21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (8/26/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

There is a question that has always nagged believers: Will there be many or few people saved? During certain periods this problem became so acute as to cause some people terrible anxiety. Will many be saved or only a few? Jesus does not give an answer. Instead of answering the questions He tells them how to prepare themselves to be saved. Jesus moves His disciples from curiosity from how many will be saved to wisdom which is how am I going to be saved. Which is a much more important question: how are we going to be saved. The Gospel takes place as Jesus travels through towns and villages making His way to Jerusalem. Now remember in the Gospel of St. Luke Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem He is journeying to His final goal which is the gift of offering Himself for us on the cross and then rising from the dead. Those of us who are His disciples is to see our life as our journey to Jerusalem as our offering of ourself to the Father in service to one another. This is about how to be a disciple on our own journey to God. While Jesus was doing thing someone asked Him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” What do you think the answer to that question is? A lot or only a few? I think Jesus does us a favor by not answering. If He does give an answer we would be tempted by one of two things: if He says, “O there is going to be a lot to be saved.” We would presume that we would be in that group and we would commit the sin of presumption. We presume that no matter what we do God indeed is going to have mercy on us and we are going to be saved. Presumption is a sin. If He says, “O no there is just going to be a few,” then we would be tempted by the sin of despair. If there is just a few then I cannot possibly be in that group, because of my many sins. How many of you are presumptuous? Little latter how many are despairing? I think there is a great temptation in our time we as Christians are presumptuous. No matter what we do, no matter how we sin God does not care that much and He will take care of it. It is much more the sin of contemporary culture. Now back 40 or 50 years the common sin would have been despair and worrying about being saved.

We do not really know the answer but what Jesus did was turn the question to us. He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many I tell you will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” Enter through the narrow gate. He then goes on to use some imagery that might help us understand what He is talking about. He said, “After the master of the house has risen and locked the door, it is late at night and the master after a full day of work locks the door of the house, 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.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ It is us. Jesus is talking to the Jews who were the chosen people and they knew it. He was trying to point to them it is not enough for you to be a Jew. It is not enough to be a member of God’s chosen people. It is not enough for you to say, “I am a son or a daughter of Abraham.” It is not enough for the Jews and it is not enough for us. Then He will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, remember He is talking to the Jews and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are their patriarchs, and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God and you yourselves cast our. This is the connection with the first reading and people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” Some those of those who think your are chosen first will be last. These are Jesus words and how would He speak to us.

I have two examples; one is protestant fundamentalist brothers and sisters, some perhaps with us today at mass are from that community. One of the things we experience from us Catholics who speak to Protestants. They say, “For me to be saved all I have to do claim Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Once I make that proclamation, Jesus is Lord then I cannot lose my salvation. When we hear that one of the things we should think about is today’s Gospel. It is not enough to be chosen once. What is required is what Jesus says, strive to enter through the narrow gate, which means the life of Christian discipline and discipleship. Just claiming Jesus is Lord or just being baptized or just being a Catholic, just being a deacon, priest or Bishop is never enough we have to enter through the narrow door. We never save ourselves, our works do not save us, but we have to respond continuously for God’s intervention in our lives where He saves us day by day calling us from selfishness to generosity, from death to life.

I talked about the Protestants now let us talk about the Catholics for that is what most of us are here today. One of the things I find interesting about some of the sensitive issues regarding abortion or same sex unions is there are many people who make public statements or commitments contrary to the teachings of the church and then they present themselves to the newspaper and to the bishop as devote Catholics. There are many people who never show their face in church and tell me I am a devote Catholic. I went to class for three years, I made my first communion, I made my first confession. I have not went since but I made my first confession. The real one is I served mass or I am 77 years old and I went to Catholic grade school, high school and college. This is suppose to be enough to make them a devote Catholic. Some being a devote Catholic is something other than what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel which is to enter through the narrow gate. This is the only way. You can not be devote Catholic if you want your door to be broad. To be a devote Catholic means you embrace all of Jesus’ teachings without exception. Maybe, you do not live them all faithfully because of your sinfulness but at least you want to try. You want to commit yourself to his way with is the narrow way.

One of the fathers of the Church, St Cyril of Alexandra who is a Bishop is Egypt way back in the fourth century and this is what he said about the narrow way, because if it is the only way we have to know what it means. I now consider it my duty to mention why the door to life is narrow. Whoever would enter must first before everything else possess an upright and uncorrupted faith and then a spotless morality according to the measure of human righteousness. He is saying there are two things that are necessary to enter the door that is narrow an upright and uncorrupted faith which means the faith of the Church not a faith that is corrupted by the mood of our age or corrupted by my little mind or my sinful life style. An uncorrupted faith is the narrow way. And then, a spotless morality insofar as human beings can ever struggle to be that way. It is faith and morals given to us by Jesus Christ which is mediated to us in the Church. This is the narrow way.

It is useless, or rather it is not enough, to belong to a certain ethnic group, race, tradition, or institution, not even the chosen people from whom the Savior himself comes. What puts us on the road to salvation is not a title of ownership ("We ate and drank in your presence..."), but a personal decision, followed by a consistent way of life. This is even more clear in Matthew's text which contrasts two ways and two gates, one narrow and the other wide (cf. Matthew 7:13-14). Why are these ways respectively called "narrow" and "wide"? Is it perhaps that the way of evil is always easy and pleasant to follow and the way of goodness always hard and tiresome?

Here we must be careful not to cede to the usual temptation of believing that here below everything goes magnificently well for the wicked and everything goes terribly for the good.

The way of the wicked is wide, but only at the beginning. As one goes down this way it gradually becomes narrow and bitter. In any case, it becomes very narrow at the end because it finishes in a blind alley. The joy that is experienced in it has the characteristic of diminishing more and more as one tastes it, and it finally causes nausea and sadness. We see this in certain forms of intoxication experienced in drugs, alcohol and sex. A larger dose or stronger stimulation is needed each time to produce pleasure of the same intensity.

Let us use a couple examples regarding the broad and the narrow way. Drugs are really a temptation in our culture and sometimes it gets out of hand because if you take the broad way the undisciplined way some bad things happen. First, you get excited about a little drug and take it once in awhile and then that gets boring and you take bigger drugs and more doses more often and if you keep doing that you way gets bigger and bigger it ends up being vary narrow because your lives fall apart, marriages fall apart and pretty soon you die.

The misuse of sexuality you might start with bad thoughts then go to the computer and then you look for more exciting ways and your marriage falls apart and you get addicted and your lives fall apart. If you take the narrow way of Jesus then things changes the narrow becomes broader because we move from discipline to joy and to peaceful hearts and to peaceful lives and good marriages and to happy relationships with spouses and children and work. Discipline is not for its own sake it is so that we might become free. The narrow way leads to freedom from ourselves and the broad way of freedom to do what we want leads to selfishness.

The way of the just is instead narrow at the beginning, when one starts off on it, but it then becomes a spacious boulevard because hope, joy and peace of heart are found in it. Live your faith intensely. Do not waste your lives! Consecrate your lives to the high ideals of faith and human solidarity. The Church needs you; Christ needs your face to manifest His face to the world. God Bless YOU!