Paul’s letter to the church in Rome was written before the church was the church. Before the Vatican, the art, the music, the buildings, or the hierarchies. There was simply a group of Christ followers in about 55 AD who were learning what it meant to be Christian. This is before the gospels were written even. Paul’s letters, including this one, are windows to us about what it was like for early Christians to learn what it means to be Christian.

And, by the way, we’re all still learning…how to be Christian, but also how to navigate life, how to be a good participant in our families and communities. We’re all learning as we go.

The reality is learning can be terrifying. As I considered this text, I was flooded with memories of swim lessons; either my own or being at the pool and watching little ones in their lessons. For some kids, swim lessons are just the best from the moment they enter the pool.

Then there are those of us who were afraid of water or maybe still are afraid of water a bit. I eventually loved swimming pools and lakes when I was a kid, but I certainly was not one to be in a hurry to give up my water wings or move past the doggie paddle. I liked my head above water quite a lot.

And so I truly identify with the little ones I see learning to swim who are pretty spooked by the whole thing. I’m sure you’ve seen a little one who is being drawn through water by a patient teacher or parent by the hands, helping them to feel their buoyancy and to sense their safety. These kids are completely safe with that teacher. Yet some of these kids do not know they are safe and you can see their tension and fear even as they are doing their best to trust and learn.

This kind of learning takes faith and trust. To learn to swim you need to put your own body on the line, perhaps even daring to take off the water wings under the guidance of some teacher who you don’t really know. What if they are the kind of teacher to forget you in the middle of the pool? What if they think flailing in the water will toughen you up. Who knows, maybe they are secretly trying to kill children in a public pool in front of parents and dozens of people. And they have your hands and there’s no more water wings as they move away from the edge of the pool.

This is a time in a young life to call on some faith, some trust that indeed this scary thing that is happening is actually good and it’s actually OK.

Too often we can understand faith to mean simply believing in certain tenets of Christianity. But believing something is true is different than putting your own body and life into the pool with Jesus, letting him take you by the hands, and lead you from the pool’s edge…without the water wings.

Afterall, you can sit on the edge of the pool with your feet dangling in, looking casual in the presence of water while secretly knowing you’re too afraid to get in the water. You might be able to talk about swimming and belly flops or claim to be just letting your lunch settle before getting in the water.  I know these tricks. I’ve done them.

I think we’ve all done this with our faith as well. We can talk about it. Read about it. Use the right words that sound about right. We can do the things. But what we are asked by God to do is to get in the pool, enter into relationship, give our hands over to the one who will lead us, and let our feet lift off the bottom of the pool so that we can move forward in the direction that God takes us.

Now that may sound soothing to you or it may sound terrifying to you. Or both at the same time.

I think it got a bit terrifying for Peter in our gospel. He had given Jesus his hands and here they are in the middle of the pool. I imagine Peter’s little feet out behind him like he’s in his first swimming lesson, discovering that he just might be OK in the water with this trustworthy rabbi. And then Jesus says…oh btw, I’m going to die by crucifixion. What? Jesus is the one who’s got you by the hands in the middle of the pool. What is this supposed to mean?

How would you respond to something like that? Just keep cruisin’ through the pool with Jesus, with him holding your hands and taking you deeper into the pool? Or would you pull back and ask for some more information? Maybe ask if the water wings could come back on?

This moment perhaps represents the main temptation of our faith lives. Does that sound like a familiar story to you to feel led by our Holy One, led by the hands into deeper waters, only to discover that this experience of faith and following God might just be a wild ride. We see that there is pain ahead, endings, or struggles for justice that Jesus wants us to enter with wide open, vulnerable hearts.   

When we see this, of course we want to pull away, put our water wings back on, get our feet back on the concrete, and say no to that total lack of control. We want to go back to creating “safety” in all the ways we think we make ourselves safe. But Jesus tells us this is not the way.

Being a disciple of Jesus seems to be a path of acute awareness of our own vulnerability and sensitivity to the pain of the world and yet not pulling our hearts and engagement away. We’re asked to feel all the insecurity, while leaning into a greater reality of ultimate security…but in the meantime, Jesus has us by the hands, leading us into the pool with our little feet splaying out behind us.

This is a picture of faith. Faith is being so focused on God, so trusting that we know we will be OK even when we don’t pull our hands away. Faith is staying in the flow of relationship with God, even though we don’t see the way forward. Faith is allowing ourselves to be in the water without the water wings, even as we don’t understand how it’s all going to work out.

Thankfully, Paul tells us that faith is reckoned to us, as in faith is given to us. Faith and trust aren’t things that we can command in ourselves. God gives us faith.

Perhaps this gift is experienced by us whenever we test the waters and find that we are indeed supported. . When we give over our hands to God, and God meets us. When we risk letting our feet rise off the bottom of the pool for the first time, and God guides us. When we finally let the water wings go, and again we find the presence of God’s reassuring grace, forgiveness, love, and support.

How do you know that God is there for you? What has happened in your life that you know was a “God thing” where God met you, lifted you? How did you know it? What are these stories for you? Do you have one? How do you know that God is indeed with you.

Faith need not be equated with blind belief. You can say I have trust in God because I had such and such experience. And therefore, I will continue to trust. When we are struggling to trust, we might need to remember some of these stories. Remember that you were indeed delivered or blessed or given grace. Know that these things will indeed come again. We can keep our hearts open and our hands in Jesus’ hands as we follow on this journey. We can allow our hearts to be broken, because the promise of new life is always present and with us.

It can be hard to keep our hearts open to God, open to faith, open to each other, when we are afraid. This is why I believe a community of faith is so important. On any given day, we may not have the courage to keep ourselves open and our hands in Jesus’ hands as he leads us into the water. But others around us will have that capacity. Others around us will be able to remind us of our faith stories or tell us theirs as a sign of the faithfulness of God.

There is no Olympics of faith where we get so good at swimming that we won’t need Jesus’ hands. We don’t progress and get gold stars for being brilliant in our faith. We will always be the child with our hands in the hands of our Lord. He will guide us, yes on the path to the cross, but also to resurrection and the promise of new life on the other side. Yes, this can be terrifying, but it is also liberating to let go of the water wings, release the edge of the pool, and go where your Lord leads you.

AMEN