Author: CCW

Paradise and Wilderness

The two concepts belong to the nature of spiritual pilgrimage illustrated in and through many religious and philosophical traditions: the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer’s Odyssey, Plato’s ascent from the Cave, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy, to name but a few. And not least of all, of course, the Exodus of the Hebrews. That story is central to the remarkable miracle of the feeding of the multitude in the wilderness as told by John in his Gospel.

It re-works the ancient themes of pilgrimage, especially those of the Exodus, the wilderness journey of the Hebrews out of Egyptian captivity to freedom found in the Law and in God’s provisions for them. All in spite of ourselves, in spite of our complaining and whining, we might say. Learning through suffering is part of the pilgrimage of thought as explored in both the Odyssey and in Exodus, for example.

Jesus is in the wilderness. It is a powerful image about the human condition in its limitations and failings and yet in its longings and seeking for what belongs to the truth of our humanity which is ultimately found in what is absolute, beyond all the changes and happenstances, beyond all the follies and wickednesses of the world; in short, God. The realization of our limitations serves as the moment of God’s provisions for us in our spiritual journey to God. A taste of paradise in the wilderness as “pilgrims through this barren land,” as one of the hymns puts it, essentially re-imaging the entire Exodus journey. It is simply and profoundly about how God provides for us in the wilderness journey of our lives spiritually and intellectually.

The story, as John presents it, emphasizes the limits of human enterprise and technique. Two hundred denarii or pennyworth of bread, to use the King James expression, is not enough to provide even a little for so many, Philip says to Jesus. And Andrew pipes in to say that “there is a lad here with five barley loaves and two small fishes,” only to ask rhetorically, “but what are they among so many?” Obviously not nearly enough.

This becomes the setting for the miracle. What is the miracle? As with all miracles it is really about the miracle of life itself, the miracle of God. Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks and gives the bread to the disciples to distribute to everyone else. All are fed and, if that is not enough, he bids the disciples to “gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost.” Twelve baskets of the fragments from the feast are collected. It is powerfully symbolic: one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel and by extension for each of the twelve apostles of the Christian church. God alone can make so much out of our so little; even more, God makes everything out of our nothing, even the nothingness of our sins. Thus God provides.

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O woman, great is your faith

The encounter between Jesus and the Canaanite woman is at once powerful and instructive. It belongs to the spiritual pilgrimage of Lent and to the journey of education. Three words illuminate its power and meaning: faith, humility, and perseverance. At first glance it is a disturbing story but one which ultimately turns on the idea of self-criticism; a criticism of the assumption that we can constrain or limit God to our little groups and identities. Self-criticism is a feature of the religions and philosophies of the world.

This is highlighted here by the setting. Jesus departs “into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon” even as she comes out of that land of the Gentiles. She is a Canaanite, meaning that she is a non-Israelite. She sees something universal in Jesus that transcends the limitations of any one culture. It is an insight into the infinite mercies of God that arises out of the context of her finite situation and concerns. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David,” she says. But her concern is not simply for herself. “My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil,” deeply troubled in mind and soul. The troubles of the daughter are the worries of the mother; they always are.

I cannot think of this story without being reminded of “the Sorrow Songs” in W.E.B. Dubois’ great classic, “The Souls of Black Folks,”written in 1903. Dubois was a seminal figure in the Afro-American world and notes that these folk songs are “the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas” … “the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro spirit.” The Sorrow Songs are an important feature of his work for they give expression to the experiences of the Afro-Americans under slavery and yet reveals that “through the sorrow of the Sorrow Songs there breathes hope – a faith in the ultimate justice of things.” This is exactly what we see in this remarkable woman. She has faith in what she sees in Christ that enables her to face all that is thrown at her: silence, rebuke, and rejection. She has a faith in the ultimate justice of Jesus which is the infinite mercy of God.

Like the Sorrow Songs, we see in her a kind of “soul-hunger,” “an infinite longing for peace,” a yearning for “some unseen power and sign for rest in the End.”

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