Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

You may have heard the story of the woman who went to see her rabbi and said. “Rabbi, I have something terrible to tell you. My husband is poisoning me.” The surprised rabbi asked, “How do you know that?” The woman replied, “I’m telling you, he’s poisoning me. What should I do?” The rabbi then suggested, “Let me talk to your husband.”

A week later the rabbi called the woman and said, “Well, I spoke to your husband, on the phone, for six hours. You want my advice? “The woman said “Of course”; the rabbi replied, “Take the poison.”

The moral of the story: when all else fails, counseling may help resolve conflicts!

The word of God today takes us back to the sixth century before Jesus (the 500s). In a vision, the author of Isaiah sees all men and women, from all nations, Jews as well as non-Jews, going up to Jerusalem into the temple, the symbol of the glory or presence of God, to worship together the one true God.

This vision invites us to recognize God’s likeness in all people, and to worship the one God, Creator of us all.

The letter to the Hebrews alludes to the age-old philosophical question, why do bad things happen to good people? Of course, there’s no satisfactory answer to human suffering and natural disasters like famines, injustices, storms, floods, fires, earthquakes.

The author proposes that hardships can help us realize our true selves as sons and daughters of God our Father.

Yes, inescapable suffering especially, accepted with trust in an all-good God and joined to the sufferings of Jesus, can be saving and healing for ourselves and others. And why do I say that? Because the sufferings of Jesus were precisely that—saving and healing for all.

In the Gospel, Jesus continues “on his way” (a code in Luke for his passion and death), and the disciples ask, “Will only a few people be saved?” Jesus indicates that many who think themselves respectable or high and mighty may not be first in line for the kingdom of God. And many who are considered disreputable and down and out will be the first ones included. God’s ways are not our ways.

Salvation is ultimately a gift from God, not something we earn. Jesus says that we have to struggle to enter through that symbolic “narrow gate” into the kingdom of God. To quote the Gospel according to John, Jesus is indeed the gate to eternal life: “the way, the truth and the life.”

Many people struggle through so-called narrow gates as they go through the cycle of human development from adolescence to young adulthood, the middle years and old age.

Many times, we can only go through the narrow passages or doors of life by letting go of our excess baggage, our fears and doubts, by realizing that God is with us as we open these doors into an uncertain future. Our faith in particular can sustain us, because it helps us overcome these fears and doubts, because it satisfies our basic needs. How is that?

Our faith fosters a healthy self-image. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and through baptism, we become living temples of God. God lives within us, and we live within God. He is closer to us than we are to ourselves. And people with a positive, healthy self-image generally engage in constructive behavior. No need to search far and wide or to worry: God is very close to you.

Second, our faith satisfies our longing for happiness. We are forever seeking the transcendent, something beyond ourselves that will give purpose to our lives. St. Augustine wrote, “O God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Within every human, being there is a subconscious quest for the ultimate, the all-good. We call this God. Our primary purpose is to live in a right relationship with God and one another. In the hereafter of heaven, we will see God face-to-face with all our yearnings for happiness satisfied.

Third, our faith gives us a sense of belonging. We are a community of believers who go back two thousand years, with heroes and heroines who inspire us as we go through some of the narrow gates of life, saints who encourage us in our pursuit of God and God’s pursuit of us.

We are linked together by a common bond of faith, grace, and baptism. We gather regularly to offer God gratitude and worship for our lives, to acknowledge our absolute dependency upon God our Creator and to ask God in the Our Father prayer to satisfy our basic needs for food, health, home, a respectable livelihood, and a good, peaceful society. These encounters with the triune God are wrapped up in the mystery of the sacraments.

We are a community not only of heroes and heroines but also of sinners and scoundrels. Not everyone is as good as we would like. Some are dysfunctional. We have to live with some messiness in life and muddle through as best we can. One even disappoints oneself sometimes. But when we fail, when we sin and jeopardize our relationship with God and one another, Jesus assures us that God’s mercy outweighs our failures. We struggle. But God gave us the sacraments of initiation, healing and service, grace and power to help us through these times of our lives.

Finally, our Catholic faith provides us with a guide in the Bible, with the best news ever: how God offers each one of us salvation through Jesus. The Bible contains poetry, prayers, songs, genealogies, history, prophecies, stories, exhortations, and teachings that demonstrate God’s unconditional love and forgiveness and acceptance of us. Jesus Christ gloriously alive is present in these scriptures proclaimed in our liturgies. God speaks to us, and we listen; we speak to God, and God listens.

Yes, as we go through the many narrow gates or doors of this life, with some fears and doubts during the cycle of life as disciples of Jesus—our way, our truth and our life--, our faith will sustain us so we may eventually enter safely that final gate into our eternal home with God.