21st.
Sunday of Year (C) (Isaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke
13:22-30)
Jesus was asked, as you have just heard:
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?"
He answered
them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt
to enter and will not be able.”
Notice the question: ‘Lord, will only a few people be saved?’
That, in St. Luke’s Gospel, is a question asked by ’someone’;
as Jesus was ‘somewhere’; literally ‘ passing through from one city and village
to another’ on His way to Jerusalem.
Both Saints Mark and Matthew, however, give us the same
teaching and tell us that the occasion when it was originally given by Jesus
was in response to a rich young Jew who wanted to make sure of his way to
heaven, but could not quite prevail over himself so much as to relinquish his
great riches.
It seems, therefore, that Luke knew that he had a piece of very important
teaching of Jesus to pass on to the Church but did not know just where to put
it in his Gospel account; and so he puts it somewhere serious, that is – Jesus on His way to Jerusalem -- but also ‘nowhere’,
‘passing through from one city and village to another’. St. Luke, however, was guided by the Holy
Spirit even though he did not know all the facts in this case, and the ‘context’
he chose, of Jesus being nowhere in particular and of nobody in particular
questioning Him, “Lord, will only
a few people be saved?" such a context does open up
our Gospel reading to today, when the phrasing of that question ‘does God
save only a few?’ really means something to us, for it is, I say, truly modern
in that it implies that any blame for human failure to find salvation is to be
laid at God’s door, so to speak.
Now, Jesus often refused to answer such questions because they
were not put to simply learn the truth, but rather to help in the justification
of the questioner: simplicity and love of truth have never been common human
virtues. And so, here, Jesus responds
not to the carefully chosen words but to the real situation and needs of the
questioner (of whom Ss. Matthew and Mark tell us) and He responds as the Son of
God, Who Himself, as man, most truly loves God and whole-heartedly seeks to do
His will:
Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I
say to you, will attempt to enter and will not be able.
For Jesus, the question is not whether God saves only a few,
but whether only a few men and women will make the required effort to enable themselves
to receive what God wills to offer them.
Many will, indeed, want to enter the kingdom of God, but they will not want
to strive to enter through a narrow
gate; rather, they will think of presenting themselves later in the day, when,
at some other point of entry, they imagine it might be easier to find access.
Our first reading told us of God choosing people from nations
of every language, while the second described what would be involved for those
thus specially chosen, emphasizing above all their need of serious and even
painful training:
My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or
lose heart when reproved by Him; for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines; He
scourges every son He acknowledges.” Endure your trials
as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his
father does not discipline? At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the
peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.
However, such is the modern, largely self-indulgent, Western society
to which we belong that I can already imagine someone saying: ‘Why should we
have to suffer like that, why should religion entail suffering? The answer is given us by Jesus Himself
elsewhere in the Gospel as St. Matthew tells us:
His disciples were greatly astonished, saying,
"Who then can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said: “With men this is impossible, but with
God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:25-26)
The reason why no man can save himself is simple enough: salvation
is beyond all human powers, it is something that God alone can bring about,
because it gives human beings a share in divine life, in the eternal
blessedness and glory of God Himself, by making them partakers of His holiness. This
we have learned from our Christian faith and formation, which teaches us what
the original disciples, with their Jewish background, could not begin to understand
until they had seen Jesus rise from the dead and ascend in bodily glory to
heaven. A faith that promises such
heavenly glory to weak and indeed sinful human beings obviously entails
training; and that training will, obviously, inevitably, involve testing and
trials, because it is a training intended to change us, to raise us up above
our earthly limitations, to purge and purify us of our inherent selfishness and
sinfulness.
We can recognize all this in the response given by the Master
in our Gospel reading to those arriving outside the house after the doors have
been closed:
After the master of the house has arisen and locked
the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door
for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’
Only those are recognized for salvation whose origin is known,
and we are personally known in that way to the Father only if He
can see Jesus, His beloved Son, in us: that is, if we, as living members of the
Body of Christ, are being formed into the likeness of our Head; if we, as dutiful
children of Mother Church, are being guided -- by the Spirit with which she has
been endowed -- to follow her teaching and so to live and walk as true disciples along the way of
Jesus Christ, the one and only Lord of Salvation. Only those thus showing themselves to be sincere
disciples of the goodness and truth in Jesus are beloved of the Father.
Of course, all who are left outside, having no appreciation
of the holiness and majesty of God, cry out in self-justification:
We ate and drank in Your company, and
You taught in our streets.
Dear People of God, those words should give us cause for
serious thought, because they are most appropriate for people like ourselves,
who, every Sunday, hear the teaching of Jesus in the readings and the homily at
Holy Mass before going on to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy
Communion. Let us pray that our
situation be nothing like that of the outsiders of the Gospel parable in whom
the old adage, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ was fully exemplified.
They confidently proclaimed their familiarity with the Master:
We
ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.
But such protestations merely brought into prominence their hidden
disdain for Him, for they had never really given attention to His words they heard
in their streets, they had never seriously tried to appreciate His teaching in
their hearts, nor had their eating and drinking in His presence ever been honest
and sincere expressions of their love and longing for personal communion with
Him.
Jesus’ answer is given in words of clear and deserved
condemnation:
I do not know where you are from. Depart from Me, all you evil doers.
Many today have little respect for religion and so have
almost no appreciation of heavenly matters: instead of the transcendent God they
can imagine nothing more than a mythical, white-haired, old man sitting on a
gilded throne high above; while natural charm of manner, emotional exhibitionism,
and the dynamics of spiritual careerism, are the only signs they consider to be
indicative of the holiness engendered by the presence of God’s Spirit of truth
and life. Consequently, it is not
surprising that this parable of Jesus and the attitude of the Master of the
house can cause vehement complaints of self-righteous indignation from many: ‘Why
should religion, discipleship, entail suffering?’
Because self-indulgence and self-satisfaction is prevalent
among men and women of all ages the same teaching was given by Jesus on many
other occasions and in many other ways throughout His ministry so that there could
be no possibility of it being overlooked or ignored by anyone in the slightest
degree serious about serving God:
Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and
broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by
it. Because narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Mt 7:13-14)
So I say to you, ask, (You must ask) and it will be
given to you; seek, (you must actually seek) and you will
find; knock, (you must be prepared to stand, wait, and knock)
and it will be opened to you. (Luke 11:9)
Assuredly, unless you are converted and become as
little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3)
People of God, in modern society as we know it, positive words
and actions frighten people: leaders of all sorts prefer to be able to avoid
responsibility for difficult decisions by saying that events left them with no other
option, or that they did all that was humanly possible in straightened
circumstances. This they do, not because
they love peace or have a high concern for others, but simply because they want
to protect their own back from any possible attack, their own person from any
cloud of suspicion or threat of criticism.
Even in religious matters, leaders can feel so vulnerable, so open to
bitter criticism, that it is rare today for anything positive to be said if, so
to speak, the direction of the wind and the temperature of the water have not
been thoroughly tested and suitably allowed for beforehand.
Now Jesus had no such taste for self-preservation, no such
fear of what human beings might think, say, or do, in His regard: He served
only His Father’s glory and our salvation.
Therefore, we should take Him most seriously when He warns us, who, in
this world, are privileged Catholics:
There will be wailing and grinding of teeth, when you
see yourselves cast out of the Kingdom of God, and (others) come from the east
and the west, from the north and the south, and recline at table in the kingdom
of God.
However, although we seriously, indeed anxiously, allow Our
Lord’s words to admonish us, we must never forget our primary duty and
privilege of filial confidence together with gratitude: we must always take to
heart from, and place our trust in, words of comfort such as the following heard
in our second reading and echoed throughout the whole of Our Blessed Lord’s
life and teaching:
The Lord loves those whom He disciplines; He acknowledges
every son He scourges.
To be loved by the Lord, to be accepted as His children, what
a privilege!! Surely, any passing, earthly, trials and suffering
imposed by the Lord Who thus loves us in His beloved Only-Begotten Son, are to
be embraced with humble confidence and firm trust, by all who would be true disciples
of Him Who embraced the Passion and Cross on Calvary with such enduring
patience and consuming love for us.
Son though He was, He (for us) learned
obedience from what He suffered; and when He was made perfect, He became the
source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. (Hebrews 5:8-9)
Having thus been made perfect in His own manhood when He rose
in glory to join His Father in Heaven, He now awaits our purification and
glorification as members of His Body; a perfection to be brought to fulfilment
in us by the Holy Spirit He has given us and the teaching He has left us in
Mother Church. (Modified 2022)
