Communications 2020

Sometimes we make God so … boring. Sitting up in the clouds. Surrounded by harps and singing choirs. On his throne, looking down on an assembly of adoring saints. But the image of heaven we get in the Bible is far different than this. Listen to the first reading and the Gospel.

The prophet Isaiah (25: 6-10) describes a great feast: God’s holy ountain where there are choice wines, and rich, plentiful food; where every tear is wiped away, and the veil – the suffering – of the people is removed. And in the Gospel (Matt 22: 1-14), the kingdom of heaven is likened to a wedding feast thrown by the king. Like in our day, the wedding banquets of Jesus’ time were a big deal: a great celebration. One of the most common things Jesus does in the gospels is eat. For him and his time, eating was not just about fueling the body, which our rushed meals today are too often reduced to. Eating was about deepening friendships and family bonds, caring for one another, building community, and bringing the outsider in.

The meals were about joy! Feasting! Laughter. Good company. Put another way: our God loves a party, a reunion! This is a heaven to die for. Our celebrating, or feasting and festivity here and now, is a taste of the kingdom of God, a glimpse of heaven. You see, heaven is not so far off: there are in-breakings of the divine life here and now all the time, including our meals together.

The challenge for us these months of pandemic: there hasn’t been as much feasting; even our on-campus reunion is postponed. We miss the festivity, we miss one another. So what is God up to? Are we like that guest at the wedding that the king kicks out of the party at the end of the parable? Far from it.

In our own spiritual life and in our life as a community, there are times of resting, times of more quiet. We are in this personal and global pause. We can rush to fill in the quiet with noise and static, with busy-work. Like those first called to the banquet in the gospel: they refused the invitation because they were too busy with their work. They didn’t have time to celebrate. If we are honest, we know that sometimes we fall into that trap of busy-ness. As we have all slowed down these last months, we have noticed and appreciated people and things we might have taken for granted before.

We also find ourselves missing people and those big meals and parties. While we refrain from large gatherings for the good of others, our longing for them remains, even deepens. It could be that this longing is only enlarging our capacity to receive the blessings that God wants to give us, but in greater abundance than we are used to. Our longing might be stretching our souls to receive the joy that God so desperately wants to share with us but that we have limited ourselves in receiving. I know that I will not take for granted again a holiday meal, a concert like Golden Circle, a football game or basketball game, a reunion, and yes, a Mass in the Mission Church.

So we wait for the feast. Perhaps we are learning that feasts are not only about large, crowded tables and lots of noise. We may be feasting in a different way these last months, enjoying smaller, more intimate tables with family and friends, when we are around much more than we used to be. Perhaps the gift of these months is that around our tables, we have gotten to know each other better.

In our longing, we stand ready to accept Jesus’ invitation to the feast. We do that now, in person and virtually, at this feast, this eucharistic glimpse of heaven. But how ready are we? We return to that curious figure in the parable: the guest who gets kicked out for not wearing a wedding garment. Sounds unfair: he was one of those brought in from the streets, why would he have a wedding garment? What the early Christian community would pick up that we might miss, is that to be “clothed” here, is not about fancy clothes. It is to be “clothed in Christ,” (as we hear in Gal 3:27), or clothed in virtue, above all with love that binds all virtue (as we hear in Col, 3:12).

The point is that if you come to the feast to be fed, you must then feed others. Bring joy to others. Bring others to the feast, leaving no one out. That’s really what Jesuit education is about: becoming men and women for others; putting our faith and our learning in the service of others. That’s what this eucharistic feast is about.

So Broncos, clothe yourselves in red and white, and let’s celebrate all that binds us: our university, our friendship, our faith. Let us be creative in our feasting, and as with every feast that Christ invites us to, let’s bring that joy and consolation to others particularly those often left out and excluded.

We may not have crowded tents and loud music this night, and our Church is too empty, but the Spirit of festivity persists and binds us across the miles, doing something new and wonderful to conjure up a joy beyond our imagining and filling every human longing.