’s meanwhile is like that. When troubles come upon us and we can’t seem to find a way through, remember that meanwhile down in Egypt, God was working out a future for the chosen people of Israel.
Nine years ago, on this 11th Sunday after Pentecost, I climbed into the pulpit of St. Paul’s Memorial Church at the University of Virginia to preach on this text from the 14th chapter of Matthew. The day before, the City of Charlottesville had endured a convulsion of violence with injuries and hate and chaos and death. On the Friday night that launched that weekend, more than 700 people packed into the 400-person-capacity St. Paul’s, gathered for a mass prayer service to prepare for what was expected to be a long, hot, difficult day the next day when the Unite the Right Rally was planned.
Towards the end of that prayer service, those of us leading the gathering found ourselves encouraging the musicians to continue singing Freedom Songs so that we could have people remain inside for a while because of the volatile situation with tiki-torch-bearing, white nationalist, neo-Nazi terrorists marching and wreaking havoc across the street at Mr. Jefferson’s rotunda. We locked the doors to keep people from venturing outside.
So, when I stepped into the pulpit that Sunday, the day after Heather Heyer was killed by a violent white supremacist behind the wheel of a car, the idea of commending Peter for stepping out of that boat in the midst of a violent storm, of pointing out his courage and obedience while the others cowered in the boat – no, that did not seem to be a commendable thing at all. It felt foolish and risky. It felt like Peter was abandoning his community in the middle of a storm when such a torrent required all of them just to stay afloat, to stay alive.
Walking on water falls under the authority of the divine. Mastery over the unknown forces of the deep was a sign of godly power. The Seleucid king who ruled a couple of hundred years before the time of Christ, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, was criticized in the Second Book of Maccabees for believing he could “sail on the land and walk on the sea.” Even the Emperor Caligula had a temporary 50km bridge built just under the water line across the Sea of Naples so as to appear to be walking across the water on foot. [2] Did Peter think he had that kind of power? Was Jesus trying to teach him a lesson by letting him sink?
I wonder if the problem was this: Peter started his request with ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water’ (13:28), and that is when Jesus calls him out of the boat. If it is you. That sounds an awful lot like “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Matthew 4:3). Those are the words of the tempter. When Peter starts to sink, perhaps Jesus was saying to him, “I say you have little faith because you still have such doubt about me,” or maybe it was Jesus saying, “You sank because where you belong in this raging storm is in the boat with your friends. How can you lead your community, how can they withstand the cataclysm if you go off on your own trying to be a hero, trying to do it yourself? Get back in the boat and stick together. It’s the only hope you have.”
Joseph’s brothers weren’t interested in keeping him in their boat. No, they sold him into slavery and broke their father’s heart. Members of his own family decided that Joseph didn’t belong, so they got rid of him. And yet, God’s meanwhile worked that to the good for them and the people of Israel.
And God does the same for Peter and for all of us. In that tense summer of 2017, there were many times when we felt like we were sinking, but a hand always reached out to hold us up, to get us to safety or to a place to rest or recover. We who follow Jesus claim to be the body of Christ, so those hands saving us from sinking may have been friends or neighbors or even strangers, but they were the hands of Jesus, every time.
No matter what storms we are facing, as a community, as a country, or as a world, don’t forget that meanwhile, down in Egypt, God is at work. Bishop Barbara Harris always used to say that the power behind us is greater than anything that lies before us. Take hold of the hand that reaches out to help when it feels like you are sinking. We’ll haul you back into the boat, and we’ll get to safe harbor together.
[1] Some translations say “now,” but I purposely chose the ISV and Berean Annotated Translation, two versions I would not otherwise use.
[2] With gratitude to The Rev. Dr. Andrew McGowan for these references.