Sermon – Did You Notice Anything Unusual?
Matthew 14:22–36
Sermon Preached by The Rev’d Tracey Gracey on Sunday 9 August, 2026
A man was out walking with his dog one afternoon when he threw a stick into a lake.
To his absolute amazement, instead of jumping in and swimming, the dog ran across the surface of the water, picked up the stick and ran straight back again.
The owner couldn’t believe what he had just seen.
So, he threw the stick again.
Once more, the dog ran across the water.
Still thinking his eyes might be playing tricks on him, he tried a third time.
Exactly the same thing happened.
Now convinced that his dog could actually walk on water, he invited a friend to the lake the next day.
Without saying anything, he threw the stick into the water to see whether his friend would notice.
The dog ran across the surface, picked up the stick and ran back again.
The owner watched his friend carefully.
No reaction, so he did it again; still no reaction.
Unable to contain himself any longer, he asked,
“Did you notice anything unusual about my dog?”
His friend thought for a moment and replied,
“Yes… your dog can’t swim.”
In today’s Gospel reading, other than Peter walking on the water, did you notice anything unusual?
Barbara Brown Taylor notices something that many of us don’t.
Instead of focusing on Peter climbing out of the boat, walking on the water and beginning to sink, she focuses on Jesus’ reassuring words and his conversation with Peter.
When Jesus comes towards the boat, he says to the frightened disciples, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
For disciples who had journeyed with Jesus, learnt from him, watched him heal the sick and had just seen him feed five thousand people, those words should have been enough.
Yet Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
Barbara Brown Taylor wonders why Peter responds in such an unusual way.
Why, after Jesus has already identified himself, does Peter still need another sign?
Jesus is not challenging Peter to do anything other than remain in the boat.
He doesn’t say, “Peter, come out here and show me how much you trust me.”
The challenge doesn’t come from Jesus.
It comes from Peter.
Barbara Brown Taylor suggests that Peter is looking for something more than Jesus’ words.
That is why Peter says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”
Not us. Me.
Peter wants his own confirmation.
His own experience.
His own proof.
What is unusual is Jesus’ response.
Jesus doesn’t criticise Peter for asking.
He doesn’t tell him to stay safely in the boat.
He doesn’t refuse Peter’s request.
He simply says, “Come.”
There is also something unusual about the disciples.
New Testament scholar Mark Hoffman suggests that this passage has often been preached as though Jesus is calling all the disciples to “get out of the boat.”
Yet the text never says that.
The disciples simply remain in the boat.
And what is unusual is that Jesus never criticises them for staying there.
He never compares their faith with Peter’s.
He never suggests that they should follow Peter over the side of the boat.
The disciples simply remain where they are.
Waiting.
Battling against the wind.
For many of the disciples, the boat wasn’t an unusual place to be.
They were fishermen.
The boat was part of their ordinary everyday lives.
So why should it be unusual that Jesus comes to them there?
Why wouldn’t Jesus meet them in the ordinary place where they spent so much of their lives?
This is worth noticing because most of our lives are not lived walking on water.
They are lived in ordinary places.
At home, at work, with family, with friends.
In the routines and responsibilities of everyday life.
In this story, the unusual thing isn’t the boat.
The unusual thing is that Jesus comes to the disciples and meets them there.
If Peter was unusual because he asked for proof and the disciples were unusual because they remained in the boat.
What is unusual about Jesus?
Just as Barbara Brown Taylor invited us to notice the conversation before Peter stepped out of the boat, there is another conversation that almost goes unnoticed.
The conversation between Jesus and Peter after Peter begins to sink and cries out, “Lord, save me!”
Jesus doesn’t answer with a lecture.
He doesn’t say, “Peter, I told you so.”
He doesn’t say, “Why did you get out of the boat?”
He doesn’t say, “This is what happens when you doubt.”
Instead, Jesus acts first.
The text says that Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.
Only then does Jesus speak.
“You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
Notice the order.
Jesus rescues Peter before he questions him.
Grace—compassion and love freely given—comes before correction.
Jesus then gets into the boat and only then does the wind cease.
Jesus doesn’t remove the storm before he rescues Peter.
He rescues Peter in the middle of the storm.
And so it is for us, as there are times when we long for Jesus to take the storm away.
Yet this story reminds us that Jesus often comes to us in the middle of the storm before he calms it.
And it is only when Jesus is in the boat that the disciples finally recognise who has been with them all along.
They worship him saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
This is what the story has been inviting us to notice all along.
The story begins with Jesus saying,
“Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
It ends with the disciples declaring,
“Truly you are the Son of God.”
It begins with Jesus revealing who he is.
It ends with the disciples recognising who he is.
And it invites us to do the same—to notice who Jesus is in both the usual and the unusual moments of our lives.
Amen.