When our hope is in the Lord, the narrow gate becomes the widest of gates.

 

Twenty First Sunday in OT   C  2022

 

Today’s Gospel catches our undivided attention.   The disciples asked Jesus:  Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus responds:  “Strive to enter though the narrow gate.”

 

Then Jesus goes on to say:  “When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’”

 

As people strived to enter the narrow door of salvation, the door was shut and people panicked and said: “Lord, open to us.”  Jesus responds:  “I do not know where you come from.”

 

Did you ever think of the Kingdom of God as a gated community?  As a gated community to which I am not welcome!  People who live in gated communities value privacy, security, and safety.  It is usually associated with some degree of affluence.

 

But isn’t the kingdom of God a home for all of God’s people – just the opposite of a gated community, is it not?  All are welcome into the kingdom of God.

 

I invite you to reflect on that haunting statement of Jesus in the Gospel:  ”I do not know where you come from.”  We need to ask ourselves the question:  “Where do you come from?”  It obviously means much more than geography and social connections.  In the Gospel account, people responded to the Lord:  “Lord you know us and where we come from.”  They come from the villages and towns where he taught and the dinner gatherings where he ate and drank.  We played golf together, don’t you remember? But superficial contacts of eating and drinking aren’t going to cut the mustard.

 

There will always be those who want in on their own terms.  They want to enter into the banquet table of the Lord because of who they know.  In all honesty, we need to confess that at times we want to come to God on our own terms.  We try to balance living out our faith amid the many commitments of our life.  We try to fulfill our obligations.

 

 

 

But is not enough to say that I’m spiritual in some abstract fashion.  It isn’t enough to say I’m spiritual when all is going very, very well.  Does our notion of spirituality embrace accepting the crosses of life?  Where is our spirituality as we struggle and deal with setback and loss and sickness and death?  Where is our spirituality when people disappoint us, and we are disillusioned by the hypocrisy and sinfulness of others?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is the willingness to die to self and center our lives on love of God and love of others.  What are the limits we place on our commitment to others?  Are we the followers of the Christ who died to bring healing to all people?  Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is sharing in this Eucharistic banquet Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.  To what degree can we say that the Sunday Eucharist is the source and summit of our prayer life?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is learning the great lesson of grace.  We begin through our efforts and spiritual disciplines to enter through the narrow door but ultimately our spiritual striving leads to spiritual surrender.  We ultimately live life with open hands and trusting hearts.  We trust in God’s healing grace for us, and we rely on God’s grace to lead us through the narrow door.  When our hope is in the Lord, that narrow door becomes the widest of gates. Our journey through the narrow door is a journey of faith.   All salvation comes from God.

 

The takeaway message of the Gospel is learning this great lesson of grace.

 

Yes, the great lesson of grace calls us to the spiritual discipline of laying down our lives but always with the deep realization that it is not our will power; rather it is God’s loving and healing and forgiving presence in our lives that leads us to the fullness of life.

 

Jesus’ Gospel admonition still catches our attention:  “Strive to enter the narrow door.”  As with the entire Gospel, the “narrow door” is good news, not bad news.  It is the evangelium.  The Evangelium, the Gospel of Jesus is always Good News.  In fact, the narrow door is not so much about the constraint of space that keeps us from access of the kingdom of God.  Rather the narrow door is about the focus of our commitment to discipleship.  Actually the narrow door is the only entryway that is equally available to everyone, regardless of nationality, financial status, respectability, or health.  The narrow door is simply that still, small place in the heart where one says “yes” or “no” to the Gospel message of love.  It is the one place through which no external force can shape or coerce one’s choices.  It is what Theresa of Avila called the “the center of the soul,” wherein God dwells.

 

Finding the narrow door that leads to the center is not a matter of eating and drinking, or of knowing the right people or of reciting the right formulas.  It is, first and last, to share in the heart of Jesus that embraces in love all of God’s people.   Sharing in the heart of Jesus is an act of faith, trusting in the Lord, confident that God will indeed lead us to the narrow door of salvation. 

 

The door is narrow because all of our talents and abilities and disciplines and pieties will not lead us to the heart of Jesus.  For all of us the entreway to the heart of Jesus is simply that act of faith trusting that Jesus accompanies us in all experiences of life.

 

Jesus says in the Gospel that the last shall be first and the first last.  The first are those who have found in their heart what Jesus knew in his heart – divine love makes brothers and sisters of us all.  When we know this, the Lord knows us; and the narrow door becomes the widest of gates.

 

Have a Blessed Day..