Monday Meditation, August 30, 2010

The mathematics of religion.
It may be time for many of us modern Christians to go back to school.
We seem to have mixed up the mathematics of religion in our culture.
The "talk on the street" in modern American society would lead a person to conclude that religion is about multiplication and division.  We want to multiply our assets, to expand our holdings, to grow our business, to claim the riches we think we deserve.  We spend a lot of time focused on  what divides us.  We have superb arguments about why our religion is best--and why "those folks" may not deserve heaven.

When Jesus came, He changed the equation.  He taught us that life in the Kingdom is about addition and subtraction.  We are continually called to see others as being added to those chosen for the kingdom: the Pharisees and Presbyterians; the Samaritans and the Seventh Day Adventists;  the Buddhists, Baptists, and B'nai B'rith; the Mennonites, Muslims and Methodists.
And we are called to subtract our sense of self-importance, our insistence that we have the correct political view, our need to be "right" rather than to be united with others, our self-assuredness that we "deserve" God's blessings more than someone who is not like us.

For a great refresher in remedial math re-read the Sunday Gospel: Luke 14:1, 7-14.
And let's hold in our hearts the Responsorial Refrain from Psalm 68: God, in your goodness, you have made a home for the poor.

In the Sunday Gospel reading for Luke, we heard:

"...And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God."

(Luke 13)

What a feast!  Everybody is invited.  Who knows who will come?  God knows, and that's enough.  We need not spend one minute trying to decide who is worthy of the Kingdom--because no one is worthy of heaven. We can't earn it; but we can accept our place at the Divine dining table because of the gift of Christ's passion, death and resurrection.

We can't understand it from our personal sense of the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

It is the Cosmic Christ--the crucified, then resurrected and transfigured Son of Man/Son of God who will accomplish this grand design of salvation.

If you want to fill your heart and soul this week, go to Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (Lumen Gentium) and read the first part of Chapter II (On the People of God), starting with Paragraph 9.  Here's your link:  http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

Blessings for the week,

Bob