A person dies and is being shown on a tour around heaven. It is beautiful. Then the person notices a walled-in enclosure with no doors or windows. The person asks St. Peter what that is for. St. Peter replies, "Oh that is for the *________; they think they are the only ones up here."
* fill in the blank
1. If you are United Methodist, fill in Presbyterian; if you are Presbyterian
fill in United Methodist, etc. etc. pick a denomination you think tends
to be exclusive.
2. If you are Protestant, fill in Catholic; or visa versa; or permutations
of Lutheran, Orthodox, or others.
3. If you are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim there have been historically
some claims to supercessionist exclusion. Fill in blank after you've thought
a bit.
("supercession" refers to belief that the dispensation
of a more recent revelation supercedes in some sense a previous revelation.
The implication is often to universalize the more recent witness, or to
withdraw the faithful to an enclosure.)
4. If you are of Abrahamic religions, Peter might show a lot of cubicles
for you and other peoples of other religions.
At this point, I'm not sure if this is a joke, or a parable. But is it funny or sad? I've heard it told many times and almost everyone laughs. But that is while "preaching to the choir, and usually at level #1 or #2. Let's look deeper, and reflect on our perspectives, assumptions and worldviews.
In a concise way this image points to a lot of assumptions and questions that get raised in the ecumenical and interreligious field. Here are some hermeneutical questions for the joke/parable and for our ecumenical task.
1. What does the teller assume about the nature of God?
2. Is God here assumed to be the God of all people, the Father
of all his children?
3. Does the "geographic" nature of the story skew the plot in the direction
of "salvation" being "getting into heaven?"
4. Is salvation a relationship? and is relationship to God and others
possible in a variety of ways?
5. Does this story imply "universal salvation" and if not, are we privy
to God's exclusions?
6. How do people hold on to particular faith and witness and avoid
"indifferentism" that saps the spirit or relativizes values?
7. What is truth? A statement? A way? A sine qua
non?
8. Part of satirical humor is blindness to the obvious. (eg. Emperor's
new clothes, mote in enemy's eye) How do we discern when God's fiat of
truth trumps the "obvious" of judgmentalism?
9. Does anti-judgementalism grow out of theology or human subjectivism?
10. Themes both of inclusion and exclusion have been found in the Bible.
What are some?
11. Can one have identity without boundaries? Do "good walls
make good neighbors." Or is there "something that doesn't love a
wall?"
12. What is the gospel?
13. Do koinonia, hospitality, love, ecumene transcend tolerance?
How?
14. Are you the person being shown around heaven, or are you already
there? And whereabouts are you in the scene?
15. What did Jesus mean by "In my Father's House are many rooms?" (John
14:2)
16. What if the enclosures had doors and windows?
17. Is this more a story of heaven, or about earth now?
18. Does the humor of this story depend on one's worldview?
19. How do people with different worldviews talk to each other?
20. See addendum below.
Maybe the ecumenical movement and interreligious dialogues are ways
of opening doors and windows so we can know each other and relate to each
other better as brothers and sisters, and so relate in faith more closely
to God with thanksgiving.
Ed Hiestand
Addendum