December 1998 Issue

Depression, a sour, sooty elf, slides down the chimney after Christmas. We get busy with the recipes for reinventing turkey, the impossible numbers on our bathroom scales and credit cards, the returning of presents which once opened are never quite as magical as our anticipation of them was. The holidays bring to remembrance other years, other voices, other dreams, which now must be stored in the heart like decorations wrapped in tissue, boxed, and stacked in the attic.

Psalm 111 fits the anti-climatic mood following Christmas. I find myself drawn from this psalm to others which evoke the hush of the spirit before the mystery of being. Using an alphabetic form, the psalmist strings together almost at random statements about the mighty acts of God in the nation's past, and the feelings that stir within as he reflects on them. He impresses me as a person doing a crossword puzzle during the eucharist. Many persons today experience the historic faith as more like the Sunday cryptogram which mildly distracts them for a few minutes than like the depths of ultimate concern which sweep them up in the drama of the Infinite. On more than one Sunday morning I have shared the lack of engagement and even, listening to myself preach, the boredom. The biblical text is only a jigsaw of critical analysis. Worship usually (but not always, unfortunately) lacks the glamour, sex, and violence that glues folks to their cable television.

The ABCs of belief for this psalmist rest on the great events of Israel's history, to which he refers specifically in verses 5-6, the manna in the desert and the Promised Land. Faith for him focuses, not on the complexities of life, but God's simple gifts of food and home.

Atonement may have cosmic implications, but in daily life these pale before fundamental human needs for nurture and shelter. One of the gospel lessons, which concerns Mary and Joseph's flight into Egypt, reminds us of the billions of people on earth for whom faith is about daily bread and a safe, warm place to sleep at night. Abraham Maslow constructed a hierarchy of needs, the foundation of which is physical need. Before human beings can attend to the cries of the spirit, they must secure the basics for the body. This fact has profound theological significance, reflected in the almost universal practice during the holidays of delivering boxes of food to the elderly and serving hot meals to the homeless.

Yet, "one does not live by bread alone" (Mt 4:4, NRSV). The exodus narratives recall the longing of the people for the stewpots of Egypt. Jesus rebuked the crowd who wanted bread only for the belly (Jn 6:27). Those in the pew or pulpit who reduce Christmas to a lavish table and expensive gifts starve the heart and the spirit. Crossword puzzle believers who have a surfeit of material things may live at a level of faith no more profound than the Sunday funnies. The human spirit is at its best soaring the heights and exploring the depths of grace, hope, commitment and love. Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of [God] who sent me" (Jn 4:34). What ultimately satisfies is being caught up in the forward movement of the Spirit, what Teilhard called the Christification of the universe. What ultimately nourishes is the bread of life.

John 6 is the great commentary on the Christ, the bread of life. Jesus called the crowd to be concerned not about food which perishes but about food which endures to eternal life. He pointed them beyond the manna in the wilderness in the past to the bread which God gives in the present. In language certain to offend he insisted, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." (Jn 6:53).

How, then, do we put down our puzzles, and begin to eat his flesh and drink his blood? How do we get caught up in the great drama of redemption with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?

In the film Saving Grace a pope restive behind the walls of the Vatican is accidentally locked out, wearing street clothes. A passing crowd playfully plunges him into a fountain, his baptism into the real world. He does not have even the money to pay for a pizza. Intrigued by the experience of ordinary life, he hitchhikes to the village of a young girl who had asked him to send the town a priest. Then he gets caught up in the people's struggle to bring fresh water to the town, and meets a burned out shepherd, the only person to recognize him.

The readings for the day suggest several ways those who wish to launch out into the deep may do so. Joseph acted on his dreams (Mt 2:13); Jesus was made perfect through sufferings (Heb 2:10); and, the Isaianic prophet celebrated God's presence (Is 63:9).

The scientific, positivistic biases of our time encourage us to ignore expressions of the unconscious, the depths of the spirit. Of these Joseph's dreams are an example. As people begin attending to the whispers of their soul, they find artesian wells. We often filter out experiences of the depths of life, because they make us uncomfortable. They might convict us of the superficiality of our lives and call us from suburban comforts into Egypt. Yet, the night musings of the heart open to God reveal to us the hidden sword of Herod, that which in modern life is inimical to the enterprise of faith and the person of Christ.

A second way into the drama, equally unwelcome, is suffering. Our culture abhors pain. In an act strangely like taking communion, we swallow a pill for every little ache. Yet, suffering, especially that which we have not brought on ourselves by our silliness or sin, and that which we cannot avoid, can guide us into the Gulf Stream of the spirit. As we share the suffering of others through ministries of compassion and justice, the spirit flows in and through us. The liberation theology of marginalized peoples, and the struggle of persons with AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses teach us profound truths about courage, hope, and light. "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord," sang the psalmist in a song of ascents (Ps 130).

A third way of experiencing the drama is cultivating an awareness of God's presence. Isaiah 63:7-9 differs remarkably from Psalm 111, though both texts concern the same events. God's presence ignites the poet of the Isaiah text. Faith is not merely the catechism of the what recited by Sgt. Joe Friday in clerical garb. It is the Who of deep calling to deep, the I-Thou encounter of the human spirit with God's Spirit.

What keeps me working puzzles in the shallows? Fear. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom but only the beginning. In the words of James Baldwin, "Drowning and deep water are not the same."

John Hamilton