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:

                                                     *           *          *

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.

*          *          *

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?

I have come to believe that the life of faith is the life of the probable impossible. This is an idea of Aristotle, who did not know the Christian faith, having lived long before it, and yet, time has a funny way of recycling ideas. If we can remember how to walk on water, perhaps we can also remember the future. As Christians, we are called to live into that probable impossible future where not only do we walk on water but we move from death into new life.

You see, I think a person can waste their life doing a whole array of things, but trying to remember how to walk on water is not one of these. In fact, it is that awareness of God’s presence that allows Peter to do it in the first place. “Is that you, Lord?” he asks. “Command me to come.” Tell me to do the impossible.

I believe this is very near the heart of the good news of Jesus. We should be asking God for the impossible. Not just that God would do it for us, but that we would remember how to ourselves.

But in order to get there, we need to do something strange. We need to free ourselves from this notion that what we are doing is proving God. It might seem at first that that is what Peter is doing. “Lord, if it is you…” Perhaps this walking on water was about testing God, but we should be quickly disabused on that notion, because Peter knows Jesus exists—he doesn’t need to prove a thing. The question is whether Peter can emulate him. Peter is really testing himself, because Jesus can clearly walk on water—nobody is doubting that. The question is whether Peter can remember something no other human being can.

For a moment, he does.

I think about Madeleine l’Engle looking over that pond, and I think about Peter walking on water, and I think about all the other impossible things we wait on—most of which never happen—and I suppose to the outside world those things look like failures, but I think not. I think those are the most important things of all. As Christians, we wait on the impossible. Resurrection isn’t possible, which is why it is the thing in which we put our deepest trust. This is counter-everything, and it should be.

To be a Christian is to sit and wait on remembering something we don’t even completely understand. We’re trying to remember the Garden of Eden that we didn’t even experience ourselves. Yet, it is a deeply engrained memory. Worse still, we won’t see it on earth. It will always be out there beyond our grasp, and yet, we still sit and wait, longing for something better. It’s hard work… no, it’s impossible work. But it’s also some of the best work of all.