“So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’”
(Matthew 14:29–31)

I’ve been trying recently to set up a defined “office” space at home. It shouldn’t be a problem, right? Hugh and I are empty nesters in a three-bedroom family home. The kids have been grown and gone for quite a while.

Well, mostly.

My first choice was one of the old bedrooms. It’s bubble-gum pink, has a mural from Beauty and the Beast on the wall, and a closet full of dresses. I figured that a teensy bit of tidying, a few boxes, and some paint would make it into a lovely guest room/office. I didn’t anticipate the amount of, well, loss this would represent to other people in my family.

Letting go of bubble-gum pink and Beauty and the Beast wasn’t as easy as I expected. And, if I’m honest, I was a bit cavalier with people’s feelings about it. To me, it looked like an unused room. But this bedroom isn’t simply empty square footage. It’s a place that holds childhood. It’s an anchor in family life. It holds the memory of two people becoming the extraordinary adults they now are.

Apparently, a coat of paint isn’t always just a coat of paint.

I guess that’s why we hang on to things, and why downsizing can represent so much loss and grief. Our spaces become emblems of how life used to be. Objects carry stories, and stories can feel sacred. I’m not naïve. I know I have a tendency to sanitize the past and make it feel easier and more meaningful than it was at the time. I don’t think I’m alone in that. Still, we can romanticize inanimate objects and turn them into things that have far more power than they need to have.

I had an old supervisor who gave one of my colleagues the job of cleaning up the storage rooms while she was on vacation. This was back in my Infant Development days, so the storage rooms were full of old and broken toys, discarded communication and physio equipment, and binders containing programs we no longer used. My colleague worked diligently. She cleared space that hadn’t been cleared in years and finished on Thursday, so she could take Friday off in lieu of the overtime she’d collected doing the job.

That Friday, I was in my office when I spotted our supervisor dumpster diving. She was pulling out at least a third of the items my colleague had thrown away. I was flabbergasted. When I asked what was happening, she was holding a plastic play telephone with a rotary dial and said, “These things are still useful.”

I pointed out that they hadn’t been used, that most of them were broken, and that little kids would never have seen a telephone with a rotary dial, never mind known how to use one.

My supervisor looked so … sad.

And suddenly I understood that she wasn’t dumpster diving because these things were useful or important. She was retrieving them because they represented a time when she was training and learning what it meant to work in her profession. If they were no longer important, perhaps it felt as if her training, her life’s work, even her sense of purpose, was no longer important either.

We can say, even superficially, that this isn’t true. A rotary phone doesn’t contain a career. A pink bedroom doesn’t contain a childhood. Joseph’s coat was never the measure of his worth. But knowing that doesn’t stop change from feeling like loss. It doesn’t stop grief from rising up when we have to let go.

The readings for this week seem to know something about that.

Genesis gives us Joseph and his coat of many colours, or, more accurately, his special robe. Joseph is the irritating little brother, spoiled by his father and reviled for his specialness. The robe is emblematic of all of it: Jacob’s favouritism, Joseph’s status, and the resentment simmering among his brothers. When they throw Joseph into the pit and sell him into slavery, the robe is one of the first things stripped away.

It would be easy to tell this story as though Joseph simply loses a fancy piece of clothing and moves on. But the loss is bigger than that. The robe represented an identity that had been handed to him: beloved son, favoured child, the one set apart. Without it, Joseph has to become someone else. Eventually, he becomes someone capable, wise, and powerful. But that transformation is neither tidy nor quick. It comes with betrayal, displacement, fear, and a whole lot of growing pains.

Maybe that’s part of why this story is so uncomfortable. We like change when it looks like a renovation show: a little chaos, a satisfying reveal, and everyone cries happy tears at the end. Real change is more likely to involve a pit, a missing coat, and no clear idea of what comes next.

The Gospel has Peter doing his own version of this. The disciples are in the boat in the middle of a storm. The boat isn’t ideal, exactly, but it’s familiar. It’s the place where Peter knows what to do. Then Jesus comes toward them over the water and Peter, being Peter, gets out of the boat.

Whatever the reason, Peter steps out. For a moment, he walks on the water. Then he notices the wind. He becomes frightened. And he begins to sink.

I’ve always felt a little sympathetic toward Peter here. Jesus asks, “Why did you doubt?” But Peter has just stepped out of a boat during a storm. He’s done something no sensible person would do. Of course he notices the wind. Of course he’s afraid. The wonder isn’t that Peter sinks. The wonder is that when he cries out, “Lord, save me,” Jesus immediately reaches out his hand.

Immediately.

Not after Peter has learned the lesson. Not after he’s found a way to be less afraid. Not after he has successfully walked himself back to safety. Jesus reaches out in the middle of the failure, in the middle of the wind, in the middle of Peter’s very public sinking.

God doesn’t always meet us in the grand gesture. Sometimes God meets us in the quiet after the arguments about paint colours. Sometimes God meets us beside a dumpster, holding a broken toy phone. Sometimes God meets us when we’ve finally admitted that the thing we were clinging to can’t carry the weight we put on it.

Why do we doubt? Why is it so hard to let go and move forward, both metaphorically and actually?

Honestly, for me, it’s about redefining who I am. It’s about seeing my worth without all the markers that once made me look worthy;the stuff of success, achievement, roles, and usefulness. For others, I think it’s the anchoring of familiarity. It’s easier to feel secure when our surroundings look the same as they always have.

But faith may not be the absence of fear. Faith may be getting out of the boat while still knowing the wind is strong. Faith may be asking for help when we’re sinking. Faith may be trusting that the hand reaching toward us is already there.

So perhaps the room can change. Perhaps the dresses can be sorted, saved, given away, or lovingly packed into a smaller box. Perhaps the mural can remain in a photograph, or in the stories we tell, rather than on the wall itself. Perhaps the old storage room can become useful again without erasing the good work once done there.

None of this means the past didn’t matter. It means the past has done its work. It’s formed us, held us, and brought us to this place. And now, with a little fear and perhaps some tears, we can let it be what it was without asking it to be what comes next.

There will still be wind. There will still be moments when we look down and wonder why we ever left the boat. But there’s also Jesus: not standing safely on the shore, not waiting for us to get ourselves together, but reaching out immediately.

Lord, save me.

And Jesus always does.

Blessings today, and remember you are Loved.

~Rev. Lynne

Audio file:https://audio.com/lynne-gardiner/audio/office-hours-getting-out-of-the-boat