July 25, 2003
Walking on water
Mark’s gospel this Sunday and last leaves the disciples — and us — sandbagged between two miracles: feeding all that big crowd with next to nothing in the pantry last Sunday and, as if that weren’t sufficient, doing that follow-up out there on the water (Mk 6.30-52).
Disbelief is one way to deal with miracles. It’s less risky. Belief, if you wish, leaves us out on a limb every time. Read on, if you dare.
The disciples were already in an emotional tailspin. Perplexed about the loaves, at sea in more ways than one, hearts all hardened, and suddenly, there’s Jesus, all ghostlike, walking on the water and obviously meaning to pass them by as if he didn’t want to be bothered any more. In the state they were already in, they were terrified.
There’s plenty of fear to go around these days without taking the additional risk of believing in miracles. Homeland insecurity and deception are the order of the day. The terrorists actually assume Fear as their altogether macabre team mascot. And the church, whose very vocation is to assuage fear by comfort and love, instead, is stalled in the headwind of its own preoccupation with self-preservation, too busy to pay attention.
Nevertheless, Jesus is not a ghost. Even if ever so often he might understandably like to pass us by and maybe remind us with Isaiah to “Seek the Lord while he wills to be found, call upon him when he draws near” (Is 55.6), he doesn’t. Rather does he say and does he set us free to listen, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.”
Oh, and one more thing. That sage Madeleine L’Engle wrote a book called Walking on Water. She said that if Jesus was fully human, as we believe, and he could do that, then, so should we. It’s only that we’ve forgot how.