Andrew Neaum
My favourite carol at Christmas is one with a chorus that goes: burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
It expresses that heady Christmas mix of feasting and praying boozing and worshipping, guzzling and praise, self-indulgence and extravagant, selfless gift-giving. burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
Opposites linked together. Paradox! The earthy and the heavenly, the secular and the sacred, the human and the divine, God and man, Jesus the human baby, Jesus the Messiah burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
Jesus himself loved a banquet, feasted well, often with rat-bags and sinners. He was no weasel-wowser, not at all, he was accused of being a glutton and a wine-bibber, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
Religion and feasting do mix well, the Eucharist, the Mass, Holy Communion began with an authentic meal of good friends, and remains a ritualised, symbolic meal. Jesus likened Heaven itself to a banquet. burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
So God is at home at our table, at our feasts. In my home most certainly, and I don’t mean just in the grace we say before each meal, he comes to the party in other ways too. burp, alleluia, burp, burp, alleluia, burp, burp, burp, alleluia....
He joined us at a special meal I shared last September. It was in a small Ethiopian restaurant in Brixton, London, we drank Ethiopian beer and ate a variety of spicy meat concoctions served upon those porous, pallid, spongy and ubiquitous Ethiopian pancakes called injera. They serve simultaneously as the tablecloth, the plate, the eating utensil and food.
It was the company that made it an especially, special meal. A vivacious wife, an amiable son, a delightful nephew and myself. As with all good company our conversation ranged far and wide, not infrequently hovering over and around religion, and so it was entirely appropriate, that to round off the meal there was a sort of religious ceremony: delicious coffee, the beans roasted actually for us while we waited, and then, once mortared and pestled, brewed and brought to us in a little, spouted clay, Jebeena, accompanied by spluttering, odoriferous incense. The coffee was black, sweet, slightly scented and altogether delicious The third little cup, Ethiopians maintain, confers a blessing.
The incense invoked God, as too did the fellowship, the communion, as too did the love that bound us all together, but also, and perhaps above all else, so too did the conversation “in the beginning was the Word....” says St John’s Gospel, God is made most real when God is spoken. It was the conversation, our words, that became the Word.
My nephew is an intelligent, articulate, successful and unutterably delightful documentary producer. Like all truly intelligent people, he is interested in God, like many such folk though, he hasn’t quite tipped over and fallen full-length into faith. One suspects he would like to, really, but can’t.
Eventually we began to talk about the essence of the Christian Faith, how do you encapsulate this wonderful, complicated, many faced, 2000 year old system and phenomenon. that has so enhanced, illuminated and rendered marvellous my life.
How do you get your head round, sum up and summarise, Christendom and its faith, what it is all about, in brief, concisely, understandably, in a nutshell?
We concluded that the essence of the faith has little if anything to do with dogma, or with giving consent to a series of propositions, or with believing in the impossible or the miraculous, or with believing that the bible is inerrant, or with going to church, or with piety and pious practices, or with morality as commonly understood, that is, with being good in any conventional, wowserish way.
But rather, that the Faith, nut-shelled is being enabled by God’s grace to accept one’s life, one’s circumstances and one’s world, as an entirely unearned, unmerited gift of love from a God of love, and that the purpose of one’s life is to learn seriously, seriously, seriously to die to self and learn to love after the fashion of that glutton and wine-bibber and most marvellous, enigmatic, loving, lovable and altogether compelling Jesus of Nazareth,
To accept this truth from the bottom of the heart, liberates us from resentment, puzzlement and aimlessness to gratitude, joy and purposiveness in daily life it puts the magic and enchantment back into Christmas. It is life-changing, it turns you turtle. It has helped my life to be as marvellous and adventurous as it most undoubtedly has been.
I would be nothing else than a thoroughgoing Christian and churchman, and I am sad for anyone who isn’t or who can’t be.
It also changes slightly, and infinitely for the better the chorus of my favourite carol to: burp, alleluia, thank you, thank you, burp, burp, alleluia, thank you, thank you, thank you burp, burp, burp, alleluia, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you....