Dear Sisters, dear brethren, the Gospel passage we have just listened to began with an interesting question, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ But what does the question actually mean? For a start, what does the questioner mean by the word ‘saved’? Saved from what? Saved for what? It is not clear. There are many contexts in which such a word might be used. For instance, in a time such as that when Our Lord was on the earth, rumours of war were never far away. There was a constant swell of excitement among many Jewish people that the kingdom of David and Solomon, the glory days, were about to be brought back by a glorious revolution in which someone would emerge as a leader who would gather the people, arm the men and drive out the Roman occupiers from Jerusalem and Judea and, hopefully, all Israel. In such a case, would many men fall in the coming war? Would many women and children be made widowed, orphaned, even homeless? We really need to remember that there were many people who thought that our Lord was just that sort of emerging leader. The word ‘Messiah’, which we know belongs to our Lord, was a word often taken to mean a king. This is because the word ‘Messiah’ means ‘the Anointed One’, which is a description of someone who is anointed with holy oil to be a sacred leader of his people. Anointing was the rite, for instance, in which kings were consecrated for their duty as divinely appointed leaders of their people, especially in war. Even now in our own land, a king or queen is anointed as part of the coronation ceremony at the beginning of their reign, a rite taken from the Old Testament kings of Israel.
But of course you know that in our Lord’s day there was no king in Israel. There had been no king for centuries. Israel had been conquered by a series of foreign pagan powers, and the most recent of those was the Romans. Throughout the years of our Lord’s ministry in Israel, many people looked to Him as a possible charismatic leader who would lead a rebellion and set up the kingship once more. Don’t forget, too, that when our Lord was eventually brought to His execution on Calvary, the accusation over His head was: ‘this is Jesus, the King of the Jews’. Because that was how His enemies wanted the Romans to see Him, as a failed Messiah, a failed revolutionary leader against Roman rule. Another reason why this interpretation is possible is the fact which St Luke tells us that Jesus was gradually making His way to Jerusalem. He was making a name for Himself. He was gathering followers and admirers. Might He not be preparing to make a bid for the kingship? It is possible that the questioner who was asking ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ was trying to assess if a very bloody war of independence was coming. Perhaps many men would be killed.
Of course, we know that this was not our Lord’s true calling. On trial before the Roman governor, who actually asked Him if He was a king, Jesus replied, ‘I am a king. For this I was born…but my kingship is not of this world. If my kingship were of this world my servants would be fighting now to prevent me from being handed over to you, but this is not the kind of kingship I hold.’
Or again, it may be that the questioner had another idea in mind. Jesus was known as a teacher as well as a man of great power shown by His wonderful miracles of healing and raising the dead. Yet He seemed not to be remotely interested in leading a rebellion, but rather in renewing the religious life of the Jewish people along the lines of the teaching of the prophets of old. Perhaps the questioner was thinking of the religious life of his fellow-Jews at that time. Could many of them be saved from God’s anger on account of their constant unfaithfulness? If so, how would they know whether they were safe from God’s judgement and condemnation?
Well, our Lord’s reply seems to us at first to avoid directly answering the question. He doesn’t say yes or no, nor does He do what He often does elsewhere - put a question back to His questioner. Instead He does something else: He gives an unexpected instruction to the questioner: ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door.’ What does our Lord mean by this command? It is obvious that this is something difficult, because one does not need to strive to do something easy or straightforward. It also turns the question back to the questioner because it is designed to make him think, ‘what do I need to do myself in order to be saved?’ Whatever his idea of being saved is, it is something that he must strive to achieve, and not simply wait to see if it will happen by divine providence. So what does Jesus mean by the ‘narrow door’? Well, a narrow door is not a grand entrance. It is not a triumphant way. It denotes humility. It draws no attention to itself or to those who use it. But a door also allows you to pass from one place to another, or from one state to another. In this case, the narrow, unfavoured, humble door allows you to enter into a state you desire and long for, but not one that you can expect to enter without striving to do so.
We need to reflect on this saying of our Lord’s with care. If we reflect that ‘being saved’ means more than anything else ‘entering into heavenly joy’, then we must be careful not to assume that we can enter into heaven without striving to do so.
We all know that at the end of life we must die. We do not always reflect that what happens to us after death is not so certain as death itself. How many people naturally assume that after death comes heaven? That we can just walk in by the open door? That is not what Jesus wants us to make the mistake of thinking. The idea of the narrow door is the life of grace. This means a life which is made possible and is shaped by God’s grace, His power and love in the sacraments, but which must be made fruitful by the way we use that grace. It is like this: God wants us to be craftsmen using our own lives like raw material. In order to be craftsmen we need certain tools. A carpenter without tools could do nothing to shape wood. God wants us to be like carpenters, and our own lives are the wood, the raw material out of which we shape our lives to His will and our best form. He therefore gives us the tools without which we could not be such craftsmen. Those tools are His graces, especially the graces of the Sacraments which we can use to shape our lives, our hearts and minds according to His will and His plan for us. If we do not use those graces, those sacraments, then we will be entirely unable to shape our lives as God wills and so we will be unable to enter the narrow door which leads us to heaven.
The danger which Jesus warns us to avoid is to assume that we can do all this by ourselves. That we can ‘do it my way’, to quote a famous song. No. We cannot get into heaven by doing anything ‘our’ way, only by doing it God’s way. That is because we cannot shape ourselves properly except by God’s help. So Jesus warns against thinking we can just turn up at the door of heaven and get in by saying to Him, ‘Hello Lord! Here I am!’ to which He may well reply, ‘I do not know where you come from’. We sometimes say of people that we do or don’t know ‘where they are coming from’, meaning what motivates them, what empowers them, what gives their actions and words purpose. Jesus is saying today to the questioner asking Him if many will be saved: ‘don’t ask that question, instead ask yourself this question: how will I be saved?’ That is the one question that truly matters. In order to be saved, we must not make the mistake of relying on ourselves, on assuming that, because we think ourselves good, therefore God will also think us good enough to enter the narrow door into heaven.
So, pray always for what we call ‘final perseverance’, the gift of God to remain faithful to His grace until the end of this life. Pray also for those who have given up trying to follow God’s way and to use the tools of His grace. May they return to the way that leads to the narrow door. Amen.
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