“God With Us” based on Luke 8:22-25 and Matthew 14:22-32

(Jesus MAFA image)

This little story about a boat crossing a lake is one that has occupied a lot of space in my brain over the years. As a child I was mesmerized by it, awed by the power of Jesus and desperate to be one with more faith than those hapless disciples. As a seminarian I was taught about Greco-Roman myths of gods and goddesses walking on water and the New Testament narrative “our God is better than your god” which made me a bit dismissive. And then as a pastor I have often used this as a passage for Lectio Divina, giving people a space to listen for God’s nudgings through scripture and have been astounded time and time again at the layers of meaning people can find in the text. Our most recent confirmation class loved this passage and the experience they had with it in Lectio Divina, reminding me of the hard times of life and the powerful reminders to be found in the reality that God is with us.

Another time, when The United Methodist Church was at the height of its struggles in 2019, two Bishops at our Annual Conference seemed to have a battle over this text. Our Bishop at the time tried to convince us that the boat was sinking and it was time to exit. The visiting Bishop who was invited to preach at ordination preached “no matter how strong the wind, no matter how high the waves, since Jesus is in the boat with us, we will be ok.”

Perhaps some of the reason that this story has such resonance in our faith is that it is one of VERY few stories that shows up in ALL 4 gospels (although Luke lacks the walking on water part), and is thus a story we come across pretty often. I’ll admit, I’ve also spent a little bit too much time wondering about why THIS of all stories would be one of the few that are in all of the gospels.

And, one final connection with this story: when I had been appointed to this church but before I arrived, I had the chance to meet some church members at one of the Upper New York Camp and Retreat Centers when UNY Volunteers in Mission and the UNY Leadership Team did some work together. That was the day I met Pete and Jan Huston, and Pete came up to me greeting me with the words, “I hear you walk on water.” I spluttered. He continued, “But it isn’t that hard in winter.”

This Advent I’ve been focusing on Christian sermons preached during the Third Reich in resistance to Hitler and the Nazis. In January of 1934, Rev. Paul Schneider was a small town pastor who preached a sermon on this text to the church he had been serving for 8 years at that point, which had been the church his father served until his death. Rev. Schneider was a WW I vet, but a bit unique in that “Rather than the war making him hard and cold, it made him sympathetic and tender towards the suffering of others.”1 After his service in the war he went to seminary and did a practicum with coal miners whose life experiences challenged his faith. To keep us on our toes around here, he was a conservative preacher, and his experiences with the struggling coal miners led him to leave his liberal faith behind for a far more literal and conservative faith. In fact, for the most part, the churches in Germany during the Third Reich that resisted were fairly conservative, and they seem to explain it as rejection of the world because of their commitment to faith. I appreciate how this makes me a little uncomfortable.

Rev. Schneider chose these two texts, the story from Luke without walking on water and the one from Matthew where Peter joins Jesus in walking on water and preached on them as one. He used them to talk about the fear people were experiencing and what their faith called on them to do about it. So let me give you some of his word: “The little boat of the church of Christ is traveling on stormy seas.”2 “We cannot close our eyes to the high storm-waves we see surging towards our people in the Third Reich.”3 “We Evangelical Christians can never say that we agree with these things that many leading figures of the new Germany are voicing and declaring in speeches.”4 “We as evangelical parents, want to know that our children are unequivocally being raised in our evangelical faith and taught its content and we want to be sure that they have not been contaminated with the current racist religious spirit.”5

To be sure, many people are still asleep and have not recognized that it is the hour to rise up. They still think that since all around us things have changed, certainly in the church, of all places, things must remain exactly as they were before. Or perhaps they just want to subject the church to the political authority of the state and shape the life of the church to fit the current political views as the ‘German Christians’ are currently doing.

To be sure, they can only support this practice by preaching the heresy that the gospel does not rest solely on the good news of our savior Jesus Christ and the kingdom (Reich) of God, but that somehow race and the gospel together constituent the church.6…

Now, you Christian in your church, you are surrounded by waves that are coming over you from the church and from the nation and the state. And we are anxious and we are afraid. We are experiencing what the disciples were going through on the stormy lake. We call out, ‘Lord, help us, we are perishing!”7 “Where is the storm? It is not so much around you as in you, in your heart.

There, deep in your heart, you see, as Peter did, the heaving winds blowing against you, and you become afraid and begin to sink. But even then the Lord holds out to you his saving hand and holds you firm in order to strengthen your weak faith.” 8

And it is curious, at least to me, that he makes so many good points and does such good work this this text. That I can be with him so far into this sermon. And then at this point he goes on to say that a true Christian believes in miracles and trusts in God’s capacity to preform them, which is imperative to him. I can support and respect his faith and its perspective, even if I don’t share it. I love reminders like this, that differences in worldview sometimes don’t matter all that much. Finally, he says, “I would rather die for my faith than live a cowardly and cultured life with the rest of the world.”9

Rev. Schneider used this sermon as an introduction, I think. “Following the sermon was a reading of the Kanzelabkündigung (message from the pulpit) from the Confessing Church, which was read from many pulpits that Sunday: “We raise before God and this Christian congregation the complaint and charge that the Reich bishop in his decree has threatened violence against those who have been unable to keep silent for the sake of their conscience and their congregation concerning the present danger of the church. And in addition has set into force laws that run counter to our confession of faith which he had earlier lifted in order to satisfy the church. — We must hold the Reich bishop accountable to the scripture: ‘One must obey God more than men.” 10

Rev. Schneider was telling his congregation that the government was threatening Christians who weren’t supporting the work of the Third Reich. He was forced out of that pulpit the following month, was reassigned to a church more receptive to his message, and five years later became the first Protestant pastor to die in a concentration camp.

So, um, happy joy-Sunday from your pastor who knows how to make Advent really cheery.

I am awed by this self-described “simple country preacher” who simply refused to bend. Like prophets and martyrs before him, he stayed faithful in the face of persecution, told truth despite the consequences, and kept his heart focused on God and God-things. He took on powers and authorities far “above his pay-grade” because he was a follower of Jesus who didn’t care about pay-grades. I wonder about his transition from liberal faith to literal faith and how that impacted his capacities to stay true to God. (It is my suspicion he would have said it was imperative.) I’m horrified that he was killed, but also a little bit shocked that it was a “simple country preacher” that the powers-that-be felt the need to silence first. It almost seems like they made this point in this sermon, the boat may seem small but the church being faithful has great impact.

Like Jesus before him, and Martin Luther King Jr after him, and along with an unfortunately large great cloud of witnesses who did the same, Rev. Schneider stayed faithful to end, dying for his faith rather than quieting his voice for the comfort of the oppressors.

Thanks be to God for the people who follow God’s love no mater the cost, and may we not only follow God’s love, but also be part of changing the world so that this cost may someday not need to be paid. God help us. Amen

1Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, Dean G. Stroud (Grand Rapids: William B. Eardman, 2013) page 76.

2Ibid, 80.

3Ibid, 81.

4Ibid, 81.

5Ibid, 82.

6Ibid, 79.

7Ibid, 83.

8Ibid, 83.

9Ibid, 84.

10From the footnote on page 84.

December 14, 2025

Rev. Sara E. Baron 
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 
Pronouns: she/her/hers 
http://fumcschenectady.org/ 
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady