Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.” Lk. 6:18
I can’t honestly say I’m one of novelist Stephen King’s greatest fans. But there’s one book of his titled The Talisman that I will never forget.
What reminded me of the plot line of The Talisman was today’s Gospel from Luke. Here’s why.
The Talisman is a story about a 12-year-old kid named Jack Sawyer. Jack’s mother is dying of cancer, and Jack wants to save her. He meets someone in an abandoned amusement park who invites him to drink a special potion, and now he’s suddenly able to “flip” from this world to a “parallel” world that exists side-by-side with ours.
That parallel world is very similar to ours – it contains the same people, and the same places … but it is also incredibly different. Jack’s ability to “flip” between both universes takes him on an amazing journey. In the “other” universe, there’s a “talisman,” a very special object which, if Jack can only find it, will enable him to save his dying mother.
The Talisman, then, tells the story of Jack’s fantastic journey, “flipping” back and forth, from this world to the other, and back again.
Of course, this is the stuff of science fiction – the idea of a parallel universe similar to our own, but very different. Only a master storyteller like Stephen King could imagine something so strange.
Right?
Consider today’s Gospel.
It also tells the story of a “parallel universe” – one that’s very similar to the world we live in, but incredibly different, too. In it, Stephen King is replaced by another “master storyteller” – Jesus of Nazareth. He, too, tells us about another world we’re invited to live in.
Jesus calls it “The Reign of God,” or simply the “Kingdom.”
In this “Kingdom” that Jesus graphically describes in today’s Gospel, everything’s pretty much the same as the world you and I live in. You’re there. I’m there. You’re who you are, and I’m who I am – but there are powerful differences.
In the world you and I presently live in, the poor live terrible lives. And the hungry have few people to help them.
Yet, in the Kingdom Jesus tells us about in this astonishing Gospel passage – the world parallel to our own – the poor and the hungry are blessed! It’s the rich that are sent away with empty hands and empty stomachs!
In the world you and I live in, those who mourn are just what we would expect them to be: devastated and sad and bereft of hope. But in the Kingdom of Jesus, those who mourn are happy, their tears are turned into joy.
Parallel worlds, but markedly different value systems. Parallel worlds, but totally different ways of living, different ways of seeing, different ways of approaching life.
And a different Talisman – a Talisman who paints the picture of no longer needing to “flip” back and forth. Jesus calls us to make these two worlds into one.
This Gospel also makes clear that the Kingdom of God is now, not sometime in the distant future, not in the world to come after we die. Now!
Now is the time, Jesus tells us, to stop the “flipping” back and forth. Now is the time to dedicate ourselves as followers of Jesus to helping in whatever way we can to create a world that is no longer a “parallel” to the Gospel.
“Parallel” universes don’t exist only in science fiction.
You and I can take an incredible journey into a universe in which the hungry are fed today, in which the poor are cared for today, where the sorrowful can be consoled today. It’s a world that exists right next to the one you and I live in.
Not in the “next” world, but in the world right “next” to us.
Our Talisman, Jesus, is inviting each of us to “Come, follow me.”
“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.”
