Oh, that you would rend the heavens
Often when problems escalate and there seems no relief in sight, even non-believers resort to demanding of God or “Somebody” to intervene. Believers do no less, as when my teenage son seemed inextricably addicted to drugs, so that I found myself one day literally driving my fist into a wall, crying out to God, “Do something! Prove you exist! Save my son!” The prophet in today’s first reading must have shared the same frustration on a larger scale. For he was witness to a catastrophe of national scope, the destruction of his homeland and its temple and the exile of his people to Babylon. And so he calls upon God to intervene in the way he did seven hundred years earlier when he opened the Red Sea and became explosively present to them upon Mt. Sinai.
“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,” cries the prophet, “with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for.” And so it seems, the greater our frustration over whatever oppresses us, the more vehement our cry for not just help but a miracle. But does God always have to intervene in spectacular ways? May he not make his presence known in a gentle breeze, a “still small voice”? That’s the way God seems to make his presence felt in Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. We’re back in early 20th century New York where the widowed Katie Nolan and her children Francie and Neeley lived amid the poverty-ridden tenements of Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Indeed, making ends meet had been so difficult that Katie learned early to live without illusions. She became a hard-nosed realist and taught her kids to steer clear of the romantic expectations of their now deceased father, who lived in a world of “Sweet Rosie O’Grady” and other sentimental ballads.
Yet throughout the story epiphanies of God, of grace and hope, do happen, if ever so gently, as when, to celebrate Francie’s graduation from elementary school, Katie took her and Neeley and their two aunts to an ice cream parlor for a rare treat. Eventually the waiter placed down the check for 30 cents. Aunt Evy thought, “I hope she’s not fool enough to tip him,” while Neeley hoped his mother would leave at least the required nickel. Katie had only a 50 cent coin in her purse, so she laid it on the check. “The waiter took it away and brought back four nickels . . . He hovered nearby waiting for Katie to pick up three of them. She looked at the four nickels. ‘Four loaves of bread,’ she thought. Four pairs of eyes watched Katie’s hand. Katie never hesitated once she put her hand on the money. With a sure gesture, she pushed the four nickels toward the waiter. ‘Keep the change,’ she said grandly.” (A sixty-six percemt tip!) Francie wanted to stand up and cheer.
And then there was New Year’s Eve, 1917. Francie had thrown open the window of their top floor flat. “All was still. Across the yards, the backs of houses were dark and brooding. As they stood at the window, they heard the joyous peal of a church bell. Then other bells tumbled over the first pealing. Whistles . . . Tin horns were added.” Then someone began “Auld Lang Syne” and the Irish joined in – but only to be out sung by the neighborhood Germans singing “Ja, das ist ein Gartenhaus.” Soon there were catcalls. The moment degenerated into insults. The Jews and Italians withdrew behind their blinds. Finally all settled down; once more the night was quiet. Then Francie grabbed her mother and Neeley. “ ‘All together now,’ she ordered. The three of them leaned out the window and shouted, ‘Happy New Year, everybody!’” Surely God arrives among us at such moments! Spectacularly? No. But ever so truly nevertheless.