Walking on water with Peter and Madeleine l'Engle

I’m going to begin with an excerpt from Madeleine l’Engle’s Walking on Water. It’s a longer read—an entire page—but I think the upshot requires the context. So, here we go:

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God, through the angel Gabriel, called on Mary to do what, in the world’s eyes, is impossible, and instead of saying, “I can’t,” she replied immediately, “Be it unto me according to thy Word.”

God is always calling on us to do the impossible. It helps me to remember that anything Jesus did during his life here on earth is something we should be able to do, too.

When spring-fed Dog Pond warms up enough for swimming, which usually isn’t until June, I often go there in the late afternoon. Sometimes I will sit on a sun-warmed rock to dry, and think of Peter walking across the water to meet Jesus. As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it.

If Jesus of Nazareth was God become truly man for us, as I believe he was, then we should be able to walk on water, to heal the sick, even to accept the Father’s answer to our prayers when it is not the answer that we hope for, when it is No. Jesus begged in anguish that he be spared the bitter cup, and then humbly added, “but not as I will, Father; as you will.”

In art, either as creators or participators, we are helped to remember some of the glorious things we have forgotten, and some of the terrible things we are asked to endure, we who are children of God by adoption and grace.

In one of his dialogues, Plato talks of all learning as remembering. The chief job of the teacher is to help us to remember all that we have forgotten. This fits in well with Jung’s concept of racial memory, his belief that when we are enabled to dip into the intuitive, subconscious self, we remember more than we know. One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God’s children are meant to be.

Perhaps one day I will remember how to walk across Dog Pond.

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I look at Peter, watching Jesus walk on the water toward him on the sea, and I am reminded for the thousandth time that God doesn’t call us to do things that are easy or convenient; God doesn’t even call us to do things that are hard. God calls us to do the impossible. Walk on water, Peter.

Then, he does. If only for a time. Lost in the shuffle of “Why did you doubt, Peter?” is the fact that Peter walked on water for a significant longer period of time than any other human being in history. Peter did something impossible. This is the future toward which God is calling each of us.

Madeleine l’Engle is one of my heroes. She’s on the very shortest list of top influencers on my life, and so this was not the first, and will not be the last, time that I use her in a sermon. I often recommend that people pick up her writing and take a good dive into it, but I’ve also come to realize that many people don’t jive with l’Engle’s thinking. She’s an artist and a writer—a very particular kind of theologian. Her words are art.

So, when she writes about walking on water and seeking to remember how to walk across Dog Pond, I’m afraid this is either something you get or you don’t, and I don’t quite know what to do about that. A right-minded physicalist will no doubt point out that l’Engle, who died in 2007, never did walk on that pond, spending her whole life waiting in vain, and yet, that’s remotely the point. We all spend our lives doing things, waiting on things, yearning after things, and the question is really, “What are you waiting for?” Are you waiting for something good, something great, or some kind of probable impossible, like walking on water in a pond in your backyard?

Which is the thing worth waiting on? The possible… or the probable impossible?

Grace isn't cheap--it's free

Matthew 7:1-14, 24-29

Judge not lest ye be judged. Some verses bring us back to the King James Version by habit, don’t they? This is one so familiar, and it sounds SO easy. None of us like to be judged. Actually, that’s not quite true. We like to be judged but only on the areas in which we excel. It’s when we are judged in an area where we are not self-confident that we take issue. Judgment—it’s a thing we can all agree on; a thing we wish others wouldn’t do.

            It seems easy. Just don’t judge. But in a thousand little ways, we feel we have to. It’s good business to judge—whether a person is trustworthy, whether an investment is good, whether a candidate is right for a job. We have to judge. Heck, I’ve mentioned before that I come from a line of Cadwells whose job was to judge. Like so many things Jesus says, it seems so simple until you actually put it into practice. Then, things get messy.

            I’m reminded of that Bertrand Russell quote, “The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that the stupid are [sure of themselves] while the intelligent so full of doubt.” I think Jesus would agree. The wise will doubt themselves—will doubt their own capacity to make right judgments. The wise will understand that everything we do in this life, every choice we make, is covered by sin, stretching back to the Garden of Eden and forward to time immemorial. The wise will be full of doubts, and their judgments will always be humble and meek, because they know they are not God.

            The life of faith Jesus would have us lead is one where we hold this faith lightly, understanding that the strongest faith is the one held with a dose of humility, and the weakest faith is often the one that feigns strength. To hold faith lightly is not to wait something better, and not to lack in assurance and trust, but instead it means we are aware of our limitations—that we are human beings, full of poor judgments, and faith is not something of our own that we can control; it is something given to us as a gift, which should make us humble.

            “Judge not lest ye be judged” is not only about how we are supposed to act toward one another; it’s about the perspective we have on life, and it’s about understanding that there is truly very little that separates us one from another—a little bit of luck; a little bit of chance; a twist of fate; maybe some divine direction. To follow Jesus is to admit that we are incapable of saving ourselves. We don’t need to justify ourselves before the throne of the cross. We don’t need to look at everybody else around us and point out how much less of a hypocrite we are by comparison, because the moment you do it, you’re a bigger one. It’s a paradox Jesus understands perfectly.

Prayer is hard work

Matthew 6:7-21

There aren’t that many secrets that pastors know that you don’t. I suppose I probably shouldn’t admit that. It’s probably in my best professional interests to keep the veil between clergy and laity as impermeable as possible so that you believe I am the gatekeeper to all the secret knowledge, but the truth is I don’t have much of that. There is one thing, however, that I do know—that I suspect most pastors know—that I’m not sure everybody does, and it is this: Prayer is hard work.

            Really hard work.

            So much of the way our society talks about prayer treats it as something rather easy. “Thoughts and prayers!” But that’s just where the hard work begins. And I’m not just talking about remembering to do it, though that is part of it. Prayer is hard work because it is so much more than saying bedtime prayers, or getting on our knees, or even praying in worship. I’m talking about the hard work of having a conversation with God that is centered on something other than my own immediate wants and needs, and then coming to the understanding that that prayer doesn’t end just because I say “Amen.” It’s hard to know what to say to God, how to listen for God, what you should be asking for (if anything), how to express your thankfulness and also be honest about your feelings, especially when things feel pretty awful.

            The hardest thing of all is to listen for God against our expectations. We all have expectations of who God is and how the universe should work, and when God’s answer to our prayers runs counter to our expectations, it is incredibly difficult to live in that space. You have expectations and faith—choose one.

            In today’s scripture reading, Jesus addresses some of these challenges. He begins by chastising those who heap up long prayers. I’ve been in settings like this—where it starts out as prayer and soon turns into a hostage situation. God is not impressed by how big our words are. God doesn’t care about you showing off. Instead, prayer belongs in secret, which is tough, because deep down we want credit. More than that, we want people to know that we are devout. The world out there will always claim you are not devout enough; you are not Christian enough; but your job is not to please others but to please God. Part of the hard work of prayer is ignoring what other people think.

            Related to this is one of my great pet peeves. So, if you’re taking notes, this is one thing I cannot stand—when somebody, almost always on the internet but increasingly often in real-life, doesn’t believe you, and they say “pictures or it didn’t happen.” If you need pics to believe anybody did everything, then maybe you should focus more on your own experiences in the world, because it sounds like you are doubtful that this amazing world, where God is imminently available in prayer, contains anything exciting. The truth is you don’t need to take pictures to prove anything to anybody. The life of prayer defies documentation. You won’t be able to explain it, because this is between you and God.