One-Page Synopsis: OT XXI C (Aug 22) Homily on Lk 13: 22-30 L/16

One-page synopsis: OT XXI [C] (Aug 22) Homily on Lk 13: 22-30 L/16

Scripture lessons: In the first reading, Isaiah's prophecy speaks to the Babylonian exiles returning to Jerusalem some 400 years later, telling them that salvation is not a Jewish monopoly and that is why Yahweh will welcome the pagans also into Judaism. The prophet ends his great book as it began, with a vision of all the peoples of the world streaming toward Jerusalem, acknowledging and praising the God of Israel. In the second reading, exploring with his readers the consequences of Christian commitment, St. Paul explains that “the narrow gate” of Jesus is accepting pain and suffering as God’s loving disciplining of His children. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 117) refrain, "Go out to all the world and tell the Good News,” reflects the mission of God’s chosen people to be instruments of salvation to the whole world. In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly explains that anyone who follows him through the narrow gate of sacrificial service and sharing love will be saved. Jesus also admonishes his followers to concentrate on their own salvation by self-discipline rather than to worry about other people’s salvation.

The Protestant doctrine on salvation: Once saved, you are always saved, in spite of your future sins and even apostasy. We are saved by the shed blood of Jesus when as teen ager or adult we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, confess our sins and say the “Sinner’s Prayer.” asking God’s pardon and forgiveness

Catholic teaching: Salvation is a past, present and future event. We were saved when we were baptized as children or adults. We are being saved at present, when we cooperate with God’s grace by loving others as Jesus did -- by sharing our blessings with the needy and by getting reconciled with God daily, asking His forgiveness for our sins. We will be eternally saved when we hear the loving invitation from Jesus, the Judge at the moment of our death and on the day of the Last Judgment, saying: “Good and faithful servant, you were faithful in little things, enter into the joy of your Master.”

Life messages: 1) We need to cooperate with God’s grace daily given to us. a) by choosing the narrow way and the narrow gate of self-control and self-disciplining of our evil tendencies and evil habits and addictions; b) by loving others, seeing the face of Jesus in them and sharing our blessings with them sacrificially; c) by obtaining the daily Divine strength to practice self-control and sharing love through the guidance of the Holy Spirit in daily prayer and Bible reading and through the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.

Note: A “word document” on Holy Mass (benefits & structure) is attached.

OT XXI [C] (8/21/2016) Is 66:18-21, Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk 13: 22-30

Anecdote: # 1: Three surprises in Heaven: Bishop Sheen tells us that we will have three surprises in Heaven. The first surprise: We will be surprised to see that many people we expected to be in Heaven are not there. St. John of the Cross gives the reason why they are not there: “At the evening of our life, we shall be judged on how we have loved.” The second surprise: We will be surprised to see that the people we never expected to be in Heaven are there. That is because God judges man’s intentions and rewards them accordingly. The third surprise: We will be surprised to see that we are in Heaven. Since our getting to Heaven is principally God’s work, we should be surprised that God somehow “went out of His way” to save us, simply because we showed the good will and generosity to cooperate with His grace. In today’s Gospel, Jesus answers the question, who will be saved, when and how.

# 2: Narrow door to successful living: Thousands upon thousands of young boys grow up bouncing basketballs and dreaming of a life in the National Basketball Association - the professional ranks. But only a handful are chosen each year. Woe to the young man or young woman who is talented at sports but neglects his or her education! Thousands upon thousands of new businesses are started each year, but only a small number of people in our society become super-successful in material terms. The higher you go up the scale, the smaller the numbers become. Thousands upon thousands of young couples each year stand at the altars of churches like this one and pledge their love to one another, but half these marriages will end in divorce. Many couples will stay together only for convenience, for appearances or for the children. Only an estimated 10% will find true fulfillment in their marriages. The door to any kind of successful living is a narrow one. That is why Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel: "Strive to enter by the narrow door, for many I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able." Successful living requires making hard choices. It requires dedication and sacrifice. How can Christian Faith demand any less?

# 3: The narrow gate of great musicians: Someone once said to Paderewski, the great pianist, "Sir, you are a genius." He replied, "Madam, before I was a genius I was a drudge." He continued: “If I missed practice one day, I noticed it; if I missed practice two days, the critics noticed it; if I missed three days, my family noticed it; if I missed four days, my audience noticed it. It is reported that after one of Fritz Kreisler's concerts a young woman said to him, "I would give my life to be able to play like that." He replied, "That's what I gave.” The door is narrow. Why should we think we can "drift" into the Kingdom of God? The Christian life is a constant striving to do the will of God as Jesus revealed it. We need to strive because there are forces of evil within us and around us, trying to pull us down.

# 4: Self-discipline: Many years ago, an editorial in the magazine, War Cry put it like this: "A loose wire gives out no musical note; but fasten the ends, and the piano, the harp or the violin is born. Free steam drives no machine. But hamper and confine it with piston and turbine and you have the great world of machinery made possible. The unhampered river drives no dynamos, but dam it up and we get power sufficient to light a great city. So our lives must be disciplined if we are to be of any real service in this world." If you are going to walk with Jesus, there are some things you will need to leave behind.

Introduction: As he continues his fateful journey to Jerusalem, Jesus answers the question as to how many will be saved by answering how to enter into salvation and how urgent it is to strive now, before the Master closes the door. Jesus explains who will be saved? How? Why? When? Jesus clearly explains that any one who follows him through the narrow gate of sacrificial serving and sharing love will be saved. Jesus also admonishes his followers to concentrate on their own salvation instead of worrying about other people’s salvation In the first reading, Isaiah's prophecy speaks to the Babylonian exiles returning some 400 years later, telling them that salvation is not a Jewish monopoly, and that is why Yahweh will also welcome the pagans into Judaism. The prophet’s great book ends as it begins -- with a vision of all the peoples of the world streaming toward Jerusalem, acknowledging and praising the God of Israel. In the second reading, exploring with his readers the consequences of Christian commitment, St. Paul explains “the narrow gate” of Jesus as pain and suffering, resulting from God’s loving disciplining of His children. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 117) refrain, "Go out to all the world and tell the Good News,” reflects the mission of God’s chosen people to be instruments of salvation to the whole world.

The first reading (Is 66:18-21): Isaiah answered prophetically a similar question about salvation, which would be put forward some 200 years later by the Jews returning to Jerusalem in 540 BC after forty-seven years in exile. Some of them brought back to Jerusalem their pagan wives and in-laws who had been converted to the Jewish Faith. The question was whether Yahweh would accept these former pagans along with His chosen people. The third part of Isaiah's prophecy (chapters 56-66), answers this question. In the prophet's message, Yahweh declared that He was the Lord of all peoples rather than of the Jews alone. In fact, some of these converts were to be missionaries to other pagans. Even the hereditary posts of priest and Levite could be held by these outsiders. (The Jewish priests were born into the priesthood. No Jewish man born outside of a priestly family could ever dream of standing at the altar and offering sacrifice to Yahweh. But Isaiah foresaw that even the non-Jews would be invited to join that highly restricted ministry!)

The second reading: Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13: The author of the Letter to the Hebrews, considering the “narrow gate theology,” gives it a different twist (Heb 12:5-7, 11-13). For Paul, the road less often taken and the gate less often chosen are the paths of God's discipline. The pain and suffering Christians experience are parts of God’s discipline, given in love. We are being disciplined by our afflictions, strengthened to walk that straight and narrow path - that we may enter the gate, take our place at the banquet of the righteous. The experience is similar to that of a child, disciplined by loving parents who desire only to help him grow, mature, and become responsible. God’s discipline can be appreciated only by those who regard their relationship with God as that of a child to a parent (Proverbs 3: 11-12). Unfortunately, we often take God’s discipline differently. Some of us meet God’s discipline with a resigned acceptance that sees no other possible course. Others gulp it down like a bitter pill so as to be done with it as soon as possible. Some respond with self-pity, which, in the end, leads to their collapse. Still others become resentful and turn away from God. However, there are some, who can lift their spirits above present trials and look beyond to the peace and justice (v. 11) which are the fruits of God’s discipline.

Exegesis: “Are you saved”? When the questioner asked Jesus “How many will be saved?” he was assuming that the salvation of God's Chosen People was virtually guaranteed, provided they kept the Law. In other words, the Kingdom of God was reserved for the Jews alone, and Gentiles would be shut out. The Jewish catechism, Mishnah, taught: “All Israelites have a share in the world to come.” But the author of the Apocalypse of Ezra declared, “this age the Most High has made for the many, but the age to come for a few” (4 Ezra 8:1). Hence, Jesus' answer must have come as a shock. Jesus affirms that God wants all persons to enjoy eternal life with Him. But he stresses the need for constant fidelity and vigilance throughout our lives. Thus, Jesus reminds us that, even though God wants all of us to be saved, we all need to work at it. Entry into God’s kingdom is not automatically granted, based purely on religious Faith or nationality, so we cannot presume on God’s mercy and do nothing by way of response to God’s invitation. What Jesus is saying is that salvation is not guaranteed for anyone. "Outside the Church there is no salvation" was a rallying cry for centuries. But Jesus declares that nobody can claim that he is “saved,” possessing a "visa" to Heaven. How many will be saved in the end is a decision that rests with God, and depends on whether His Justice or His Mercy finally prevails. Jesus came to bring God's love and freedom to the whole world. The message of his Gospel is that there is not a single person, not a single people, nation, race, or class, which will be excluded from experiencing the love and liberation that God offers. Hence, the role of the Christian community, from the beginning until now has been, first and foremost, to proclaim to the whole world the Good News of God's love for the world, and then to show this Good News to be real, reflected in the loving, sharing and serving lives of individual Christians. So to be "saved" means to live and to die in a close, loving relationship with God and with others.

Jesus issued a series of sayings and parables that emphasized the difficulty involved in entering God’s Kingdom, and he stressed the need for constant fidelity and vigilance throughout our lives. Jesus also insisted that salvation was an urgent matter -- the "narrow gate" was open now but would not remain so indefinitely (“the master of the house will lock the door”). Then he added two conditions: a) Eternal salvation was the result of a struggle: "keep on striving to enter.” (The Greek word agonizomai means strenuous effort in athletic competition. See I Cor 9:25; 1 Tim 6:12; 2 Tim 4:7). It is like the effort one would make in swimming against the current in a river. A man must ever be going forward or else he will go backward. b) We must enter through the "narrow gate" of sacrificial and selfless service. (Confer Mt 7:13-14; Jer 21:8; Dt 30: 15-20; Jos 24:15).

The narrow gate: Most cities of the ancient world were surrounded by walls that had large gates in them. Jerusalem had about twelve gates that were large enough for two-way traffic. People moved through these gates to do their business, to shop and to visit their friends. These gates, however, were closed at night, in case the city came under attack by an invader. There were also smaller gates through which individual citizens could be allowed into the city by the guards without exposing the city to danger. These smaller, or narrower gates were what Jesus was talking about. These smaller gates were like turnstiles – only one person at a time could enter through them.