Where Are you From?

I've been struck in the last few days by something that Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 13. It's within the story about striving to enter the kingdom through the narrow gate. People are knocking and Jesus has the master of the house saying "I do not know where you are from." They reply, "We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets." He says once more: "I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, you evil doers!"

How does this fit in with the God, who, in chapter 14, prepares a Great Feast and makes the people come in from the high ways and byways when there is still room at the table? Or the father who sees the Prodigal Son "who is still a long way off" and runs to embrace him? There are many such examples in the gospels, the most obvious being the gift of Jesus Himself, where the openness of the kingdom is made clear. So, what does Jesus mean here when He asks, "where are you from" as the password to enter eternal life?

In the Hebrew scriptures, there is an incident in the book of Judges where the question is used to ferret out spies because a non-resident would not be able to pronounce the word of the town correctly. I wonder if that is the issue here. In Jesus' story, the people don't answer His question directly. They fudge. They leave the master to draw the unspoken connection between him and themselves. And so the gate is closed.

One could think that the parable is about God's rejection of humanity. I think it's more a parable about humanity's own self destruction. The problem is that these people couldn't speak the language of Heaven. They couldn't pronounce love.

Heaven is the perfection of all that we have ever known - and I imagine a lot that we've never even considered. It is pure love. If we haven't learned enough of the language of love in our lifetime, we won't understand what's going on when we get there. Perhaps this is what the Catholic concept of purgatory is all about, though it's not been described in a very helpful way. Perhaps it is that moment of change when we choose to become love instead of what is not love.

If we look at the gospels as a whole, and Jesus' life in particular, it seems clear that God is not into punishment so much as restoration. That's the goal. Our life on earth is a process of finding ourselves more and more in love with God, of discovering who God is and not just what others have said about Him.

The master in the story says "I do not know where you are from." And our answer is...