C Cycle – 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time 25

Lk. 13:22-30

Jesus was going from village to village, teaching as he went along.  His words were powerful and extremely different from anything the people heard each week as they gathered for the sabbath.  We do know from the scriptures; Jesus chastised the Pharisees because they “put heavy burdens” on the people.  Burdens put a barrier between themselves and God.  A barrier which made them wonder if they were worthy to be “saved.”   That feeling of unworthiness was behind the question that person asked Jesus. What must we do to be saved?  

But the Pharisees were guilty of more than placing heavy burdens on the people. Their teachings emphasized struct adherence to the laws and rituals. External acts the Pharisees themselves strictly followed. Yet, Jesus bluntly told them their ability to do that was gaining them nothing because their hearts were far from God. It is no wonder that question was asked because they depended on obedience to the law to define their relationship with God. Obedience to the law did not help them change their tendency to sin. Somewhere along the way those teachers of the law lost sight of what King David’s discovered. Perhaps we have also been focused on the wrong things and need to discover what King David expressed in one of his psyches.  He emphasized greater sacrifice than lambs and burn offerings.  He said what God desires most is “…a broken spirit; and a contrite heart” (Ps.51:17T),

The issues are not what we are doing but where our hearts are when we are doing it. Following the laws and rituals are necessary but if that is our measure of doing God’s will we are deceiving ourselves.  That deception is the wide gate, the road most traveled, and Jesus is telling us it leaves us wondering if it was enough.  It does not allow us to be transformed. God desires our hearts not our sacrifices or our attempts to gain points and God’s approval. The law is necessary in our faith formation, particularly our early faith formation.  But we are no longer children, we are well past the age where we need the discipline of the law. 

Acceding to Paul we are now under the law of the Spirit who will immediately stir win our hearts when we fall short of what God desires.  God through the prophet Ezekiel told us the Spirit would change our hearts.  Transform our hearts into hearts that know what God desires and give us the ability to follow that will.  Following the law is easier than we believe because all it requires of us is discipline.   The narrow gate Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel is surrendering our will to the only thing that empowers us to do God’s will. By embracing the promise of Jesus to send us the Spirit who will guide us and teach us, form us, and change our hearts to desire to do God’s will.

  The real issue for us today is we cannot get past feeling we are not pleasing God because we are content striving to attain everlasting life. We wonder if we are doing enough because we know we know our shortcomings but we do need to pay attention to Christ’s answer.  The truth is we are too comfortable with living our lives guided by obedience instead of God’s mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus.  What is our response to His sacrifice? It should be to embrace it and learn to live a life based on that sacrifice.  If we fail to do that, we have become today’s Pharisees. We are missing living a life based on the following the Spirit of the law. 

Jesus tells us to enter through the narrow gate knowing it is a journey we cannot control.  It is a disciple’s journey, never knowing what is coming next.  Consider the disciples when they were told to go out and cast our demons, heal the sick and proclaim the good news.  That was early in their discipleship formation.  The Chosen depicts that moment perfectly because they were confused, uncertain and believe that task impossible for them.  Or consider when Jesus fed the five thousand. Before, he acted He told them to feed them to feed them themselves 

We must accept the fact that the law was our disciplinarian until the law of the Spirit was given to us.  God has always given us a choice of embrace what He wants to give us or reject it and go on believing we are on the right track, just as the Pharisees did.  That choice is still before us, and Jesus says the narrow gate is the right choice, but few will choose it over the wide gate. But we want to know what I must do, and Jesus is clear there is only one choice.   It is a hard choice to make because it demands blind faith in things that cannot be seen in advance. 

But it is one that is filled with the presence of God and the power of the Spirit providing all we need to be effective witnesses and disciples knowing God is with us.