One day when I was in
Haiti we had ice cream and it was amazing.
I was only in Haiti for less than two weeks, we were busy during the
days, walking in blazing heat, having trouble sleeping in the sticky nights’
warmth, getting enough to eat (unlike most of the population there), but
nowhere near as much as our Western stomachs were used. But on Sunday afternoon, things quietened
down. Someone had a radio, we went
outside, found a spot in the shade and out came the ice cream. My limited Haitian was just about capable of crying
out to our host repeatedly mesi boku mesi
boku mesi boku, but really I had no words in any language to truly express
my gratitude at that moment for something as simple as ice cream. I’ve never, before or since, been so grateful
for ice cream… and that saddens me. I’m
saddened that it took temporary presence in a third world country to draw out simultaneously
a lament that my practice of hospitality doesn’t come close to matching most
suburban Haitians’ and to intense gratitude at ice cream. Unfortunately, it was too short a time to
truly inculcate in me growth in the virtue of gratitude, but I have that memory
which inspires me to keep on praying for it.
Deuteronomy
was written to Israelites long after the Exile, probably in a time of
prosperity, to remind them of who they are, of where they’ve come from, that
they wandered and hungered. And in their
hunger, they encountered the God who nourishes, the God who leads into freedom,
not just from Egyptian slavery, but into the true spiritual freedom of the
daughters and sons of God, and who provides nourishment on that long, hard
journey. Pope Francis recently wrote of his
worry about the growing “New Paganism of self-centeredness.” We weren’t slaves in Egypt, but maybe this is
what we need to be led out of, what we’ll need to be nourished to be able to be
led out of. Because what I found
impossible in Haiti is what’s all too easy here, at least for me: to think I’m
quite capable of rowing my own boat, of satisfying my own hunger, of being
self-reliant, making my self my center.
The forty year walk through the wilderness was part of God’s divine
pedagogy, to not just nourish the Israelites’ stomachs, but grow them morally,
to help them learn trust in the Lord’s provision, to remember their dependence
on the loving action of their God that that reveals, to help them remember and
respond with praise and blessing; to form them into a Eucharistic people.
But
bread, even miraculous bread, was never enough to do that, because we forget mere
bread. We remember people. So the gift gets grander because we hunger
still. In Christ, again God gives his
people bread, but now the bread is living.
No longer merely a gift given in love, but a gift given who loves, who
loves us, loves us enough to be repulsed at how sin and death bind us and to do
something about that. Gift who consented
to be given over for us. Gift who
consented to have his arms stretched wide on the cross to span his immeasurable
love, who consented to be pierced by sin, to be broken for us and returned not
anger, not vengeance, but life-giving blood and water. Gift who loved us so much that not even
death, death at our hands, could keep him from us, but who rose, breaking the
power of sin and death and refusing to be separated from dwelling with his
beloved people. Gift who sent the
further gift of his Spirit that we might never be alone as he went to prepare
the place where we could be with Him forever.
But, that
was two thousand years ago. And it’s
easy to forget. And so that ultimate act
of love is remember, re-member-ed, re-presented on countless altars from the
rising of the sun to the setting and we are fed anew. Love enters us. Not a gift finite, created, fallible,
forgetful like us; no, our God is our gift, our God who is Love enters us and
utterly transforms us. For now our Lord deeply
dwells with us, inhabiting our hearts.
In the breaking of bread we encounter the God who broke for us, out of
love so strong that he’ll lead us out from every slavery. From thinking we can row our own boat, he’ll
lead us to gratitude. From fearing we’re
fractured, isolated, disconnected, he’ll knit us into one body, that glories in
its awareness that we really are all responsible for all. From the terror of death, he’ll lead us to
life, abundant, eternal life.
We taste
that here, life as it’s meant to lived, life of love, gratitude, praise, and
blessing. We’re fed with it. And we become what we receive. And thank God for that (literally!), because
the world is so very hungry, and there’s so much gift to give.
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