Dinner Plans with Jesus

. . . giving thanks is the way back home

1

Say I'm throwing a party. I have salad and souvlaki, bread and cheese, chocolate cake and lemonade. I invite all of you.

And one by one you politely decline until - about five minutes before the party - I realize that nobody is coming. All this food will go to waste, my preparations all for naught.

What do I do?

This is an old story.

2

Jesus was frequently moved to try and explain what the Kingdom of God was like. And one of the stories he used was that of a feast to which the invited guests do not come. In response, the host has her servant go out into the streets and invite anyone they find.

This parable is frequently interpreted as we should be sure to extend our largesse to the less fortunate. Which, fine. But as John Crossan points out, that is not what makes the parable radical.

In those days - as now - it was not unheard of to be generous towards those who have less. That is a measure of compassion and justice in the world to which we should all aspire.

But Jesus says, invite anyone you find.

It's the "anyone" that triggers the revolution. Anyone means you might end up with the poor and the forsaken. But you could also end up with murderers and rapists. You could end up with Neo-Nazis and arms dealers.

What kind of party is that?

It's the kind of party, says Jesus, that resembles on earth the Kingdom of Heaven.

To which most of us say, thanks but no thanks.

And to which some of us say, that guy is dangerous - let's kill him.

3

What does this have to do with A Course in Miracles?

In a word, everything.

In slightly more words, the Course is inviting us to the very party that Jesus was talking about and it is asking us - begging us, really - to investigate our unwillingness to attend.

Love makes no comparisons. And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love (W-pI.195.4:2-3).

It's easy to say that. I perform the very words myself from time to time. But the Course is clear that we are not here to become orators of love. We are here to be transformed by love, and that requires active willingness. It requires responsibility.

We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom. It will never be that some are loosed while others still are bound. For who can bargain in the name of Love (W-pI.4:4-5)?

Do you see?

We are back in the lakeside villages of Galilee, gathered as afternoon lengthens, and this man - who dresses like a beggar but whose serenity and dignity are greater than any worldly king's - asks us to collaborate with him in demonstrating that God is Love and Love holds everything.

In those days, because we were confused by this collaboration, he told us a story about a banquet to which everyone - without qualification or condition - was invited.

If we are honest, we are still confused today. And still - two thousand some odd years after he strangled to death on a cross outside Jerusalem - he is trying to make it clear.

. . . let your gratitude make room for all who will escape with you; the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death. All these go with you (W-pI.195.5:2-3).

We will argue, right? I'll invite everyone except the racists, because they walk the path of hate. I'll invite everyone except the neighbor who uses a leafblower at six a.m.. I’ll invite everyone except my cousin because he drinks too much and always starts a fight.

We bargain, right? I'm inviting ninety percent of the world and Sean is only inviting 85, so I'm okay.

But we cannot bargain or negotiate because doing so inevitably relies on comparisons and comparing - finding differences and then judging the differences as good and bad, desirable or not - is the whole fucking problem.

Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us . . . we thank our Father for one thing alone; that we are separate from no living thing, and therefore one with Him (W-pI.195.5:4, 6:1).

This is not easy to bring into application. Easy to parrot? Yes. Easy to ignore? Absolutely. Easy to tell the one professing it to shut up or pay the price? You bet.

But we've done all that. And remember: when we agreed to become students of A Course in Miracles, we agree to accept the Thetfordian premise: there must be another way.

And there is. This is it.

4

The feast was never meant literally. Jesus was talking to peasants whose lives were lived at best at subsistence-level. They knew what feasts were - feasts were for the rich. Jesus wasn't saying host a party.

He was saying, change your mind and let your heart follow.

I am not saying this is easy. There is a reason Jesus was crucified, and it wasn't just that he upended a few tables in the temple at Passover. He was advocating for a way of being premised on Love - on the complete absence of differences - that is so radical as to appear dangerous, then and now.

There is a vision of the world that is infused with divine Love, and the salient quality of this Love is that it does not distinguish between you and me and Gary Gilmore and Pol Pot and a field of tulips. It treats them the same. Utterly totally the same.

We are not there yet. But we can be. And A Course in Miracles gently suggests that the way from here to there - a journey with no steps, because there is literally no such thing as distance - begins with thanks. It begins with gratitude.

5

Not everyone invited to that now-famous fictional banquet said "thank you." But let us imagine - as Jesus surely intends - that we are invited. What else but thanks could we offer for such a meal?

The invitation the Course makes is, be thankful today that you are one with God. You don't feel one with God? Be thankful anyway. Find a daffodil or a crow and be thankful for its beauty and grace. When your neighbor revs up the leafblower and you wish leafblowers had never been invented, or that the neighbor would break a leg, give thanks for the reminder that you have work to do to remember God and then remember God is Love and Love holds everything.

Repeat as necessary. Literally.

The promise the Course makes is that if we do this enough - if we are willing and persistent, if we show up and help others show up - then in time we will realize that our gratitude for God is God's gratitude for us.

God gives thanks to you, His Son, for being what you are; His Own completion and the Source of love, along with Him . . . For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God (W-pI.195.10:4, 6).

On the one hand, no rush. On the other, truly, what are we waiting for?

Love,
Sean