Readings for Sunday 8/22/2010

Readings for Sunday 8/22/2010 Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Summary of the Gospel

Our Gospel passage for this Sunday poses the most important question that will ever be asked: Who will be saved? When we talk about being ‘saved’, we mean getting to heaven at the end of our life. Before we look at Jesus’ response, it is important to keep in mind what Jesus did not say about salvation. He didn’t say everyone will be saved; He didn’t say that no one will be saved; He didn’t tell us how many will be saved. Instead of giving us a count, Jesus tells us how to be saved. Jesus says that we will go to heaven when we choose to enter through the ‘narrow gate’. In other words, if we want to go to heaven, we have to be willing to do what few people are willing to do. We have to be willing to go against what everyone else is doing and have the courage to be different than them. Salvation requires a total focus on the goal, eternal life with Christ. Only a very few groups in our society understand this determination, but we hear it in the expression, ‘no pain, no gain’. Many athletes, business professionals, and even a handful of students understand it, but often times their focus is on things that pass away, that are temporary. They lose their focus of things that are eternal, and unfortunately make their short-term goals more important than their long-term goals. Jesus says that this same determination needs to be channeled and put towards our pursuit of heaven. Of all the things in our life that will last the longest, it is heaven. Our culture today does everything it can to get us focused on the here and now. We are constantly being chased for our money, so we can buy stuff and have immediate gratification. Immediate gratification does not lead to Jesus. If we want to be saved, we have to train ourselves to desire the things that come with work. This will help us put our focus on eternity. After Jesus invites us to enter through the ‘narrow gate’, He makes it a point to say that, even though many people spend time with Him, just ‘hanging out’ with Jesus will not save us. What is required is that we change our being; we have a true conversion of heart. Spending time with Jesus, without changing ourselves, will count as nothing. If we do not allow Jesus to change our hearts, then we will have wasted our time on earth. Jesus uses strong language here, describing these people as ‘evildoers’. In a certain sense, what He is saying is that, if you are not doing well, you are doing no-good! What a shame it would be if we heard this Gospel and did nothing with it. All of us, no matter how long we have been following Jesus, must recommit ourselves to the ‘narrow road’. Jesus showed us this way when He suffered and died. The Cross is our map to the ‘narrow road’. May we have the courage to trust Jesus completely with that path, and that we never count the cost – even if it costs us our life!
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Reading 1 Isaiah 66:18-21

18 Thus says the LORD: I know their works and their thoughts, and I come to gather nations of every language; they shall come and see my glory. 19 I will set a sign among them; from them I will send fugitives to the nations: to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan, to the distant coastlands that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations. 20 They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the LORD, on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries, to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD, just as the Israelites bring their offering to the house of the LORD in clean vessels. 21 Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.

Reading 2 Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13

5 Brothers and sisters, You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children: “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; 6 for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges.” 7 Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline? 11 At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it. 12 So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. 13 Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

Gospel Luke 13:22-30

22 Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
23 Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. 25 After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.
26 And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ 27 Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ 28 And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. 30 For behold, some are last who will be first,and some are first who will be last.”

Questions for Discussion:

1. In what way do the Saints and martyrs show us the ‘narrow road’? Describe. Which Saints and martyrs have helped you the most to understand this path?

2. What does it mean, in terms of our daily actions, to be ‘entering through the narrow gate’? How does society try to influence us to take the ‘wide gate’? Describe.

3. In terms of how you live your daily life, how can you better enter through the ‘narrow gate’? Describe