I Want to Get to Heaven, But ...

The meditations in The Better Part (#202) opened my heart to a new meaning in today’s Gospel (Lk 14:15-24), and reiterated something God has been telling me (and, honestly now, you also?).

The Gospel opens with someone saying: “Happy the man who will be at the feast in the kingdom of God.”  Heaven will be awesome!  Then Jesus tells them a parable in which a man invited a large number of people to a banquet, but come time for the banquet, they all made excuses:  I have to take care of my land; I have to take care of my oxen, and I just got married --- sorry.

The Better Part explains that ancient banquets involved two invitations.  The first announced a banquet being planned --- will you come?  The second said: Things are now set for this date, you’ll be there, right?  You can see the logic of this; in ancient times, there were no caterers.  To prepare a big party you got an idea of how many would come, then you arranged to purchase all the foods, slaughter the animals, prepare the ingredients, then you announced the day of cooking and the night of the feasting --- or often days of feasting.  So you can see the problem pointed out in the Gospel, when everyone starts saying they won’t come after accepting the initial banquet invite.  Tons of food are ready, and the hall is empty.

The Gospel points at the Jewish people, chosen by God, invited to His kingdom, and --- like the opening line --- they say: “Yes, we want to come.”  But as evidenced by their actions, they don’t.

Why?  The Better Part meditation summarizes the three excuses as being people concerned with power, possessions, and pleasure.  These are the temptations of the world, which --- although we’ve said we want to go to heaven --- prevent us from accepting God’s invite when the time has come.  And so, when the time comes, when we die, we will have chosen the sins of the world over heaven.  We’ll have chosen power or possessions or pleasure.  We’re aware, but ignoring, that God has planned A LOT for this banquet, not just slaughtering animals, but His only Son, so that we could come to His eternal banquet.  Yet we seem not to care.

The Gospel is always explained as being aimed at the Jewish people, chosen, invited, who reject Jesus.  But it applies to us as well very much today.

We are the ones who accept the first invitation before the party:  Yes!  We want to come!  We listen to Gospels; we go to church; we try to do “some” good things.  But when push comes to shove, or the temptations of the world pass before our eyes, well …, we don’t take the path that leads to the party we said we wanted to attend.  We want to achieve that end goal without taking the path that leads there.  And, I fear, many of us will be surprised we don’t get there, just like those of us who, facing bankruptcy, a job loss, obesity-related illness, or a collapse of our marriage (in surprise) say: “How did this happen?”

We made goals of good things in this life, and in the next, but took no efforts to get to those goals.  We chose paths of ease, of pleasure, of putting worries and hard decisions “for later.”  But later comes sooner rather than later.

We are ones who say: “Yes, Lord, I want to get to heaven, but …”

“Yes Lord, but …”   I’ve heard that phrase before.  I’ve said that phrase before.  How many times do I have to become aware that, that is what I am saying to God’s opportunities to serve Him, to God’s promptings to follow His path, to His banquet.

There’s always power, possessions and pleasure in this world which we must resolve to put aside when He says: “Follow Me.”  We must become like Samuel, who (even though it took him three tries to get it) finally said: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”  And then followed His urgings, with no “buts”.

We need to quit lying, saying that we want to get to heaven, but doing nothing to get there.