1. Our lives are scattered and superficial, and our church seems to be in a state of disarray, which demands rethinking and reform. Some want the reform to be radical, sparing no venerable structures or habits of mind, while others, to the contrary, want it to be a restoration of the past. Our church is divided between these two alternatives. But both sides can listen together, at the beginning of Lent, to the voices from ancient Israel calling us back to our spiritual roots.
“Deuteronomy” means “Second Law” and recounts a great ceremony in which the Covenant between God and his people is renewed, as Moses recites the Law anew so that the Israelites can solemnly declare their allegiance to it. Moses is now addressing not the generation that lived through the original exodus out of Egypt, but a new generation, toward the end of the forty years of desert wandering. Moses will die at the end of the book and Joshua will lead the people into the promised land The setting is the region of Moab, across the river Jordan from the promised land of Canaan. In this grandiose epic act of remembrance the Israelites rediscover who they are and prepare themselves of their great deeds of conquest. In Lent the Christian community likewise remember who they are and prepare for great deeds of spiritual conquest with the new Joshua, Jesus Christ.
2. It is in the desert, in forty years of wandering, that the Israelites discovered the nature of their God. Jesus relives those forty years in his forty days in the desert, when he overcomes Satan with three well-chosen quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy. Each year, during the forty days of Lent, we in turn relive the desert experience of the Israelites and of Jesus.
My image of deserts is based on movies such as Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970), The Sheltering Sky (Bertolucci, 1990), Gerry (Gus Van Sant, 2002), and Japanese Story (Australia, 2003), but no doubt the real experience of the desert cannot be caught on celluloid. I gather that a desert is a very disorienting place, where clear landmarks are hard to establish. The wandering Israelites in the wilderness often express frustration, asking Moses, “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?”
In our Lenten wandering, we recall the faith and self-denial of our parents and grandparents, in an Ireland that lived not by bread but by the word of God. Those were often harsh times, stretching back to still harsher. Does it not seem that those generations acquitted themselves honourably in the sight of God, whereas those who have come after have lost their bearings and care no longer about how things look in the eyes of God—how things really are. The desert is a school of reality, but we are the most restive and rebellious of learners, unable to sit still
A second feature of deserts is their vast horizons of space. In a desert one lives frugally, minimalistically, on a daily ration of bread and water, so one’s life becomes very small, but at the same time it becomes vast as one takes in the unbounded landscape of sand and sky. So our Lenten desert need not be a time of narrowness. We can expand our hearts and minds, learning more about God and his people as we refuse to let our egos get in the way and block the view.
A third feature, I’m told by someone who visited the Judaean desert, is a silence that is intense and that weighs on one heavily. During Lent we feel that divine silence in our hearts, judging our actions, and perhaps blessing them when we resist the lure of mirages, and walk soberly and humbly with our God.
3. “A wandering Aramaean was my father…”
Who is the wandering Aramaean of this prayer? It is a kind of creed, to be recited by the Israelites when they enter the promised land, as a joyful expression of gratitude and praise to the God who liberated them from slavery in Egypt. It is to be accompanied by an offering of the first-fruits of their harvest. Exegetes like Gerhard Van Rad came up with the idea that this prayer is the oldest text in Scripture. That is an attractive fantasy, which has not held up to scholarly analysis. Yet however old it is, it is undeniably a text that takes us back to the ancient roots of our faith, and a text that speaks to us today in a haunting way.
The “Aramaean” is not Abraham but Jacob, somewhat disparaged here, because his mother Rebecca and his wives Leah and Rachel were from the Aramaean region, and where he himself spent twenty years of his life, exiled from his home in Canaan. Wandering in the desert, the Israelites recall their wandering forefathers and foremothers, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his family.
Jacob is the most fully depicted person in the Book of Genesis, and the dominant character in its latter half, from chapter 25 to chapter 50. It is regrettable that his story cannot be conveyed fully in the snippets we read at Mass.
Jacob, in his wanderings, had much cause for confusion, what with the bed-trick played on him by Laban, making him marry first the elder and unfavoured daughter, and his alienation from his vengeful brother Esau, and the troubles caused him by his sons. In liminal areas on his wanderings, when familiar landmarks are far away, he experiences theophanies, as when he lay on a stone and had a vision of angels ascending and descending on a heavenly staircase or ziggurat, a Babylonian image, or when at the brook Jabbok he wrestled with a heavenly bein and received the new name Israel, “wrestles with God” (Gen 35:9-10). Throughout his story, Jacob’s family troubles interact with his struggle with God. His reconciliation with Esau, the day after his struggle at the Brook Jabbok—“I have seen the face of God and live” (Gen 32:30)—is marked by the moving words, “Your face to me is as the face of God” (33:10). Jacob must have puzzled over his own identity as he moved between different worlds. The Lord himself added to the confusion by his obscure appearances.
Jacob’s wanderings were a tremendous enrichment of the identity of the people of Israel, named after him. Uprooted again in old age, he goes down to Egypt, a strange, unknown environment. There his household of seventy members grew to a great people over four hundred years. Christians in the modern world have become wanderers like Jacob, often confused, but gaining a blessing as Christian identity is enriched and ripened by exposure it to new cultural contexts.
Jacob is a touching figure in old age, rather frail and pathetic, like his blind father Isaac whom he mocked and deceived. Now deceived and mocked by his own sons, he must have had ample opportunity to reflect on his own behaviour of long ago. The loss of Rachel leaves lasting wound, causing him to cling with desperate affection to her two sons. And even in old age things happen that turn his whole world upside down:
‘They told him, “Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.” Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them. But when they told him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, “I’m convinced! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. “And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!” “Here I am,” he replied. “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.”’ (Gen 45:26-46:4)
To the Pharaoh he declares: “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers” (Gen 47:9).
Jacob’s deathbed blessing of Joseph’s two sons echoes the scene of the blessing stolen from blind Isaac: ‘Now Israel’s eyes were failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too”… Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn’ (48:10-11, 14). After all his wandering, he insists again and again that he wants to be buried back in the land of Canaan, and his last words are: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah’ (49:29-31).
Lent, when we touch the bedrock of our faith, is a time of remembrance, when we find ourselves following the footsteps of the saints who went before us and whose heroic faithfulness challenges us to live the Christian adventure to the full as they did. Comfortable horizons are shaken, great spaces open out, and the divine silence presses on us, leading us on, as individuals and communities, to the promised land.
1. Our lives are scattered and superficial, and our church seems to be in a state of disarray, which demands rethinking and reform. Some want the reform to be radical, sparing no venerable structures or habits of mind, while others, to the contrary, want it to be a restoration of the past. Our church is divided between these two alternatives. But both sides can listen together, at the beginning of Lent, to the voices from ancient Israel calling us back to our spiritual roots.
“Deuteronomy” means “Second Law” and recounts a great ceremony in which the Covenant between God and his people is renewed, as Moses recites the Law anew so that the Israelites can solemnly declare their allegiance to it. Moses is now addressing not the generation that lived through the original exodus out of Egypt, but a new generation, toward the end of the forty years of desert wandering. Moses will die at the end of the book and Joshua will lead the people into the promised land The setting is the region of Moab, across the river Jordan from the promised land of Canaan. In this grandiose epic act of remembrance the Israelites rediscover who they are and prepare themselves of their great deeds of conquest. In Lent the Christian community likewise remember who they are and prepare for great deeds of spiritual conquest with the new Joshua, Jesus Christ.
2. It is in the desert, in forty years of wandering, that the Israelites discovered the nature of their God. Jesus relives those forty years in his forty days in the desert, when he overcomes Satan with three well-chosen quotations from the Book of Deuteronomy. Each year, during the forty days of Lent, we in turn relive the desert experience of the Israelites and of Jesus.
My image of deserts is based on movies such as Zabriskie Point (Antonioni, 1970), The Sheltering Sky (Bertolucci, 1990), Gerry (Gus Van Sant, 2002), and Japanese Story (Australia, 2003), but no doubt the real experience of the desert cannot be caught on celluloid. I gather that a desert is a very disorienting place, where clear landmarks are hard to establish. The wandering Israelites in the wilderness often express frustration, asking Moses, “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?”
In our Lenten wandering, we recall the faith and self-denial of our parents and grandparents, in an Ireland that lived not by bread but by the word of God. Those were often harsh times, stretching back to still harsher. Does it not seem that those generations acquitted themselves honourably in the sight of God, whereas those who have come after have lost their bearings and care no longer about how things look in the eyes of God—how things really are. The desert is a school of reality, but we are the most restive and rebellious of learners, unable to sit still
A second feature of deserts is their vast horizons of space. In a desert one lives frugally, minimalistically, on a daily ration of bread and water, so one’s life becomes very small, but at the same time it becomes vast as one takes in the unbounded landscape of sand and sky. So our Lenten desert need not be a time of narrowness. We can expand our hearts and minds, learning more about God and his people as we refuse to let our egos get in the way and block the view.
A third feature, I’m told by someone who visited the Judaean desert, is a silence that is intense and that weighs on one heavily. During Lent we feel that divine silence in our hearts, judging our actions, and perhaps blessing them when we resist the lure of mirages, and walk soberly and humbly with our God.
3. “A wandering Aramaean was my father…”
Who is the wandering Aramaean of this prayer? It is a kind of creed, to be recited by the Israelites when they enter the promised land, as a joyful expression of gratitude and praise to the God who liberated them from slavery in Egypt. It is to be accompanied by an offering of the first-fruits of their harvest. Exegetes like Gerhard Van Rad came up with the idea that this prayer is the oldest text in Scripture. That is an attractive fantasy, which has not held up to scholarly analysis. Yet however old it is, it is undeniably a text that takes us back to the ancient roots of our faith, and a text that speaks to us today in a haunting way.
The “Aramaean” is not Abraham but Jacob, somewhat disparaged here, because his mother Rebecca and his wives Leah and Rachel were from the Aramaean region, and where he himself spent twenty years of his life, exiled from his home in Canaan. Wandering in the desert, the Israelites recall their wandering forefathers and foremothers, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and his family.
Jacob is the most fully depicted person in the Book of Genesis, and the dominant character in its latter half, from chapter 25 to chapter 50. It is regrettable that his story cannot be conveyed fully in the snippets we read at Mass.
Jacob, in his wanderings, had much cause for confusion, what with the bed-trick played on him by Laban, making him marry first the elder and unfavoured daughter, and his alienation from his vengeful brother Esau, and the troubles caused him by his sons. In liminal areas on his wanderings, when familiar landmarks are far away, he experiences theophanies, as when he lay on a stone and had a vision of angels ascending and descending on a heavenly staircase or ziggurat, a Babylonian image, or when at the brook Jabbok he wrestled with a heavenly bein and received the new name Israel, “wrestles with God” (Gen 35:9-10). Throughout his story, Jacob’s family troubles interact with his struggle with God. His reconciliation with Esau, the day after his struggle at the Brook Jabbok—“I have seen the face of God and live” (Gen 32:30)—is marked by the moving words, “Your face to me is as the face of God” (33:10). Jacob must have puzzled over his own identity as he moved between different worlds. The Lord himself added to the confusion by his obscure appearances.
Jacob’s wanderings were a tremendous enrichment of the identity of the people of Israel, named after him. Uprooted again in old age, he goes down to Egypt, a strange, unknown environment. There his household of seventy members grew to a great people over four hundred years. Christians in the modern world have become wanderers like Jacob, often confused, but gaining a blessing as Christian identity is enriched and ripened by exposure it to new cultural contexts.
Jacob is a touching figure in old age, rather frail and pathetic, like his blind father Isaac whom he mocked and deceived. Now deceived and mocked by his own sons, he must have had ample opportunity to reflect on his own behaviour of long ago. The loss of Rachel leaves lasting wound, causing him to cling with desperate affection to her two sons. And even in old age things happen that turn his whole world upside down:
‘They told him, “Joseph is still alive! In fact, he is ruler of all Egypt.” Jacob was stunned; he did not believe them. But when they told him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, “I’m convinced! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.” So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. “And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, “Jacob! Jacob!” “Here I am,” he replied. “I am God, the God of your father,” he said. “Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph’s own hand will close your eyes.”’ (Gen 45:26-46:4)
To the Pharaoh he declares: “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers” (Gen 47:9).
Jacob’s deathbed blessing of Joseph’s two sons echoes the scene of the blessing stolen from blind Isaac: ‘Now Israel’s eyes were failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them. Israel said to Joseph, “I never expected to see your face again, and now God has allowed me to see your children too”… Israel reached out his right hand and put it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and crossing his arms, he put his left hand on Manasseh’s head, even though Manasseh was the firstborn’ (48:10-11, 14). After all his wandering, he insists again and again that he wants to be buried back in the land of Canaan, and his last words are: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah’ (49:29-31).
Lent, when we touch the bedrock of our faith, is a time of remembrance, when we find ourselves following the footsteps of the saints who went before us and whose heroic faithfulness challenges us to live the Christian adventure to the full as they did. Comfortable horizons are shaken, great spaces open out, and the divine silence presses on us, leading us on, as individuals and communities, to the promised land.