God hears the cry of the poor. Before they speak, therefore, prophets learn to listen: ‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening,’ is the response par excellence to the prophetic call, for attentiveness to God's voice patterns a mind on Christ. If listening really is at the heart of the prophet's vocation, Jean Vanier fits the job‐description well. For 40 full years among those devalued by our society has fine‐tuned him to what the Spirit of God may be saying to our age.
His latest book is also to be welcomed as the fruit of a lifetime's listening to Jesus in the Gospel of John. Given that the Fourth Gospel is not exactly short of comments and reflections, readers of this review will want to know why this one is being singled out. To my mind, therefore, what sets it apart is Vanier's rare vantage point: his life‐experience has made him a keen witness to ‘the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men and women of our time’. So be prepared for reflections from the sharp end as Vanier lets the Gospel address western society today. This work takes us beyond the traditional comfort zone of academic theology, therefore, and out to the margins of society, in the company of one who has long made his home there.
As the title suggests, it takes time to be ‘drawn into the mystery of Jesus’. Such is the nature of friendship. In keeping with this spirit, the book's layout offers plenty of pauses for reflection. The division of each chapter into headlined sections invites slow meditative reading. Each chapter brings fresh, and often surprising insights from Vanier's friends with a learning difficulty. For instance, to illuminate the story of Nicodemus, who secretly visits Jesus under the cloak of darkness, Vanier introduces Antonio, a young man with multiple physical and intellectual needs of every description. The connection might not be obvious, but at the heart of Nicodemus's story lies the question of trust; and Antonio has in abundance what the teacher of Israel lacks. Similarly, the reader learns from – as well as about – Claudia in Honduras, Eric in France, and Sumasundra in India. From virtually every page comes the exultant cry of Jesus that Vanier has made his own: God delights in revealing to his little ones the secrets hidden from the learned.
Although his book celebrates this Gospel truth, Vanier's experience teaches him that suffering ‘romanticised’ is suffering betrayed. He is quick also to disillusion any who regard community life at L’Arche as a never‐ending honeymoon. For some of us, anguish is a frequent visitor. Nevertheless, he still insists that the poor can be counted among today's gifted evangelists and cutting‐edge theologians, and that L’Arche is essentially a place where their voice may be heard.
In his radical commitment to the marginalized, Vanier is setting 21st century theology on a course one hopes others will follow. Theology must not walk by on the other side: its task is to kneel down in service of the wounded. Not out of charity, for our condescension is not required, as Vanier here underlines. No, we kneel at the feet of the Antonios of our world because he is a teacher of our hearts: his total trust lays bare the half‐heartedness of our own faith; more deeply, he has the power to reveal the controlling fears lying at the back of our disordered priorities.
In proposing a way of dealing with the human crisis, Vanier recalls that the purpose of Jesus's mission is fullness of life. Contrary to the popular advice of the self‐help manual, Jesus insists that the path to true fulfilment lies through judgement and suffering: thus, at the moment of truth, it is not just the Roman Governor but his/our values and priorities, which are being judged by the alleged criminal standing before us. Jean Vanier applies the Evangelist's lesson to our own century. Those whom we reject are still revealing the underlying fractures of our society, our dis‐ease. When even the most apparently disabled life is invested with a world‐enriching purpose, then friendship with the anawim is beginning to sound like a pearl of great price.
In line with his thesis, Vanier provides some refreshing insights, Bethzatha, for instance, that gathering‐place for the sick, being aptly described as an ‘asylum’. He further notes that the house at Bethany is consistently referred to as that of Martha and Mary, and not of their brother. This is puzzling in a patriarchal society, and Vanier speculates that Lazarus was not capable of being the householder. Indeed, was the friend over whose death Jesus wept himself mentally disabled? This is clearly speculation. But to say that God hears the cry of the poor is fact. To hear what God hears, read this book.
