“We often knock Peter because, as we’ll see in a moment, he’s going to take his eyes off of Jesus and begin to sink. But notice the other eleven disciples never even thought about getting out of the boat. Ortberg calls them ‘boat potatoes.’ They stayed where they were. They remained in the boat because they were afraid of what could happen if they moved beyond it.”

Rev. Adam Hamilton, “Simon Peter: Flawed but Faithful Disciple”

It is impossible for me to overstate how much I appreciate the fact that the term “boat potatoes” exists. This is single-handedly one of the funniest descriptions of something that happens all the time that I have read in a very long time.

Am I guilty of being a “boat potato?” Probably! There have definitely been points where I have just shrugged and gone along with life because that’s simply how a person is supposed to live their life. Can I think of a moment where I have been a boat potato recently?

I don’t know if I have or not. The thing about the other eleven disciples is that we learn that they are, in fact, boat potatoes, because Simon Peter steps out of the boat. If Simon Peter wasn’t there, then we might perhaps just think of them as ordinary people who would never step out of a boat. As already covered this week in an earlier post, sitting in the boat is the sensible thing to do. It would be weird to try and walk on the water in the first place. It would be absolutely bonkers to consider getting out of the boat onto the surface of the lake in the middle of a storm.

They are revealed as being boat potatoes because one of them decided to put himself into a potato cannon of faith and light the ignitor by asking Jesus if he could come out on the water. Without the revelatory presence of SImon Peter, there’s no way to know.

So, am I another boat potato? I guess the only way to know is to look around me and see whether or not I am just sitting in the boat. Alternatively, if I look around and notice nobody is out on the water with me, am I just unhinged or am I proving, definitively, that I am not a boat potato?

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Our church is offering a short-term Bible study for the season of Lent. While many studies for the season traditionally focus on spiritual practices or on the stories of holy week, this year we are reading “Simon Peter: Flawed but Faithful Disciple” by Rev. Adam Hamilton. The idea of the study is that we might consider how we follow Christ in our lives while considering the life of this flawed follower. These blog posts are designed with a principle I have learned from recovery work: “We identify with the stories of others and try not to contrast.” We grow more and live with greater serenity when we look for what we share in common with someone with whom we might otherwise disagree.