God Invites All
Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C (21/08/2022)
Isaiah 66: 18-21; Psalm 117: 1.2 (R. Mark 16: 15); Hebrews 12: 5-7.11-13; Luke 13: 22-30
By Fr. Samuel Odeh
While journeying toward Jerusalem, some one asked Jesus, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" In other words, who are those who will make it into heaven? What will be their qualifications? How do we qualify so as to make it into heaven? For example, will the Israelites be the only ones to be saved? Will the work we need to do to get into heaven be hard or easy? Jesus replied with a lesson that answers all these questions: "Strive to enter by the narrow door." By this Jesus means we are to choose the assignments and tasks that are more challenging and demanding. For example, why pray only one decade of the rosary when we can pray fifteen decades? Why go to Mass only on Sundays when we can attend Mass everyday? Why do we choose to go to confession only once a year when we can go to confession every week? Why do we choose to read the Bible only on Sundays when we can read it everyday? In other words, we are to choose the path of discipline. This is the point made in our second reading by the author of the letter to the Hebrews: "It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
This discipline is necessary because as Jesus goes on to tell us many "will seek to enter and will not be able." There is the matter of a time factor when it comes to being saved. The clock is ticking; we have a limited amount of time to respond to God's invitation, a small space of time to answer to his call to be saved. If we are not disciplined to start preparing now we may arrive at the door or gate when it is too late. "When once the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying 'Lord, open to us.' An intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus should be the goal of our disciplines; the "fruit of righteousness" is the only qualification the Lord will recognize on that day. This is because it is possible to go about religious practices in a dutiful manner without accepting Jesus as our personal Lord and Saviour. Only those who have been born again or born from above, for whom religion is about life and eternal life will be recognized on that day. Our religion must be deep and personal for it to have the intended effect. In today's Gospel we hear Jesus' message to those who practise a superficial religion: "He will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity!' Another mistake we must guard against is to think that some privileged status will secure our place in heaven. For instance will Christians or Israelites be the only ones to be saved? Jesus said in today's Gospel "There you will weep and gnash your teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves thrust out.
Finally we must ask if God's invitation and call for entrance into his kingdom is for everybody. Do we have the courage to hope that all will be saved? Both our first reading and Gospel reading today tell us that the answer to that question is yes. God wants all people to be saved. In our first reading we read, "Thus says the LORD, "I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will set a sign among them."" God knows the thinking and actions of persons of any country and any language and attends to them in his own way. According to the prophet Isaiah the Lord says, "And they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as an offering to the LORD...to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the LORD, just as the sons of Israel bring their cereal offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. And some of them also I will take for priests and Levites, says the LORD." Jesus also says God's invitation is open to all in today's Gospel reading: "And men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last."
Lord Jesus, teach me to value your disciplines. Be my Lord and Saviour. Amen.
