“Tax
collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” What would be your reaction to that? Imagine you’re a chief priest, you’re
standing in the Temple, your home base, the place you feel most grounded in the
presence of the God who called you into his service, into leadership in his
service, and this odd, homeless, wandering preaching who had just shown up in
Jerusalem to great acclaim from the people has the nerve to say to you: “Tax
collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” I’m sure we can imagine various responses,
and, knowing how the story ends, we know that their reaction culminated in
plotting to have this wandering preacher killed. I think the first thing we should notice is that
if someone else is entering the kingdom before us, then we’re entering the
kingdom! And maybe if I was a better person, I’d be entirely fine with that.
But, I do have to admit that I think in their shoes, I’d feel a little stung by
Jesus’ throwing shade. I think there’s somewhere that sting is meant to lead us.
I don’t think we’re meant to just concentrate on the fact that we’re en route to
the kingdom of heaven and ignore the tax collectors and prostitutes ahead of us
that cause that sting. But the response to them is to convert that sting into
gratitude. Gratitude followed by
conversion of heart.
Gratitude
to God, and gratitude to the tax collectors and prostitutes. Gratitude to them, because they’re the ones
showing us the way to the kingdom of God.
Or, one might put it better: gratitude to them, because they’re the ones
in whom God is showing us the way to the kingdom. To those who are entering the kingdom before
us, we can say nothing but: “thank you, thank you for heading up this
pilgrimage we’re at the tail end of, for beating through some of the brush so that
the path is that much clearer for us.”
Because all of us have a long way to go before we can live wholly and
holily with each other and with God for ever in heaven, and to show us the way
of turning from sin, of shedding the dirt that clings to us and walking into
His loving embrace, God gives us the witness of those who have far to go in
ways that are easier for us to see, whose dirt is smellier to our noses who are
numb to the smell of our own sin, and who turn, and start walking, in order that
we may follow. Conversely, when we
experience great mercy, great forgiveness, turn from some great sin we find in
ourselves, that forgiveness is never given just for us: forgiveness and
conversion are intensely personal, but never private, they’re always intended
for the whole church, that God’s extension of mercy to us might be a guidepost
for all who seek to sojourn with us.
I know a
few people entering the kingdom of God before me. Before entering seminary, I was a teacher
working inside San Quentin State prison.
The spirit of conversion I encountered within those walls was amazing…
quite literally, it amazed me. I saw men
doing so much to turn their lives around that it forced me to ask the question:
what am I being called to do in my life, what’s the conversion, the turning
from sin, the growth in virtue that this experience, these relationships,
should be occasioning in me? At the same
time, they were bringing more than just math problems to me. A need to talk to
someone who’d listen, fears, worries, anxieties, hopes, dreams, the occasional
joy. It felt entirely right to me to be there as their listening ear, but something
inside me tugged that I needed to be present to them in a different way. When I
got the courage to share these tuggings with trusted friends who asked me what
a “different way” might look like, my imagining, my dreaming, always turned to
the healing sacraments. My answer, I came to realize, had to involve discerning
priesthood and religious life. But, more
and more, I’ve realized our answer has to involve growing and deepening our
discipleship. As I continue my walk towards
the kingdom, I’m forever grateful for the gang-bangers, drug pushers and armed
robbers, turned apprentice geometers learning together with me, who are entering
before me, and showing me the way.
So, the
question we’re left with is, who is it we’re prone to ignore, who is it we don’t
think God could show us sanctity in? And whoever we think of first is probably
whoever someone else ignores, but we don’t, precisely because we thought of
them first. I’d like to leave that as a ponder question. Where is God’s grace
most clearly disclosed in the lives of those around us? Because, that’s
probably how God’s going to lead us home.
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