Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
It seems like you can’t drive down the road these days without seeing a GPS in at least half of the cars. Whether it’s sticking to the inside of the windshield, on the dash, or even a part of the car, so many people utilize these great devices. I have to admit that, especially when I’m new to an area, or when I’m going to a parishioner’s house for dinner, they make my life much easier.
If you’ll allow the metaphor, the Chosen People were the cars that had the GPS already installed in the vehicle. God had chosen them to share His holiness with the outside nations. But, in order to come into a relationship with God, you had to join Israel, which for males meant circumcision (not really a great selling point if you’re simply looking at it from a secular point of view). Also, the Jews, in order to keep ritually pure, which allowed them to worship at the temple, would often keep away from the goyim, the people of the other nations.
So if you were an Israelite hearing the message of our first reading, you would have been shocked. God was telling His people that no longer would GPS only come equipped in Israeli cars, but would be installed in the cars of the goyim, of the nations of “Tarshish, Put and Lod, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan,” places that were outside of the relationship with God. In fact, they were at enmity with God because their way of life was contrary to what God had created us for.
Of course, if you were open to it, this was good news: God was promising to bring the people of the world into a right relationship with Him, and that they would be able to see His glory. The goal of Israel, to help people to come to know the true God, was going to be accomplished by God Himself by revealing Himself to those who before were outside of the Chosen People.
This should be especially good news for us, because most, if not all of us, if we trace our ancestry back far enough, do not come from Jewish stock, but from Gentile, goyim stock. And we see this promise to invite all the nations into a right relationship with God fulfilled in Jesus, who, though sent to the Jews, called the Twelve Apostles and their successors, the bishops, to spread the new covenant, sealed in His own blood, to all the nations, the Gentiles, the goyim, so that they, too could enter into a right relationship with God, find forgiveness for their sins which separate them from God, and be able to enter into eternal life.
Our Gospel today also reflects the reality of salvation, and the possibility of not receiving it. If it were just humans saying that it’s tough to get to heaven, then we would have reason to doubt their word. Perhaps they were misinformed, or confused about what the Lord was saying. But it is not a human person saying this to us: it is a Divine Person, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity who tells His disciples and us in the Gospel today: “‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.’” These are hard words for us to hear, because they don’t reflect the nice, fluffy Jesus that we like to hear about. But, Jesus is the full revelation of the Father, not just the easy revelation of the Father. And so we have to treat His words seriously.
Jesus is telling us that, although we were created for eternal happiness with God in heaven, there are so many pitfalls because of our own sins and those of our neighbors which can distract us from the narrow gate. It is as if our GPS didn’t accurately give us the right course from time to time. Because of this, we can sometimes think that we’re going the right way, the way that “feels” right, when, in fact, we are moving farther away from God.
Baptism does unite us to the Body of Christ. And we certainly do have a right to claim Christ as our Lord and Savior through Baptism. And yet, Jesus also said in today’s Gospel, that simply being close to Him is not enough. Recall that some said, “‘“We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets,”’” but even this is not satisfactory. We cannot simply have a free pass because we have Baptism and the sacramental life of the Church, right doctrine, and governance by the successor of St. Peter, the Pope. No, we must strive, each day, by the grace given in those sacraments, to unite our lives more and more to Jesus’ life, and live like He did.
The Second Vatican Council affirmed this, when it stated in Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, that, “He is not saved, however, who though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a ‘bodily’ manner and not ‘in his heart. […]If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved, but they will be the more severely judged.’” Simply receiving the sacraments and going to Mass on Sunday, simply as routine, are not enough. The Lord wants more of us. In fact, he wants all of us. He loves us so much that He wants us to respond to His grace and not just give lip service to our faith, so that we can enjoy eternal happiness with Him forever in heaven.
So how do we respond to the graces? We still have to receive the sacraments and go to Mass, but we need to be open to the graces and let them change us, and after the graces have changed us, start to change the world so that it reflects the Gospel. We are called to evangelize: to take the prophetic graces we receive in Baptism, and critique and offer advice on how to change the world so that the poor are justly assisted; the rights of all human beings, from natural conception to natural death, are protected; the building block of society, the family, is upheld according to God’s plan for marriage and family life. This can be done in conversation and correspondence with family, co-workers, and our government representatives, and in many other ways, all with the motive of speaking the truth in love.
As Jesus said, it is not enough that we eat and drink with him. We must take the great grace of being His brother or sister and spread His love, His truth, His way to others so that we and they will be on the narrow road to salvation, guided by the GPS of the Church and the graces which flow from her, a GPS which does not lead us astray, so that we can recline at table in the Kingdom of God with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets and saints.
