The formation of the disciples of Jesus intensifies in the lengthy account by Saint Luke of the journey of Jesus toward Jerusalem as the focal place of his saving mission. It dramatizes life for his followers as a pilgrimage where the only sure route is the way personified by Jesus (Luke 13:22-30).
No favorites
“Will only a few people be saved?” The question addressed to Jesus by a man originated from the prevailing view then that only a few would actually be saved. The man was, perhaps, not even worried that he might not be saved, but was just looking for some personal affirmation. The Jews as Abraham’s descendants considered salvation as their birthright. They were the “few,” while the many others to be excluded were the tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners and gentiles.
Jesus did not give the usual and expected answer that “all children of Abraham” would have a guaranteed place in the coming kingdom of God. First of all, salvation is offered to all without exception. In God’s universal love there are no favorites. There are no privileged heirs apparent to the kingdom. The First Reading (Isaiah 66:18-21) tells of God who gathers all nations to His holy city, where people once considered unclean would be performing sacred functions. Open to all peoples and races, the saving love of God is inclusive, not exclusive.
The narrow gate
Seeing themselves as God’s only elect, the assumption of the Jews had become a presumptuousness that they would, of course, be saved. Jesus warned all then, as He warns us today, about the narrow gate. The kingdom of God has only a narrow gate which is not easily entered and which will not be open indefinitely. “Many will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” Though everyone may be invited, not everyone will be strong enough to actually make it. There is no intention here to quantify the number of people who will be saved, and so it is futile to specify any number in some sort of a heavenly census of the saved as some religious groups have been claiming.
Many will turn away from the narrow gate because it means the difficult way of the cross. There are people who will not accept Jesus and His cross. But it is a prerequisite to salvation that one must follow Jesus and carry one’s cross (Luke 9:23-24). As we have seen in the previous Sundays, one must make the right choices: not hoarding wealth but rich in what matters to God, behaving as “faithful and prudent servants” waiting for the arrival of their master, even when it means being in a divisive conflict with others. Clearly, one cannot enter the narrow gate without effort, generosity, steadfastness and self-denial.
Alálaong bagá, lip service will gain nobody entrance into the kingdom of God. The incantation “Lord, Lord!” and “Praise the Lord!” means nothing unless in the context of a committed Christian way of life. Locked out of the kingdom are those who cannot really claim to know Jesus and to be known by Jesus: only in the intimacy of love is one enabled to know Jesus as the Lord, and only through our deeds of love are we known for who we really are and where we are from. And mere familiarity with Jesus does not guarantee admission: listening to the words of Jesus without putting them into practice surely does not a Christian make, nor do inane rituals please God, for they wrong Him. Demanded is an authentic faith relationship with God manifested in the imitation of Jesus. We have to humbly open ourselves to the divine criteria in contradiction to the standards of the world. It would be a painful paradox to end up looking in from the outside and seeing at the table in the kingdom of God people from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, defying our ideas of who deserve to be saved. It is part of the gift of salvation that some who are thought last will be first, while some who are thought, or who think of themselves, as first will be last.
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