8-30-19 - Who You Gonna Sit With?

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

I’ve been wondering why Luke calls Jesus’ social advice here a “parable.” Parables are usually little stories or examples. Then I remembered – parables are devices Jesus used to explain God-Life to his listeners. They often begin, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

And they often feature wedding banquets and feasts. Jesus not only instructs his followers about how they are to regulate their social interactions in this world – he’s also talking about eternity, the “larger life.” At that party, it is God who says to us, “Come up higher, to this seat of honor,” no matter how deserving we are. It is God who will repay us “at the resurrection of the righteous” for our generosity and inclusion of those on the margins.

I don’t spend much time thinking about the afterlife – there’s plenty of life right here. But the Bible is full of references to our life in God as a banquet or a feast, tables laden with wonderful foods (no calories!), fine, aged nectars, and wonderful people. All kinds of peoples. ALL kinds. It’s safe to assume that we’ll be at that table with people we might not choose to sit with in the here and now – and if heaven is all it’s cracked up to be, we’re going to be just fine with that. Because no one will be more or less important than another, and we won’t value any one person over another.

A clergy colleague once overheard me say this, and was horrified. “You mean, I’m going to have to sit with so-and-so for eternity? I’m planning to hang out with my loved ones.” I replied, “If these promises we claim are true, and in eternity we find ourselves in the presence of Love itself, how would we love one more than another? How can there be ‘less love’ in the presence of pure Love?” He did not look pleased.

As I reflect on people I find difficult, officials often come to mind. So God has given me a new practice: when I read the news and feel outraged, I pray right then for that person to be blessed, whoever he or she may be. If God’s blessing brings good, that prayer can’t hurt, right? (Probably good for my blood pressure too…). Part of the reason Jesus encourages us to break through the cultural and ethnic and economic and temperamental and all the kinds of barriers we set up between ourselves and others, is to practice this equalizing kind of love now, so we can enjoy it eternally.

So let’s practice: we’ve been praying for and about people we find challenging. 

This weekend, let’s take it outside: Find a way to offer friendship or kindness to someone who is difficult for you to love.
Let’s go further: Let’s be the one who says to someone at the edges, “Come on, sit here with me in the good seats.” Who might that be for you?
And let’s think of someone we really don’t love, with whom we would not want to sit at table, and ask God to share God’s love for that person with us.

I mean, why wait? Really, why waste one precious day in this incredible life NOT loving?

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