On who we are to Christ the King

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"Today I tell you you will be with me in Paradise"

Who is there in the kingdom?

The kingdom of those who have no other possession.

The kingdom that we enter (only) as we know we are dispossessed - leave behind the safety of possessions, leave behind the gratification of success, leave behind the conviction of health, security, 'okayness' - then and only then do we enter his kingdom - naked, solitary, ashamed - and honored.

Who will be there?

Bandits and thieves and failed revolutionaries, criminals who have been caught and humiliated, teenage prostitutes who cling to their pimps, the battered mother who loves and coddles her son, the fellow who bet it all on a great stock tip, the half-dead long-haired ex-con who can't get a job. And the banker and the lawyer and the priest and the lucky one who won the lottery.

When does this moment of the cross happen?

the cross moment happens every day - every day that life ends, or life begins.
Every day that joy is born and every day that joy is extinguished.
the cross moment is when we learn who we really are before the cosmos.
When we are small, or very big, or disappear - which is all the same.

Then we glimpse Paradise - not as a completed version of what we desire, but as the time we are fully known and will know fully.

Flannery O'Connor had it right. The Revelation is that all the Turpins - like me - who think they have it right, will only be on the way to Paradise when all is burned away. Entering the kingdom, on our way to Paradise, isn't anything like exaltation - it's life, burning through us, taking away, taking away, taking away.

I don't know how to preach this.
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