The old year is gone, but the old Nostradamus is back, evergreen. His "predictions" for 2023 are the same tabloid fodder as they were for the year, 2008, when I wrote this piece for "GIA Quarterly" and the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday before the new church year begins. The encounter in the Wal-Mart, which I came home and recorded in a letter to my children that very afternoon, happened in the spring. Some of the man's cans of Spam are now 14 years old. He has 6 more years to prove his theory of the indestructible, well nigh immortal Spam. And, if any of you try his favorite, Spam with beans and pickles, or Gigi's recipe for spam casserole, please let me know. I'd like to hear from the survivors.
I’m at Wal-Mart, buying toilet paper and flaxseed oil and oven cleaner and bubble bath. I push my cart to the checkout line, and a pleasant-looking, middle-aged man pushes his cart in behind mine. I glance at the contents: Lots of organic dog food, a few boxes of cake mix and stacks and stacks of Spam and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. I suppress the urge to ask what gives: Is he a cook at a medium security prison? Did he lose a bet and now must pay up in some way that involves Betty Crocker, Ralston Purina and the Hormel Company of Austin, Minnesota?
But my checker, a smiling woman named Gigi says, “Somebody likes Spam!”
And he answers, “Oh, yeah, my wife and I, we like it with beans and pickles.”
Gigi then gives us her recipe for Spam casserole. Take a loaf pan and butter it. Place a layer of thinly sliced potatoes in the bottom of the pan. Cover the potato layer with a layer of sliced Spam (plan on getting eight slices per can). Cover that layer with crushed saltines and so on, until the pan is full, and you have finished the eight ounces of straight whiskey in your glass. (I made that last part up.) Then, pour over the Spam and crackers three quarters of a cup of melted butter (that’s a stick and a half) and some whole milk, as we wouldn’t want the potato/Spam/cracker mixture to be dry. Bake at three hundred and twenty five degrees for ninety minutes.
Then Spam Man asks us if we know that “They” have opened cans of Spam that are twenty five years old and the contents are still good as new!
“No way!” We or, at least Gigi, exclaims.
Before we can exclaim further, or make a run for the canned meat aisle, he says, “So, you know, they’re good for a catastrophe. That, and rice, which’ll keep forever if it’s stored properly.”
I ask, “Are you preparing for a catastrophe?”
He answers politely that, yes, he is preparing for a catastrophe, which will take place soon, and that we, meaning Gigi and I, should prepare for catastrophe right along with him.
He says, “You know about Nostradamus? My sister? She sent me three books on the guy and he says it’s going to happen on a May 15. This year or next. He nailed 9/11. Something’s gonna’ happen here. Big. And the president is gonna’ come on television and pray for God to help us. Nostradumus says the infidel is gonna’ pray for God to help. Can you imagine what this place is gonna’ look like then?” He gestures around the Wal-Mart.
He continues, saying, “It’s gonna’ be the Muslims that hit us. Then, a million Muslim soldiers are gonna’ pour into Europe from Iran.” He turns to me and says, “Do you follow me? To a Muslim the infidel is a non-Muslim. Our president’s the infidel.”
Gigi breaks in, “My son? He’s an astrologer? And he told me in 2001, “Mom, don’t travel to Europe in September. First day of vacation? Nothin.’ Second day, third day, fourth day, nothing.’ Last day of vacation?” She looks at us meaningfully.
We nod back, meaningfully.
“September 11.”
The man is nodding. He holds up a can of Spam. “You should buy some of this.”
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. (Matthew 25:31-46)
The man in the checkout line believes in the separation of the sheep from the goats. The goats will have bottled water and canned food. The sheep will have nothing prepared, nothing stored in the basement. In this man’s eschatology, the end of days is the fable about the ant and the grasshopper writ large.
His is a popular, and widely held, theology. The end of days is coming, so stock up on the dried beans. And, I will admit, as someone who went out and bought bottled water before Y2K, it is also attractive.
The gospel reading for the last Sunday of the church year, the feast of Christ the King, presents a radically different vision for the church as history ends. There will be sheep and goats, but neither will look as we might expect, or hope. The sheep will be empty-handed, having given everything away. Everything. Food, water, clothes, even that most valuable and scarce of Western commodities, time — all of it will be gone. Perhaps, like Francis before the bishop, the sheep will be naked as well, all of their coats shorn and given to others.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. (Matthew 25:35-37)
None of these necessities will have been stolen or commandeered, as the sheep will have handed it all over freely. Some will have to go out looking for those in need. The well fed will have to find the hungry. The healthy will have to search out the sick. The unbound will journey to prisons. The settled will walk the roads scanning the horizon for the alien and the stranger. It will be a work, freely undertaken and freely done.
And the goats, what of them? Jesus tells us only that they will be separated from the sheep and placed at his left hand. The goats will be known in the same way the sheep are known: by what one did, or failed, or refused to do. The goats are they who did not feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the ill or visit those in prison.
I picture the goats standing amidst the open graves and the saints rising up. I picture them clambering up their stacked and taped boxes of dehydrated meals to catch a glimpse of the angels piercing the clouds for “the Son of Man [who] comes in his glory.” Their cars will be packed with provisions. They will carry flashlights and fresh batteries. They will be more than willing to offer the Son of Man a ride. They will have all-wheel drive and tire chains if they need to go off-road. They will be ready, but ready with all the wrong stuff. For the wrong stuff, as it turns out, is any stuff at all.
Jesus expects us to get ready by not getting ready, or, at least, ready in any way we understand the term. We’re not to pack, because, if we are ready, we have nothing left to pack. If we were wise virgins on our way to the Second Coming, instead of a first century Palestinian wedding, we would have no oil. We would have no oil, not because we didn’t think to buy it, but because we bought the oil and then gave it away. The used up, given out, and empty-handed, they will “inherit the kingdom prepared for [them] from the foundation of the world.”
I don’t think God means to spring this on us. I think we’re supposed to pay attention to birth. One can only be born if another, the mother, is willing to share everything — her food, her body, her blood — with a stranger.
I think we’re supposed to pay attention to death. Every gift — of sight and taste and movement and hearing and smell — is reclaimed. Every possession, however treasured or hard won, is lost, sinking in the sea of death.
I think we’re meant to look when people are born and when they die. I think we’re meant to see their nakedness. I think we’re meant to see the curled and empty fists of the newborn and the uncurled and empty hands of the dead.
I think we’re meant to be watching each Sunday as we gather and are welcomed to a table on which nothing is for sale. We cannot buy the Body and Blood set out for us, neither can we possess or control them. We can only receive, in empty hands and open hands, the food and drink God alone can provide.
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