Homily for August 22, 2004
Year C - Cycle II
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 

Gospel:
Luke 13: 22- 24

". . . Jesus passed through the towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.  Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few people be saved?" He answered them, "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough."

I remind you of a story of a woman who had been use to every type of luxury and respect in this life. She dies. She arrived in heaven and an angel was sent to conduct her to her house. They passed many a lovely mansion. Each time they came to a lovely home, the woman thought that would be the one allotted to her.   After they passed through the main streets, they came to the outskirts of town where the houses were much smaller. She began to doubt. On the very fringe, they came to a house that was little more than a shack.  "This is your house," said the angel. "THAT?" said the woman. "THAT? I can't live in that."  "I'm sorry," said the angel "but that is all we could build with the material that you sent up."

In our faith, the faith of the church, passed down to us from the apostles, we believe that through his suffering, death and resurrection, Jesus gained for us salvation and the right to live eternally in heaven in the presence of God. This right we claim through baptism.  Our story doesn't end there. Our experience of eternal life will depend upon how we live our lives in the present.  Jesus was addressing this when he issued the warning to the people who thought that they, and they alone, had it made because they were descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They knew the law and they followed every prescription of it.  So Jesus' message is a message of good news. It is a message that the kingdom of God has arrived.  A new age of salvation is here.  It has come to the present age.  Entry into this new age of salvation does not depend upon our pedigree or the legalistic fall line of a set of rules. Jesus warns us that we can only take advantage of salvation if we focus our lives in becoming spiritually strong.  He tell us, "Strive to enter through the narrow gates for many I tell you will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough." There is a similar exhortation in Mathew's gospels that broadens it just a little bit more. There, Jesus says. "Enter through the narrow gates for the gate to hell is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction and those that enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life and those that find it are few."

So how do we focus our lives to be spiritually strong? Now, down through the ages. we have a word for this focusing and it goes by the name of MORALITY-striving to live a moral life. It is not just our actions that are important here.  It is the reason behind those actions. It has to do with our choices.  Morality is concerned with the bases of which we make our free choices.  Things like, "Am I going to chose to hang onto my anger or am I going to let it go?  Am I going to forget or am I not? Am I going to do some kindness or am I not?"

I think C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity expresses these thoughts with great insight.  He says, "People often think of Christian morality as kind of a bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules, I will reward you and if you don't, I'll do the other thing.'"  Lewis goes on to say, "I don't think that's the best way of looking at it.  I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life at a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself.  To be the one kind of creature is heaven:  that is joy and peace and knowledge and power.  To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other. "

We can conclude that morality is not a game.  It is not external but is deeply internal addressing the central part of us that we can call the cave of the heart. It is in this cave we come to grips with our choices.  Choices that will eventually determine what our experience of eternal life will be. It is because we will live forever that our choices are so important.  Lewis is taking his leave from Jesus who says that there is no middle ground and that we will end up in one state or the other depending on the direction that we are headed.  We need to ask ourselves "are we getting better or are we getting worse?"

From Henri Nouwan, we learn that this discipline of the heart, this striving to make good choices, helps us to let God into that cave of our hearts and the deepest recesses of our being. As God becomes known to us there, then we know we are not alone. Our helper resides with us and within us. To strengthen us in our striving to live a moral life, we are given spiritual food.  This food strengthens us in our choices. It also strengthens us to see our connection with the hearts of our fellow men and women.  To a great extent, our choices on how we live our lives have grave consequences.  For it is here where we build our future, where we build our experience of eternal life and where we find God. It is how we experience our fellow man or woman and how we find our very self.

It is important to remember that our choices do matter.  They lead us either through the narrow gate that leads to heaven or through the wide gate that does not.