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He’s cautioned us about greed in his
parable of the rich man who piled up excess grain. He told us the story of a
prudent servant who did everything that the Master commanded, reminding us that
much will be required of the person entrusted with much and still more will be
demanded of the person entrusted with more.
Father Joseph preached last week that to
pray that others change their ways is self-centered prayer. Praying that we
change ourselves bears much more fruit.
The Prophet Isaiah sets up this week’s
message by reminding us that the Lord “knows (our) works and (our) thoughts.”
Yes, the Lord knows us well.
Isaiah’s words this week are lifegiving
and foreshadow Christ gathering all the nations to worship in the New Jerusalem.
Not just the Israelites who saw themselves as blessed solely based on God’s
covenant with Abraham.
Isaiah reminds those returning from
Babylonian exile of their need to return to the covenant, to return to their
unique relationship with God, to do the things commanded by the covenant.
We’re hearing the uplifting parts of
this warning in Isaiah. But read ahead and you will see what happens to those
who do not return to the covenant.
One bible scholar says, “This bright
prospect has a dark side too. The corpses of the wicked will burn and be eaten
by worms forever, as a spectacle for the rest of humanity… this passage is
rightly seen as a precedent for hell, because it attempts to describe an
unending punishment of the wicked.[1]”
This is not a threat, but a reminder of
the forever life we have with Jesus, and the torment that will come for those
who do not follow God’s designs for “new heavens and a new earth.”
I know this sounds a little fire and
brimstone. But in the context of this reading, we can now see what Jesus is
trying to teach us this weekend.
Jesus gives us a challenging parable,
reminding us that just because we come to Mass every week and enjoy fellowship
together, it is not enough. We are commanded to do more.
Former Seattle Auxiliary Bishop Daniel
Mueggenborg wrote about this passage, saying, “no one has ever been declared a
saint because of what they know (or how they worship), but because of how their
lives were conformed to Jesus.”
This transformation should be a lifelong
pursuit for all Christians. “If people are not striving for holiness each day,
then they have become complacent in their discipleship.”
Complacency is the greatest threat to
our life of faith.
Have we allowed ourselves to become
complacent Christians? (PAUSE)
Catholic nun Sr. Peg Dolan once wrote, “each of us is a word of God spoken only once.” Let me repeat that, “each of us is a word of God spoken only once.”
Sr. Peg defined what that means, saying,
”We have a word to speak with our lives, and if we do not speak it, it may
never be heard."
What is the word you have to speak with
your life?
What mission has God uniquely called you
to fulfill in your efforts to strive for holiness?
It is different for each one of us and
an opportunity for us to take this to our daily prayer life as we break out of
our complacency and strive for deeper holiness.
Today, Jesus presents us with an image
of the “narrow gate” and challenges us to strive to enter it with our thoughts,
words, and actions in this earthly life.
In the time of Jesus, the “narrow gate”
was the only passageway into ancient cities. The idea was that soldiers needed
to dismount their horses, shed their armor, discard excess baggage in order to
enter the city.
“The narrow door was meant to prevent
enemy fighters from entering the city in a hostile way.”
This, my brothers and sisters, is a
great way to understand what Jesus is telling us in this parable. “To enter
through the (narrow gate) is to enter through the person of Jesus… This process
involves shedding what should not be part of the Lord’s kingdom, letting go of
our false senses of security and dropping the baggage that weighs us down and
keeps us from following the Lord in freedom.”
Jesus uses as his example a story of a
Master who has locked the door, leaving many outside, pounding on the door,
saying, but “We ate with you and drank in your company; (and) you taught us”
Lord.
The
Master says, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evil
doers!”
This troubling passage should be a
reminder that it is not enough to just show up at Mass, eat and drink, and then
return to your life unchanged.
Jesus wants us to remember that when “We
receive His body and Blood in the Eucharist and we listen to Him speak His word
in Scripture… it is not enough to receive those gifts of grace. We also have to
respond to those gifts of grace.”
We need to become Doers of Good and never
Doers of Evil.
Too many Christians are only concerned
about what God can do for us. The proper response to the gifts of grace given
us is to respond by becoming the living presence of Christ in the world today.
We must conform our life to Jesus each
and every day and never grow weary of striving for holiness in all our words,
all our thoughts, all our actions. This is the personal conversion we are each
called to pray for every day.
Today, the Lord is revealing the
shallowness of those who think they already have a privileged place in the
Kingdom of God. “This false belief is known as spiritual elitism and is
dangerous.” This is a temptation we must resist.
“(Today’s)
passage challenges us to recognize that the blessings we receive require from
us a greater response and not a lesser response.”
If the last can become first in the time
of Jesus, if a sinner suffering on the cross next to Jesus can turn to the
Lord, then it is also true that the first can become the last if we are
spiritually blind to the need to constantly strive for holiness every day, by
working on our own sinfulness, our own complacency, our own spiritual elitism.
For each of us, there is plenty to work
on there.
I leave you with this prayer from the
Catherine of Siena Institute,
“Jesus, you are the Lord of the Harvest
and the Lord of Gifts. Grant us the grace to see the harvest before us. Help us
to know our charisms you and the Holy Spirit give us to join you in this
mission. Give us the courage to lift our gaze, to say yes to these gifts and to
go where you send us. We ask this in your Most Holy Name. Amen”
[1]
Dianne Bergant and Robert J. Karris, The Collegeville
Bible Commentary: Based on the New American Bible with Revised New Testament
(Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1989), 452.
