Message of Abbot Paul - Sunday 21st August

 There’s nothing worse than being ignored. It sometimes happens at a counter, when the assistant who should be serving you just keeps talking to another member of staff. Almost as bad is trying to get through to someone on the phone and being told that all the lines are busy and that you have been put into a queue. To add insult to injury, you are probably paying for the call. In the Gospels there are several parables and stories where the entrance has been locked and some unfortunate people are clamouring to get in and being told, “Go away. I don’t know who you are.” To be told by God, who knows us through and through, that he no longer knows us, is by far the bleakest place in which to be. We find one such case in today’s Gospel from Luke, (Lk 13: 22-30). But what is this all about? 

We remember that in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that he is the door of the sheepfold. He also says that he is the doorkeeper, and that he is the way, the truth and the life. I have always found that John is the key to understanding the Synoptics. So when we read the first paragraph of today’s Gospel passage, we immediately begin to get the message. Here is the text. “Through towns and villages Jesus went teaching, making his way to Jerusalem. Someone said to him, ‘Sir, will there be only a few saved?’ He said to them, ‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.” Jesus himself is the narrow door through which we enter the kingdom of heaven. To enter that door, we have to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour and surrender our lives to him through faith and baptism, and obedience to his commandments. It’s really as simple as that. We remember the parable of the Ten Virgins or Bridesmaids. The five foolish ones, who didn’t take oil along for their lamps, were unprepared, they hadn’t taken their relationship with Jesus seriously, but Jesus demands our all, albeit lovingly. No matter how merciful God is, he still asks us to do our part. Salvation, the kingdom of heaven, is a gift, the Father’s gift to us in Jesus through his Spirit, but it doesn’t come cheaply. The great Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who died a martyr in 1945 for his opposition to the Nazi government, wrote of the phenomenon of half-hearted Christians wanting ‘cheap grace’.

 So Jesus warns us today against the temptation to go for ‘cheap grace’ without making our own contribution of self-giving in response to the self-emptying sacrifice of Christ. God loved us first, but his love demands the response of love freely given in joy and thanksgiving. In the specific context of this Gospel passage, Jesus is speaking of his countrymen and co-religionists who will not accept him as Messiah and refuse to walk the path of discipleship. Read in our own context, he would be referring to all those who do not put the reign of God first in their lives. In Matthew we read, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice (righteousness), and all these things will be added to you.” (Mt 6: 33). We must invite God to take possession of our lives, hand back to him the gift of life he has given us. This is why Jesus concludes by saying, “There are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.” Are you living the enigma of being a Christian? May God be merciful to both first and last.