Readings:
Is 25, 6-10
Phil 4, 12-14. 19-20
Mt 22, 1-14
Thomas More wrote UTOPIA, a description of an ideal world and who many claim is his greatest book. We can never live without our dream worlds else we become trapped by life as it is. As George Bernard Shaw put it: “You see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ But I dream of things that never were, and I ask, ‘Why not?’ “
Chesterton distinguishes between poets and lunatics in this fashion: “The lunatic tries to get the heavens into his head. The poet attempts to get his head into the heavens.” In other words, the lunatic is the one who feels there is no beyond, no dream world, no transcendence. Hence all he has left is life as it is, and he must cram it all into his head. But the poet and the believer see it the other way. One must reach to the beyond, to life as it ought to be.
In the Man of La Mancha, the poet Cervantes discusses with the Duke this ancient question of life as it is and life as it should e. The Duke thinks that a man must come to terms with life as it is. Cervantes replies, “I have lived nearly 50 years and have seen life as it is. They saw life as it is and died despairing. They did not ask why they were dying, but why they had lived. To be too practical is madness. It is better to see life as it should be.”
Today’s readings take up the theme of life as it ought to be, a kind of dream world or divine utopia. Isaiah paints the scene in the rich tones of a banquet tapestry. Paul says that such a world is available to those who discover the secret of tapping the divine energy. Jesus, too, tells of a mysterious banquet and of the unusual diners: the blind, the lame, the halt, the good, the bad, those found in the byways of the world. This is the biblical description of the kingdom of God, the realm of the ideal and the place where life exists as it ought to be.
Samuel Butler in this book on utopia, named it Erehwon, where in reverse reads, Nowhere. As far as he was concerned, utopia does not exist anywhere. In the same sense today’s description of the kingdom is also true, for surely the kingdom of God in this world does not exactly exist in any one place. As far as its being in heaven, that is beyond earthly space, hence is not in a place either. Still, one must say that the heavenly banquet is here in a certain sense.
For one thing, it is present in Eucharistic celebration. For another it is rooted more in hearts and souls than in buildings and social structures. That is why Jesus in his first sermon said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” The divine utopia begins in the heart. This is not to imply that it would never appear in public shape in any form. In fact the results of the kingdom in people’s hearts is precisely the source of the love and generosity that has wrought the goodness which makes the world a better place in which to live---and life itself worth living.
The vision of the world as it ought to be enables the possessors to make that dream a reality. Belief in God’s kingdom-banquet makes that vision come to pass. This kind of utopia can make heroes of us all.
PRAYER:
Christ our Savior, you are the king who gives the banquet of the kingdom for all who come to you in faith. We praise you for upholding the diving utopia to remind us that all life is not contained within the narrow confines of the human. We thank you for showing us that life as it is can be too small a world, while life as it ought to be helps to move beyond the limits of the created. Amen
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