Dystopian is derived from the word “utopia” to mean an imaginary bad place. Surreal is taken from French to mean beyond realism. The long-running series The Walking Dead is possibly an epitome of how dystopian and surreal the post-AD2000 has become even though we did not experience the collapse that should accompany Y2K. If anything, our present pandemic has revealed that we are not as distanced as we imagined ourselves to be from the idiot box.
If life imitates art, then, the line between fact and fiction is rather blurred and hence, the first reading speaks loudly to our dystopian and surrealistic situation. We have a God who wills to save everyone. And the symbol of His overflowing love is depicted by tables laden with food and wine. (Again, a suggestion to have wine tasting, cheese platters and grapes). God invites all to this meal.
This is the same for Jesus too. However, in the Gospel, there may be two parables conflated into one and both are directed to different truths. The first echoes the vision of Isaiah with regard to God’s universal salvation offered to all. God invites us to His joy even though it is unmerited on our part. We have been invited to share in the exhilaration of God’s Kingdom because He intends to save all.
However, we may also mirror Jesus’ time. How so? A meal was a rich symbol of inclusion and equality. Those who share a table eat from the same plate. To share is an immensely powerful sign of unity and inclusion. But those who were sick would be automatically barred. Why? Sickness is a symptom of sin and those who are sick, are banned from the communal meal—the exclusion is a form of excommunication. Our temperature taking is something like that, no? I am not advocating that we discard the SOP. Plus, a higher temperature is not an indication of sinfulness. I am simply making a point that what we are doing runs the danger of turning the Mass into something which only a “healthy” person, sinless or sinful, can attend.
The Mass is meant for saints or sinners, healthy or sick.
The Eucharist is God’s invitation to partake of His life-giving generosity. However, the second parable does provide a sense of condition that God has imposed—a bit like the temperature taking. Whilst God’s invitation is universally inclusive, we respond because we want to be a part of the wedding celebration and as such, we are required to play the prerequisite role. It is fair to expect that one goes to a wedding dressed appropriately.
Whilst we cannot presume that all would want to be saved, the question remains if everyone wants to be saved. The answer technically should be “Yes”. But, in reality, the answer should be “No”. “Yes” requires that the good news be preached to them. How can they be saved if the Gospel is not brought to them? Nevertheless, “No” remains a possibility that, for some reasons, people choose a life without God. Here, we trust that God will do His best to save while at the same time, we deeply respect those who choose otherwise.
Because God is generous in the outpouring of His salvation, we have to reckon with it. Do we want it or not?
Many years ago, I remember Fr Moses Lui—at that time, a young deacon. He spent time in the parish of St Theresa, Malacca and one night came to our youth gathering for some group dynamics. Anyway, he did a session which stayed with me till this day. It was a “what if”: “What if you have 3 more days to live. What would you do?”.
The surreal or the dystopian nature of this pandemic has brought to fore the contingency of life—how easily it can be snatched from us. It is odd that we all can walk out of here and drop dead or get knocked down by a car and yet we do not seem to be bothered by this possibility. But we seem to be obsessed with the likelihood of dying from Covid-19 that we appear to have invested death in this pandemic only, forgetting that people are still dying from other causes. The question about what we would do, given three more days to live, may help us take stock of where we are in relationship with God.
We have been saved through the Sacrament of Baptism—that is, we have been invited to the Wedding Feast. For many of us, too many, if you ask me, live with this proviso, “I will take care of whatever is important when the time is right”. Time does not wait for us and neither will death. The aim of the exercise that Fr Moses gave was to arrive at more or less this answer: “If I have 3 more days to live, I will continue with what I have been doing so far”.
This answer shows a readiness. It is as if one already lives with a clear conscience, ready to embrace death and to meet God, face to face. How many of us have the courage to say that “I have a clear conscience”? This obsessive fear of dying from the pandemic has revealed a chink in our armour of “self-reliance”. We are afraid of God and His judgement. In other words, we are nowhere near the preparedness for eternal life. Much like the man who insists on going to the wedding on his own terms.
God wills to save. The question remains, “Do we want to be saved”? If we do, then, Covid or not, we must live prepared for eternal life. In the coming days, we will be tested again especially when the infections no longer follow any observable pattern. As the curve was flattening, many felt that light was at the end of the tunnel. We took things for granted but death has other ideas. As we witness the resurgence of the disease and as we return to worship, what should our response be? The Gospel reminds us not to be afraid because death is more than just Covid-19. What is crucial is to have a clear conscience because God invites, and He awaits our response. Therefore, fear not for the appropriate answer we give to God is courage, hope and trust.
