Sunday Homily

HOMILY FOR THE TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C 

Posted on by admin
20
Aug

Isaiah 66:18-21/Psalm 117:1-2/Hebrews 12:5-7,11-13/Luke 13:22-30

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Fr. Thomas Oyode  

“Faith as Discipline for the Christian Way”

Our experience of the Christian life shows that it is a race as well as a battle. There are many songs in our liturgy that shows that we are on a race to heaven and most of these songs exhort us to not go weary. Also, this race has the afterlife, heaven as its a goal. All three readings (Isaiah 66:18-21; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30) of today bear this fact. The readings also betray one of our fundamental natural proclivities which is the question of religion. Man is inclined to wonder and ask “how did we get here?”, “why are we here?”, “where do we go to when we die?” and precisely as it is asked in today’s gospel, “how many of us will be saved?” The first reading already takes up this theme of the question of man’s last end. Isaiah 66:18-21 is set in a context of eschatological vision, a vision of the end of our lives and our ultimate communion with God hereafter. It thus conveys its message with the hue of universal salvation. In other words, judgment and salvation will include all peoples irrespective of race, culture, religion and tribe.

It is the same question that Jesus responds to in today’s gospel (Luke 13:22-30). Note is taken of the fact that the question was posed while Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. What was he going to do there? He was on his way to embracing the Cross, the way death that awaits him in Jerusalem. This way is the way of salvation that he chose willingly for the sake of us all. It is at this point that a certain person raises a question about the number of those who will be saved. More or less like, “if you die in Jerusalem now, how many us will have access to the kingdom of heaven?” Apart from this natural inclination to wonder about the hereafter, it is also possible that Jesus’ many parables about the Kingdom as he made his way to Jerusalem had been a cause of concern and anxiety for his listeners but only this man could brace up and raise a question as fundamental as the universality of salvation.

Jesus’ response is relayed in the usual Jewish rabbinic two-way mode of teaching. He makes use of two doors that lead to the Kingdom. The use of two doors evokes two images that are mutually connected. One door is narrow and it has us glued to an imagery of delicateness, discipline, caution, skill, preparation and foresight. These would be needed to make our way through. The other door opens us to a glimpse also of an imagery of promptness, foresight and discipline. However, it is the door that is shut out to even those who call themselves children of Abraham. In today’s context these would be those who boast of being “baptised and practicing Catholics”. These go to all the morning Masses, sit before the Blessed Sacrament for long hours meditating on the Word of God, they go to confession every weekend, pay tithes and work in almost all the committees in their churches. These are good deeds until we tend to become too comfortable with an assurance that these alone are a guarantee of salvation. We may also be tempted to think that those who are not like them in going to church or receiving the sacraments are doomed. The biggest danger here is that people with such tendencies usually stop paying attention to their weaknesses and failings.

It is precisely for this reason that Jesus says “strive”. It bears a tone of admonition; make effort, try hard, do your best to ensure that you enter into heaven. The Greek word used by Jesus (cf. Luke 13:24) for strive is what St. Paul also uses in 1 Corinthians 9:25 when he compares the Christian life with an athletic race that requires training and discipline. Thus salvation has been attained for us in Christ and by Christ but we must strive in discipline, we must condition our spiritual senses. To what end is this discipline? The second reading tells us that it is for the purpose of righteousness and perfection (Hebrews 12:11). So notwithstanding our being “baptised practicing Catholics” how disciplined are we? How are we able to resist the temptation of looting public funds, the temptation of examination malpractice, the temptation of cultism and money ritual or the temptation of extra marital sex? How about striving to pay attention to the so called white lies, lack of forgiveness, or a lack of charity towards others? Are we striving daily?

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Fr. Daniel Evbotokhai

THE NARROW DOOR OF SALVATION

Today’s message is centered on salvation through the Narrow Door. The narrow door or gate depending on your translation is seen in Luke 13:22-30 and Matt. 7:13-14. In this last passage Jesus says; the “narrow door” leads to salvation while the “broad road” leads to destruction. Who then is the Door? Jesus is the Door. In John 10:9, he says; “I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.” Jesus is the Door of salvation. John 14:6 says he is “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and the way is narrow because Christ is the only way. Acts 4:12 says “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Salvation through Jesus Christ is prefigured by Noah’s ark. All who heard Noah and entered the Ark were saved. And so Jesus says in Luke 10:16 “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” As to the question “Is there salvation outside the Church?”  In a way mysterious to us, this salvation is offered to all, and God, who judges the hearts of all, will determine their destiny.

Many believers are worried about those who will be saved; some out rightly judge others and predict their eternal destiny. And so a man asked Jesus “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” (Luke 13:23). This has been the basis of many controversies and predictions about the number of those that will be saved. Jehovah’s Witnesses still insist that 144,000 is the limit to the number of people who will reign with Christ in heaven and spend eternity with him. For Jesus anyone who enters by the door shall be saved (John10:9). “Anyone is not a restricted number.  In the book of Revelation no specific number was stated. In Rev.7:9-10 John says “… behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb! In Luke 13:29 Jesus says “People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

Beloved, entering the narrow door is not trouble-free and so Jesus says strive. To strive to enter is to hear his word and keep it. It is also an exhortation to work.  Phil2:12, Paul says …continue to work out your salvation  with fear and trembling. If we make sincere effort, God comes to crown our effort by his grace.  “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”(Eph2:8).

Again, Jesus says “many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (Luke 13:30). There are several ways to this statement.

Followers: Judas Iscariot was one of the first disciples and was honored to be the treasurer of the group, yet his greed led to his undoing; 1 Cor. 15:8–9 Paul was the last of the apostles  yet the one who worked the hardest (2 Cor. 11:23). Just look around there are  some zealous and devoted parishioners who are in other churches today. In fact, some are no longer in the Christian faith. Some communicants, no longer receive communion. There are those who God was first in their lives and today God has no position in their lives anymore. Many ministers who once burned for God today have grown out of steam.

Privilege:  There are some who were first in privilege yet are not first in the kingdom. The Jews were privileged to serve under the Old Covenant but under the new dispensation they saw Jesus like a stranger. The Gentiles were more receptive to the new covenant. The Jews, who had laboured under the Old Covenant, were jealous of the grace extended to the Gentile “newcomers”. Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. (Rom.11:11). There are those who were privileged to be raised by Catholic parents, trained in Catholic schools and today are nowhere in the faith; while those who became converts are setting track record in the faith. 

Rank: The Pharisees were men of high rank and prestige but Jesus told them that the sinners they despised were being saved ahead of them: “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matt.21:31–32). You may be a minister but if you don’t live in Christ you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, you may the laity chairman or youth president, you attend all the meetings and wear all the uniforms but if you don’t live in Christ you shall not enter the kingdom of God.

Beloved what Jesus is teaching about the first being the last and last being the first is that there will be many surprises in heaven. According to Fulton Sheen there shall be three surprises: 1. Those we expect to be in heaven, we may not see them in heaven, 2. Those we don’t expect to be in heaven shall be in heaven 3. You and I shall be in heaven. Therefore, let us put God first in all we do and we shall never be last.

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Fr. Paul Oredipe
“All shall be saved” [but] “enter by the narrow gate”
 The mark of a good student is to be able to give the right answer to the right question.  On the other hand, one can say, the mark of a good teacher is giving the right answer to the right question.  But in addition, it is also the distinguishing mark of a good teacher to be able to give the right answer even and especially to the wrong question. 
     “Sir, will there be only a few saved?”  or “Lord, are they few in number who are to be saved?” 
            Jesus did not answer it.  They ask him about numbers, and he speaks about the manner; about quantity and he emphasized quality.  Jesus changed the center of attention from the number to how it is possible to be saved, that is, the need to enter by “the narrow door.” 
            Perhaps the question that should be asked is: how does one attain salvation?  In his reply Jesus said: “Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.”  In St. Matthew’s Gospel, the words of the Lord are even more detailed:  “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Mt. 7:13-14)  “Many are called, but few are chosen.” (Mt. 22:14) 
            If we would enter the kingdom then we have to enter by the ‘narrow door’ and that narrow door is faith, a personal faith, a committing and committed faith in Jesus, who at the same time is the universal Saviour of the human race.  The point here, brothers and sisters in Christ, is to get across the fact that human effort is indeed necessary, but that this alone cannot get us into the kingdom.  Jesus used this image and language here in order to save us from two dangers at opposite ends of the spectrum: specifically, activism and quietism.  
            On the one hand, human activity does not suffice, on the other hand, we cannot dispense with it.  We must know how to orient and direct it.  In urging us to enter through the narrow door, Jesus is warning us against having an over-confident approach and presumption.  We must not take anything for granted.  Entrance into our heavenly home is a case of struggling rather than strolling in.  We cannot afford to be complacent, conformist and indifferent. 
            The door of the call is opened by God and He opens it to all, but the door of the response depends on human freedom, and not everyone is willing to enter that door, especially knowing that it is narrow. 
            When Christ died on the Cross, the Temple veil was torn in two (Lk. 23:45) as a sign that the separation between Jews and Gentiles was ended.  Thus the prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading was fulfilled.  In the words of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: “But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far off have been brought close, by the blood of Christ.  For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one entity and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, by destroying in his own person the hostility, that is, the Law of commandments with its decrees.  His purpose in this was, by restoring peace, to create a single New Man out of the two of them, and through the cross, to reconcile them both to God in one Body; in his own person he killed the hostility.  He came to bring the good news of peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.  Through him, then, we both in the one Spirit have free access to the Father.” (Eph. 3:13 – 18) 
            All this is highly relevant for us.  Through our Baptism we have become members of God’s family, the Church.  We are in a privileged position.  But we must not rely on that fact alone.  We cannot pin our hopes on the mere fact that we are paid up, church-going people.  The image of the closed door shows that there is no place for boastful claims based on a superficial acquaintance with Christ.  The test of Sunday worship is how we live at home, behave at work and treat our neighbour during the week.  The gospel is a call to deepen our Christianity and to respond whole-heartedly to the invitation of Jesus, who wants us to live seriously in this light.  We can count on nothing but on God’s love and mercy.  
            The door is narrow and only those who have made themselves smaller and fit through their humility can enter through it.  The way he has shown us is a narrow path with a narrow gate to enter.  It requires that we die to our self, be stripped, and pruned in order to enter.  It is not those who believe too much in themselves, hope too much in themselves, and have too much self-love.  Such people will find the entrance too narrow for them because of their self-sufficiency, their inflated egos.  That is why Jesus mentions Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophets.  Their fidelity went to such lengths that they were willing to accept the risks of faith and to get beyond the security of their own merits.  
            The Second reading from the letter to the Hebrews enumerates the inner dispositions we need to accept God’s discipline “suffering is part of your training; God is treating you as his children”.  Suffering, if well accepted, may open our eyes to the real values of life and lead to repentance.  Life on this earth is an education for heaven, and God corrects his children with a firm hand.  The people whom our Lord is correcting in this Gospel have to be cured of their excessive confidence in themselves – their presumption.  No one can save himself by his own foresight or on his own initiative and thanks to his own resourcefulness.  Only Jesus can save us, and we must unite ourselves to Him and imitate his humility (He humbled himself even unto the death on the cross).  Faithfulness to God will lead us to a share in the Son of God’s sufferings in order that we may share His victory. 
            We enter by the narrow door when we realise our shortcomings and put ourselves in the hands of the Lord.  Let us remember that Jesus was the first to go through the narrow gate of which He speaks.  It was narrow for him in that, in passing through his passion and death, He was oppressed and compressed by intense pain.  He passed through its narrowness thanks to his humility.  The humbler we are and the more we practice patience in accepting difficulties and sufferings in union with our Lord in his passion and death, the more easily we pass through the gate of Heaven. 
            Isaiah, in the First reading, makes the same point when he describes the triumphal work of Christ in gathering together all peoples, in fact all the nations of the earth.  The responsorial Psalm, which is the shortest of all the Psalms, is a formula of praise which shows clearly (that is, it picks up and echoes) the universal aim of God’s plan and covenant for the salvation of all nations and peoples.  We acknowledge the glory of God when we trust ourselves to Him.  It is He who saves, and it is by faith in Him that we carry out His work; for all that is good comes from God. 
            “Try your best to enter by the narrow door,… ”  One fact is clear and urgent: the Kingdom of God is already present, and is an open door.  It will not remain open indefinitely, for a day will come, as the parable of the Barren Fig-Tree reminded us in this same chapter of Luke (Lk 13: 1-9), when the dead will have been cast and destinies irrevocably determined.  The terms of entry are about loving God and our neighbour.  There is no substitute for making the following of Christ our life’s work.  There is no alternative to sincerely living out what we profess to believe. 
            Sometimes we have to make hard choices.  Following Jesus will not be easy.  We may need to go against the flow.  It may seem easier to go in the other direction, to move with the crowd, to look for the smooth road and the wide gate, but that is not the way of Christ.  When we seek to follow him and enter by the narrow door we are making a choice; and it may not be the popular choice. 
            It is important to realize that Jesus is not just showing us the way, He is the way.  We cannot reach the Father except through him.  To be a disciple is to be on the road with Jesus to Jerusalem, and to be with Him on that hard road means being willing to accept all that He had to suffer.  It is a demanding way, a way that we cannot walk alone.  We can only follow it with Him and in Him. 
            Yet Jesus is clear that his gospel is inclusive, not exclusive.  It is God’s will that all should be saved.  He offers salvation to everyone, from all the corners of the earth.  If God chooses a people, He does not choose them to the exclusion of others, but to the service of others.  There is no distinction, no discrimination, no preferential treatment.  All that He asks us is that we believe in Him and follow His way through humility and repentance. 
             The chorus of one Hymn sums it up as follows:  
“O, the Lord sends troubles, the Lord sends trials, the Lord sends a heavy load.
But He’ll keep on leading us, and keep on guiding us, as long as we’re trav’ling his road, as long as we’re trav’ling his road.” 
            In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
LET US PRAY
O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. AMEN.

    

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Fr. Daniel Evbotokhai is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Auchi, Edo State, Nigeria. He was ordained October 20th, 2018. He offers his daily homilies, talks and articles that bother on, faith, theology, morals and many other burning issues in religion and politics. Fr. Daniel writes poems, inspirational quotes and clips.

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