Freaks and Lunatics

"Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye." [Matthew 7:3,5, NRSV]

Flannery O'Conner, a well-known Southern author, wrote a short story entitled "Revelation" that I think is a must read for everyone. It tells the tale of Mrs. Turpin, a bigoted church-going lady who can easily see the speck in the eye of her neighbor, but doesn't notice the log in her own. At the end of the story, Mrs. Turpin has a vision of God's kingdom that shocks and surprises her:

"Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin remained there with her gaze bent to the hogs as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge. At last she lifted her head. There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk.

She raised her hands from the side of the pen in a gesture hieratic and profound. A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white trash, clean for the first time in their live, and bands of colored people in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right.

She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.

She lowered her hands and gripped the rail of the hog pen, her eyes small but fixed unblinkingly on what lay ahead. In a moment the vision faded but she remained where she was, immobile. At length she got down and turned off the faucet and made her way on the darkening path to the house. In the woods around her the invisible cricket choruses had struck up, but what she heard were the voices of souls climbing upward into the starry field and shouting hallelujah."

If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that God is full of surprises. The guest list of who's going to be invited to the heavenly banquet will probably shock and surprise us all. O'Connor's story reminds us that we all have prejudices we need to deal with. Hopefully, God can help us all, gay and straight, to remove these logs so that we can join the "freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs" as, together, we make our way toward our heavenly home.