Gathering in the Kingdom of God
What is my image of Biblical Gathering?
Jesus said to his disciples: “In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. “And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky. (Mc 13)
This was part of the Sunday (17th Nov) readings. These are not the readings that interest me so much. When I heard the reading and homily, one word that touched me was gather. It is just a simple word in that passage, which goes mostly unnoticed. In the French reading, the word was rassembler. The meaning is same or similar; but somehow that French word has a greater attraction than the English word ‘gather’. So I reflected and prayed on that word.
We have many images about heaven and afterlife. One of the conceptions is that all of us are gathered together and will be praising and worshipping together the holy trinity. This is an image; none has gone to heaven to see how exactly it is there. One difficulty I find with this image is that we are all doing the same thing, in a same fashion. And so, we assume that the church needs to be the same; our family, our groups need to be same. An eloge of homogeneity.
Surely, the above image is one of the images. A better Biblical image (again an image) is God gathering Israel with twelve brothers and twelve tribes. They are all Israelites, but they are different too. In the new Testament, Jesus says, the Kingdom of God is already here; and he gives a beautiful example (again an image) of the same in gathering his group of disciples — twelve different people. The variety becomes wider if we include Paul (13th apostle), Mary Magdalene (apostle of apostles), Mary (best disciple) and many others. I personally feel this is a better image (though it is still an image) of the kingdom of God. Yes unity between them is not equal to homogeneity, but can embrace heterogeneity.
This is so beautifully expressed in any image of the last supper. Observe the diversity…
We have gatherings like World Youth Day or gatherings of different movements and groups. Normally they will have a common gathering, but there are also various activities in smaller groups based on their interests/age etc. Or the gathering (rassemblement) is not always together and doing the same thing; it has enough potential to accept, appreciate and embrace the diversity. This understanding is quite Biblical.
An eloge of unity can also be an eloge of heterogeneity,
It can also be an eloge of uniqueness and singularity of each person.
