From the cross, God gathers his people

Readings

In Eucharistic Prayer III, we pray

You are indeed Holy, O Lord,
and all you have created
rightly gives you praise,
for through your Son our Lord Jesus Christ,
by the power and working of the Holy Spirit,
you give life to all things and make them holy,
and you never cease to gather a people to yourself,... (emboldening and italicizing mine) (Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer III, sec. 108)

Indeed, God never ceases to gather a people to himself. In and through Christ, God gathers his people from throughout the world, from every nation, race, tongue, from all walks of life, making the least the greatest, the last the first, etc.

At the beginning of Saint Matthew's Gospel, the angel, in his announcement of the Lord's birth to Joseph, also announced that the child would be named "Jesus because he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). Indeed, "Jesus" or Yeshua has a range of meanings from "the Lord our help," to "the Lord saves," to "the Lord is salvation."

It is interesting that in our Gospel reading for the Solemnity of Christ the King for this third year of the Sunday lectionary, which has Saint Luke's Gospel as its focus, the "good thief," whom tradition names Saint Dismas, calls the Lord by his given name when he says- "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Luke 23:42).

"Is it accidental," asks the late New Testament scholar Raymond Brown in a footnote, "that this wrongdoer is the only one in this or any Gospel to call Jesus simply, 'Jesus' without an additional modifier?" (An Introduction to the New Testament, pg 260) For my part, I take this as a rhetorical question, even if it wasn't the intention of the inspired author.

What makes someone a member of the people God gathers to himself through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit? Well, Dismas establishes the pattern, does he not? He acknowledges his own sins and failings, going so far as to accept his capital punishment as just and fitting. Further, he not only sees Jesus' innocence but recognizes Jesus as his Savior. It is this that makes Dismas a member of God's people and this that makes Dismas a saint. According to Luke's narrative, we can be quite certain that, unlike Jesus, Dismas is not an innocent man, wrongly condemned.

In his play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett has Vladimir ask Estragon "...how is it that of the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved" (Act 1 ). This is an important observation- Beckett did not write this as an interrogative, but a statement.

Getting back to the issue of how to read the Gospels (Beckett sticks with a standard and, sadly, popular way of reading them), Vladimir continues: "One out of four. Of the other three, two don't mention any thieves at all and the third says that both of them abused him." Then, without pause, he muses "Then the two of them must have been damned." At this point, Estragon chimes in with "And why not?" To which Vladimir replies: "But one of the four says that one of the two was saved."

Estragon wants to pass this off as a simple disagreement. But Vladimir, taking all the Evangelists to be eyewitnesses (Luke wasn't, he tell us so- see Luke 1:1-4), persists in asserting only one of the Evangelists says the good thief was saved. Why is it, then, that we should "believe him rather than the others?" This fascinating dialogue continues for quite some time.

I suppose the reason I believe Luke is that he seems to capture God's nature in this instance better than the others. As Beckett intimates, the Passion according to Matthew and John features no thieves or revolutionaries. Mark's account actually does not have the two being crucified alongside Jesus abusing him (see Mark 15:22-32).

It seems obvious that the point is you and I are in an existential situation similar to the one in which the thieves find themselves. As Raymond Brown points out, "The unique scene with the [good thief] in [Luke] 23:40-43 is a masterpiece of Lucan theology" (An Introduction to the New Testament, pg 260). Jesus' mercy "goes far beyond what the criminal asks" (Ibid). After all, Brown observes, "he becomes the first to be taken into Paradise!" (Ibid)

Dismas: a charter member of God's people, a true subject of Christ the King. The king whose throne is the cross and who you can address using his first name.