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Scripture, Spirituality

Walking Out of the Desert

Christine Eberle

Jesus returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.  -Luke 4:1

We only hear about the 40th day.

What happened during the other 39?

Jesus was propelled out into the desert after his baptism, after he heard those life-changing words: You are my beloved son.  Did it take him that long, perhaps, to figure out what it meant to be God’s son, and what on earth he should do next?

And this “devil” – more appropriately translated “opponent” or “obstructor” – what exactly was he trying to oppose and obstruct?  And how?

I believe that, during those 40 days, Jesus wrestled with his understanding of his mission – not just the “why” and the “what” but especially the “how” of his public ministry.  Opposed and obstructed at every step.

And since the good is often the enemy of the best, I suspect that the great obstructor suggested all sorts of tangential issues to care about, alternate strategies to pursue.  Maybe Jesus needed those 40 days (the Biblical number for “a really long time”) to clear his head of all that rubbish, to be calm and focused and purposeful, to learn exactly how to direct his energy.

Here’s how I picture that final day:

It’s over.

Plans and possibilities have been considered and rejected.  Powers, perhaps, have been explored, and reliance on them restricted.  Hungry, weary, yet resolute, Jesus begins to trudge back towards civilization, leaning on his staff.

He is really hungry.

The stones at his feet shimmer in the heat; squint your eyes and they look like bread.

Then that damn voice again.  “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”  If?  If?  Always if!  The Spirit had said so; hadn’t he heard it?  Hadn’t everyone?  He’d just spent 40 days growing into that identity.  Why was the “if” back?  If you are the Son of God … and not some delusional freak!

Turning the stone to bread; would that silence the “if” for good?  The walk back was so long, and he was so hungry.  This was so hard.  What harm would it do?  Who would know?  What was the use of being God’s son, if you couldn’t feed yourself when you were hungry?

As he leans on his staff, he realizes that hunger and weariness are feeding him insecurity and taking him to the brink of unraveling all the resolutions he made when he was feeling stronger.  Mental note – fatigue and hunger are dangerous.  The strongest resolutions can start to slip away under their siege. He must steel himself against such lapses in logic; he cannot use his “magic powers” for his own comfort or convenience.  (And though he does not know it yet, If he can’t resist making bread when he is hungry, how will he resist the jeers of the crowd telling him to come down off that cross … baiting him with that word “if” again?)

More importantly, he can’t cave to the urge to prove himself for the sake of his pride.  That can’t end well.

Once the first temptation is resisted, the subsequent ones get easier. (Probably a good lesson for the rest of us.)  Though they do have their own specific appeal.

Then he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.   The devil said to him … all this shall be yours, if you worship me.  (Luke 4:5-7)

Now that is tempting.  All the kingdoms of the world in a single instant.  Just think of all the places he will never visit in his lifetime.  All the places it will take his followers years … decades … even centuries to reach, and how much his message could be warped in transmission!

And yet the devil here has overreached, showed his hand.  He doesn’t have the power.  The kingdoms are not his to give.  Easy to resist.

So the obstructor takes a step back.  Returns to what almost worked the first time.  If you are the Son of God … throw yourself down (from the parapet of the temple).   For he will command his angels to guard you … (Luke 4:9-10).

Again, there is a certain draw.  It would get people’s attention, that’s for sure. He wouldn’t have to struggle against their disbelief in the “carpenter’s son.” Wouldn’t have to take the hard road.  (Might not even wind up on the cross.)

But no.

The devil’s lures are getting tiresome.

This is not the way, and he knows it.  He walks on, feeling stronger, resolute. And so the devil retreats, waiting for Jesus’ defenses to go down again.

To do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason. That’s the challenge that was laid before Jesus, and that lies before each of us every day.

Spirituality, Writing

Things I Believe about God

Christine Eberle

I have started working in earnest on a book whose working title is Finding God in Ordinary Time.  During a hash session at the When Words Count Retreat last week, someone I respect told me that if I was going to write a book about spirituality, I really needed to be clear within myself about what I believe about God.  I prayed about it by the fireplace that night, and the next morning got up and wrote this.

I believe that God is less interested in right answers than in right relationship . . . less committed to creeds than to how we treat one another.

I believe that God wants to be intimately involved in each person’s life. Don’t ask me how the math works. But if Eve can love her six children as fiercely as Eileen loves her two, then God, being God, can love the whole world that way.

Though it is not (as I once believed), a saying of Saint Augustine, I am convinced of the wisdom of the French expression: “to understand all is to forgive all.” God knows us better than we know ourselves, understands the complicated threads that lead to our worst behavior, and would much rather help us untangle those threads and lead us back to wholeness than just throw the whole mess in the trash can and start over. There’s a little story about judgment day, how everyone has entered the pearly gates but Jesus is still standing at the top of the escalator (yes, in this story there’s an escalator to heaven). Jesus is peering down wistfully when Peter comes out and says, “Lord, come on in! We’ve got quite the party going on. What are you waiting for?” Jesus replies, never taking his eyes off the escalator, “I was hoping that Judas might have had a change of heart and would still be joining us.” The story is ridiculous, but dammit it makes me cry every time, even just typing it. I think it gets me because it says something true about the heart of God, overflowing with mercy.

I believe that God wants me to be my best self, and consequently doesn’t let me get away with anything. If I criticize someone harshly for a mistake or a weakness—even in my own head—I’m almost bound to make or manifest the exact same thing any day, and feel from across the room God’s eyebrows humorously raised in my direction.

I believe that God suffers with us. To me the most powerful thing about the Incarnation of Jesus was the idea that the almighty, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient God would choose to become limited, helpless, and earthbound. That he would eat and drink and sweat and shit and go to parties and have good friends and get betrayed by some of them. That he would struggle to pray, to figure out his mission, to communicate his vision to people predisposed to skepticism or religious fanaticism. That makes him a person I want to get to know better.

I believe that the suffering of God and the omnipotence of God are hard but not impossible to reconcile. On the one hand it’s the pesky free-will thing. Much of the pain that comes our way is from other people’s (or our own) misuse of God-given free will. But if we are not free to do terrible things to one another then we are not free to do amazing things either; we’re just puppets here for God’s amusement and what’s the point of that?  The catch for many people, I know, is the whole miracle business.  When one person narrowly escapes a harrowing accident or beats the odds of a cancer diagnosis, people of faith are quick to call it a miracle and thank God for the intervention. But why, then, does God not always intervene? At least in the case of deserving people—young children, mothers of young children, scientists on the brink of curing the cancer that afflicts young children—why does God withhold the magic wand?  Well I have an answer for you, and it’s this: I don’t know.  But I do know that CS Lewis said when we get to heaven we will not learn all the answers; we will just discover that we were asking the wrong questions. So I’m okay dwelling in that particular mystery.

I believe that “everything happens for a reason” is one of the worst bits of pop theology ever to hit the charts—which is why I published a whole article about it.  Quick synopsis: the things we say we believe have to be true even in the hardest circumstances or they were never true to start with. So if you can’t stare at the Rwandan genocide or the tsunami that hit Fukushima and say, placidly, “Everything happens for a reason,” then don’t say it when you miss the plane that had engine trouble and get bumped to business class on the next flight.  And for God’s sake don’t say it when somebody’s baby dies.

I believe in the paschal cycle . . . the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  I believe that Jesus’ radical love and defiance of authority landed him where it lands most people, but that somehow—insert mystery here—death, for him, did not have the final word, and that he continued and continues to be a real and active presence in the lives and hearts of his followers.  And because of this, I am tuned in to the way that paschal cycle plays out in our own lives as well . . . that we suffer, “die,” and rise to new life many times in our lives, as tragedies take us to our knees and somehow we stand up again. (Which is the topic of my article “The Faithful Wait.”)

I believe in prayer. Sometimes that means sitting quietly in a church or a garden, very intentionally “descending from my head into my heart.” Sometimes it means taking a text—whether a piece of Scripture or a Mary Oliver poem—and ruminating on it, letting God lead me deeper, revealing something God wants me to know.  Sometimes it is so much less formal . . . the running dialogue in my head as I’m driving, or off for a long walk, or doing the dishes.  Although I do most of the talking, sometimes God does weigh in.  Or at least that’s what I call it when the thought that pops into my head is both clear and also nothing I would have scripted.  (I’m sure other people call it the subconscious mind at work.  I’m okay with that as long as I’m allowed to call it the voice of God.) And sometimes—often—prayer is a communal experience.  See next point.

I believe in liturgy.  Good liturgy.  Liturgy that becomes a trellis on which our meandering thoughts can raise themselves together towards higher things.  I am firmly committed to liturgies with beautiful music that is also theologically sound, to well-proclaimed readings and thoughtful preaching and intentional ritual.  And while I firmly believe that we should commit ourselves to common worship because of what we give, not what we get, I also think that the people in charge should make sure there’s something to be gotten.

I believe there are many paths to God, many roads up the mountain. I  believe that the faithful practitioners of any tradition have more in common with each other than they do with the lukewarm or fanatic practitioners of their own faith.  I believe religious people should spend less energy trying to convert others to their own denomination and more energy converting hearts—their own included—into a thriving, consequential relationship with the God of their understanding.

Can I get an Amen?

UPDATE:  Finding God in Ordinary Time was published in 2018, followed by Finding God Abiding in 2022; Finding God Along the Way is coming in February 2025 from Paraclete Press.

The things I said I believe about God–I’m happy to say–are still my bedrock truths.

Scripture

Is Christ Divided?

Christine Eberle

On the day after Donald Trump’s Inauguration I cantored for the vigil Mass at my parish, where I was struck by the second reading (1 Cor 1:10-13, 17).   In it we learn that St. Paul is scandalized by rumors of rivalries that have sprung up in the early Christian community.  He hears that people are saying “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”  Outraged, he asks, Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?

We shake our heads.  Silly Corinthians.  Yet the urge to separate and define ourselves by allegiances is persistent and–especially in today’s political climate–downright poisonous.

Remember when Catholics identified most with a particular religious congregation?  As children we were taught by Mercies or Macs or Joes, and if we went on to college we were formed by Jesuits or Augustinians or Christian Brothers (or Mercies or Macs or Joes).  Those charisms do run deep, but they don’t have the sharp edge of rivalry that Paul alludes to (at least not off the basketball court).  Instead it’s more like the beginning of a good-natured insider joke.  A Franciscan, a Benedictine and a Jesuit are talking about what they do with the Sunday collection . . .

But oy, this election season.

I feel blessed to be a member of St. Vincent DePaul parish in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, a church proud to be known as “the social justice parish.” We are a diverse and vibrant community.  At Sunday Mass our General Intercessions (written by a small cadre of parishioners) regularly feature prayers for immigrants, prisoners, and LGBT families.  We have a variety of social outreach ministries.  We are about to bless and display a Black Lives Matter banner in front of the church.  It feels as though we have been of one mind this season, and of one heart, and that heart may be broken, but at least we are together.

Some friends in other churches are not so lucky.  One walked out of her parish in late October, perhaps for good, when the pastor told congregants they would be putting their immortal souls in jeopardy if they voted a certain way in the presidential election.  Some walked out with her.  Yet others gave that same pastor a round of applause at the end of his homily.  Fast forward a few months to January 20; some parishioners probably cried when Obama’s helicopter took off, while others cheered.  They are a divided congregation filled with divided families in a divided nation.   And they are the norm these days.

Two days after the Inauguration I attended a Quaker meeting, where everyone who spoke had participated in one of the women’s marches on Saturday.  One man’s words drove home what had been nagging at me since the Corinthians reading.  He said, “In the course of my life I have seen so much suffering and cruelty inflicted on people and nations because of beliefs.”

We don’t belong to people these days (Paul, Apollos, Cephas or even Bernie, Hillary, or Donald), as much as to convictions and worldviews.  So if we are to learn a lesson from that reading from Corinthians, I think we have to ask ourselves what allegiances St. Paul would be shaking his fist at us for, given the chance.  How might he rewrite that bit of the Epistle now?  As tempting as it is to point the finger at those on the other side of the ecclesial aisle, today let me consider the plank in my own eye.  When I say, “I belong to the social justice parish” or “I belong to a welcoming and inclusive community” or “I belong to a parish where people are passionate about the liturgy” or “I belong to a church with a Black Lives Matter banner out front,” what am I really saying?   Is my attachment to those ways of being Catholic more important to me than the faith itself?

Is Christ divided?

It’s a mess.

I am nowhere near over being baffled by and harboring unkind thoughts toward people who believe differently than I do about our new president.  But I want to hold onto this:  we are each tending the light that we believe has been entrusted to us.  We each bring our raw, wounded, caring, imperfect selves up the aisle each week.  And I can only take responsibility for what I bring to the table.  So, in this moment of national turmoil, I want to try to bring equal measures of humility and charity.  When I get all self-righteous about my brand of Catholicism and all judgy about someone else’s, I’m bringing neither.

“On those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone” Isaiah proclaimed in this weekend’s first reading (9:1b).  High time, I say.  Enough with this gloom!

But until that great day comes, maybe it’s enough that we try not to add to the darkness.

Writing

Blog Posts through 2016

Christine Eberle

First, there was Tumblr . . .

In the fall of 2015, inspired by a conversation with my parish faith-sharing group, I finally started a blog.  I wanted to bear down on my writing in earnest, and decided that the first step should be to gather my existing writing in one spot and then start to post new things.  It was my way of holding my own feet to the writerly fire.

A young cousin set me up with a Tumblr account, and the posting began.  It was fun.  It was challenging.  It was a great motivator for getting me to write more.  What it wasn’t was reader-friendly; I was never happy with how the published version looked.

In the months to come I hope to take my favorite writings from the Tumblr account and migrate them over here.  But for now, please visit my old site and poke around.  If you find something you like, please come back here and comment!

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