Not your Condemnation of yourself, but your Acquittal by God: You’re God’s Ambassador, behave like one!
Our world today reels in sin and wallows in the darkness of unbelief. Thank goodness, it is not because there are so many bad people around, but simply because good people sit back and do nothing or not enough. How often does one hear, “we are all sinners”; “there is no good person left”; the world is in a terrible shape. The good news is that, these are all human judgments, not God’s. On the part of God, this is the message he has for us – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, . . . For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17).
The predilection for bad news is unchristian: Christ brought good news and not bad news. The good news from of old, which Isaiah announces today, is this: “They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, . . . Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the Lord” (Isaiah 66:20-21). This prophecy of Isaiah is true today and remains valid for every generation. The decree of the Lord for you and for me is to be a priest, not just a Catholic priest offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass, but a priest, through baptism, who offers a sacrifice of a righteous life and a heart and lips full of praise and thanksgiving for the wonders of God in your life and in the whole wide world!
Are you still doubtful that you are good enough to be the Lord’s instrument for spreading the good news? Hear what he, the Lord, says of you, according to Isaiah in our first reading: “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” (Isaiah 66:18). The best way to experience and feel the authenticity of this statement and prophecy is to look into your life and count your blessings. The fact that you still enjoy God’s blessings and graces are signs that your sins are not condemnations against you, but opportunities for greater things in stock for you. Yes, “they shall come and see my glory,” Isaiah says. This glory is indeed for those who come near enough to the Lord; those who do come near, will experience his glory in a spectacular way.
You know what? Hell and damnation only exist, when we refuse to come close to experience and enjoy the glory of the Lord. When Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41), he declares hell and damnation to be separation from, and God’s absence in someone’s life. When Jesus says, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34), he declares closeness to him to be heaven. So, when he says, through Isaiah today, “they shall come and see my glory,” how can anyone ask the question of today’s gospel: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” (Luke 13:22)?
Now, notice that Jesus, according to our gospel, is on his way to Jerusalem, when this question is put to him. But why is Jesus going to Jerusalem? For the Jews, there – Jerusalem – is the abode and dwelling place of God! Those in Jerusalem do not need to travel anywhere! In other words, closeness to God is heaven itself. The tragedy is to fail to see Jesus as God, and being in his company as heaven itself. Yet, Jesus leads the crowd to Jerusalem, to God’s dwelling, in order to show us how to foot heaven. Nonetheless, a question still arises about how many will be saved, instead of how will you and I be saved! Unfortunately, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” on the last day, if we failed to take seriously this advice.
At this juncture, a comic relief is not out of place, in order to show how dismissively some of us treat the question of heaven and hell. A Pentecostal pastor was preaching on today’s gospel, telling his congregation how there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in hell, for bad people. Right in front of him, on the pew, was an elderly lady laughing her head off. The pastor asked her the cause of her laughter. Then, she opened wide her mouth and pointing to it, she said to the pastor: see, I have no teeth, the gnashing of teeth in hell excludes me! In reply, the pastor assured her: on that day, teeth will be provided for you!
It is now time to add an essential detail about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, to meet God, in God’s house, which is missing above. The detail is this: Jesus goes to die in Jerusalem, in order to be with God. So the road to Jerusalem is a narrow road, it is a road less traveled. It is like a cemetery: people are dying to get in! But hear what they were saying, those who did not make heaven: “we ate with you, you taught in our streets!” Very true, but where were they “walking,” when the Lord did his walking? “I’m the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), does not literally mean walking on foot, or whatever your means of transportation may be. It is a moral road travel down with one’s life. Just pick up Psalm 1:1-2: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” To “walk,” therefore, is a metaphor for “right-living,” according to God’s purposes for his sons and daughters. No wonder the Jews talk about halakhot – “walks,” from the Hebrew verb halak, which means “to walk.” For the Jews, halakhot is the book which contains the rules of how to behave or to live one’s life.
The actual problem of a Christian today is that of “familiarity breeds contempt”: I sinned yesterday and the day before, yet I’m still alive today; does God punish sins? Bad people are doing well, and good people are suffering; why remain good? We completely forget the second sentence of today’s first reading, the fact that we are ambassadors and bearers of God’s good news to the whole world: “I will set a sign among them; from them I will send fugitives to the nations . . . to the distant coastlands that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory; and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations” (Isaiah 66:19). Your job and mine is to declare the glory of the Lord upon earth, especially to radiate it among those whom we work and living!
Not our condemnation of ourselves, but our acquittal by God: we’re God’s ambassadors, let’s behave like one! God’s ambassador is one who walks the way Christ walked down the streets of the planet earth. It means being courageous in the face of trials and temptation; it signifies the realization that moral rectitude is indispensable in the life of a Christian. Indeed, it connotes asking the right questions about life and living: what shall I do in order to be saved?
The encouraging line of the gospel is this: “For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30). This is to say, no one comes late to God, as long as he or she is still alive on earth, as long as he or she perseveres in doing what is right. However, there is a strategy for making sure that one makes heaven, and one walks the narrow path of life – discipline, discipline, discipline. How nice to talk about discipline this week, while we enjoy the successes of athletes and sportsmen and women at the Rio Olympics in Brazil.
The greatest tragedy that can befall a Christian is the refusal to accept discipline from God, as the necessary stamina for walking as a child of God. Our second reading puts it this way: “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” (Hebrews 12:11). Of course, we all love to seat back and watch the Rio Olympics, especially the decorations of successful athletes and the medals they’ve won. We identify with successful athletes, when they come from our countries, families or friends. Success, indeed, has many children; as for failure, it is an orphan. But at what price does success come, if not through discipline?
The moral rectitude expected of a Christian does not come cheap, it requires discipline; no cross, no crown. The Christian approach to it is the acceptance of this discipline for the glory that lays ahead; to believe that something good will come off our discipline or sufferings. In the words of our second reading: “Endure your trials as ‘discipline’; God treats you as sons [and daughters]” (Hebrews 12:7). There is an imitation of Christ implied here. We need to imitate Christ’s sufferings in order to be both sons and daughters of God, as well as to gain eternal life or the reward of heaven. Looked at from a different perspective, what makes you and I children of God is our conformity to God, in the image of his Son, Jesus Christ.
We need to put a statement, in the gospel, in right perspective. Here is that statement, in its Greek original: Κύριε, εἰ ὀλίγοι οἱ σῳζόμενοι – “O Lord, are they few being saved?” What is fascinating about this translation is that salvation is progressive; that is, it is the passive form of the present continuous tense that is used – σῳζόμενοι (being saved). The attainment of salvation is an on-going process that only comes to an end at death, “when the master of the house rises to shut the door” (Luke 13:25). Before the door is shut, before we quit the planet earth, there is a job God expects of us: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough” (Luke 13:24). This means that whatever you and I do, every single day of our lives, matter because our activities either draw us closer to God or pull us away from God. “The first being last and the last being first” depends on our actions; not by our might, but by God’s grace and our cooperation with God’s grace. Athletes at olympics start out all at once, but they arrive at the finishing line at different times. Race for the finishing line of heaven, while making sure to do it in recorded time and timely fashion?
Assignment for the week:
Consider yourself as Christ’s ambassador to all whom you will meet this week: what PR will you maintain to prove God’s love for them or make Christianity attractive to them?
This is a very nice homily with the current and existential blend. The aspect of Christian rejection of discipline is a reality that must be stressed more, as you rightly gave example with the current Olympic games at Rio in Brazil, we as ambassadors of Christ should learn discipline from athletes which is the way to their victories. Good homily with much thought provoking insights.