22nd Sunday

22nd Sunday Ordinary
July 29, 2004

"No, you have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect" (Hebrews 12:18-24) "Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous." (Luke 14: 1, 7-14)
The reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, with its symbolism of the "heavenly Jerusalem" and "angels in festal gathering) reminds us of the many metaphors for heaven found in the Bible and sacred writings of other religions. We may sometimes take these more literally than they were intended, perhaps because our human minds simply are incapable of conceptualizing the reality which awaits us, or because we cling to comforting or threatening childhood images of heaven. In these images heaven was a perfected extension of this life. These images express an aspect of the truth, but not all of it.
The familiar gospel story in which Jesus instructs guests invited to a banquet about the realities of the kingdom of heaven addresses this issue. He says here, and repeatedly in other places, that the kingdom of heaven is both right here in front of us as well as a distant promise. The banquet is the kingdom of heaven where human concepts of the proper order of things are completely reversed. In this kingdom, all that we customarily value (wealth, power, security, respect) is worthless and all that we deem worthless (poverty, powerlessness, insecurity, obscurity) is of the highest value. When we strive to conform our lives to Jesus' unlikely view of the kingdom of heaven, we do not have to "wait" for the kingdom. We are already there, there is no waiting. And it probably is not streets paved with gold (the gold acquired by human misery and destruction of the earth), or cute little angels flying about singing hymns. At least this is not the kingdom of heaven described by Jesus, who so often "demystifies" the issue.
This may also be true of the fear we have of the "last judgment", as if it will turn out to be some kind of surprise ending. We are being judged every day based on our willingness and ability to allow the kingdom to be reborn in our lives (the "firstborn" in the letter to the Hebrews). I imagine my own "last judgment" to be a completion and perfection of myself, devoid of the inevitable self-delusions of my present life.
The city of God is a project under construction. We can be associated with vandals undoing the work at night, or workers building during the day. Most of us have spent some time doing both. The table for the banquet of the kingdom is laid out for us right now. We are both guests and hosts. Who will we choose to sit with; who will we invite?
Loris Buccola