Spiritual Hiccups - A Good Life

There is a scene in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, where the now old Ryan visits one of the WWII era military cemeteries in Europe.  Accompanied by family members, he locates the grave of one the soldiers sent to rescue him after his brothers had been killed in Allied invasion of France.  Finding the headstone, he falls to the ground weeping.  As his wife and family reach out to him he pleads, "Tell me I've lived a good life.  Tell me I've live a good life."

I've always thought this scene a wonderful illustration of God's grace and the Christian life.  God seeks us, God draws us out, rescues us so that we might live the lives we are meant to live.  And as Jesus' parable in today's gospel says, some respond to this rescue as Private Ryan does, but some don't.

I'm not trying to work out any ultimate answers about our standing before God.  I'll leave it to God how God's love will respond to those who seem to live without any awareness of God's grace.  But for those who have experienced the gift of God's love, the call of Jesus which invites us into the way of life, true human existence, Private Ryan is not a bad model.  A good life, a life that bears fruit, a life that in some small way embodies the Kingdom, this seems the only real way to say, "Thank you."

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