Richard Bollman, S.J.

21^st SUNDAY of the Year

Isaiah 66:18-23 / Hebrews 12:18-24 / Luke 13:22-30

The Letter to the Hebrews is an early Christian document written to devout Jews,

to put the revelation of Jesus in the context of the earlier covenant events.

Simply put, how to explain where Jesus fits,

and how the new way of worship fits.

The place of Jesus is explained in contrast

to the events of the Exodus and of Sinai,

declaring that past events were the symbolic preparation for Jesus.

Today’s selection, for example, recalls the terror and earthquake and fire

that shook the people when Moses was on Mount Sinai

and the first covenant was engraved in stone.

The new covenant is the spiritual realization of that covenant,

a new mountain, the heavenly Jerusalem, gracious and beautiful.

Of course, this new covenant is open to those who are not Jews,

who have never been Jews, people like ourselves.

Even the Jewish prophets provide visions of this great new gathering,

as in Isaiah today, where people of all kinds and from strange distant places

find themselves drawn to the place of true worship,

having heard about the wonders of the Lord’s presence.

These are the closing passages of the Book of Isaiah.

So both the prophet and the letter to the Hebrews

attempt to expand the vision of Judaism, beyond its exclusivity.

The Gospel story shows Jesus breaking down this old sense of entitlement too:

Jewish identity alone is not a ticket to salvation.

Or, for ourselves, we need to understand that

just being a Christian and honoring Jesus

is not a guarantee of eternal life.

HOMILY. 21^st Sunday, 2007, "The Narrow Door"

We need to look carefully here, to get the context.

I find it good to start with the first sentence.

"Jesus went on his way, through towns and villages, teaching

and journeying toward Jerusalem."

That is to say, Jesus was intent on his calling, intent on meeting his own life,

the ache of it, the hope of it, not rejecting any part or hiding even from death.

That’s the journey to Jerusalem.

And he was teaching what he believed.

He awakened disciples by being compassionately and clearly

interested in them, concerned for them, and us,

in tune with our hungers and our own hopes, our wounds even.

He insisted that God is abundant and that there is food for everybody,

spiritual food and food for a good human life.

He named our sins but did not want people to carry them in shame or be burdened

because the gift of grace is more powerful than our sinfulness.

He kept insisting that the reign of God is opening up for us now.

So it was: he went on his way through towns and villages

teaching and journeying to Jerusalem.

You remember this from Sunday to Sunday, right?

In that context the question from the crowd is really, you might say,

off the mark: will those who are be saved be few?

It’s a question about the old system of entitlement by ethnic belonging,

the special group, the chosen people.

In other words, what about me? Can I count on being among the blessed . . . .

And will that include everybody: who besides me?

Surely not those other people, the aliens and enemies . . . .

It’s a question coming from a consciousness that has not been paying attention

to the very different concerns of Jesus that I summarized above.

It’s looking to future success and not the present moment of grace and struggle.

It’s not hard to recognize this thought process.

Picture yourself standing at the door to life itself, that precious opening,

and you point to yourself: hey, am I ready to come in yet?

The story is told of Jack Kerouac, the beat poet and seeker, you recall,

from the 50's and 60's–setting out for a wilderness trip in the southwest,

and he wrote to a friend,

"If I don’t get a vision on Desolation Mountain,

then my name ain’t William Blake."

But his later words acknowledged how much he had missed about seeking.

"I’d thought when I got to the top, and everybody leaves . . . .

I will come face to face with God or Buddha and find out once and for all

what is the meaning of all this existence and suffering . . . . but instead

I’d come face to face with myself, no liquor, no drugs, no chance of faking it,

face to face with ole Hateful Me."

To such a person, Jesus’ next words make perfect sense–

strive to enter by the narrow door!!

Kerouac had found the narrow door, this self-recognition without faking it.

He had located something of his true struggle.

The word in the Greek of the Lucan Gospel, the word Jesus uses,

is to engage in your AGON, your striving, from which we get the word for agony,

and also for the actor in a drama, the protagonist.

The question from the sidelines about who’s going to be saved

is an effort to sidestep our essential struggle:

"hey look, I’ve belonged to a fairly decent culture,

a churchgoing family, a good parish,

I’ve had the best education, and I know all about you, Lord Jesus:

you remember, you taught in my school?

I’ve eaten and drunk at your table!"

What could be missing? Here, at the door of life.

ME, I could be missing. Moi?

The AGON, the battleground, that is unique and personal for each of us.

We need to enter through our struggle, not around it,

to go through what is ours to contend with. Where we can’t fake it.

How does this happen for people, getting to the mountain top

and finding that old self you thought was no longer part of you.

It happens in our relationships, surely,

that maybe third or fourth year of marriage; and there you are,

suspicious, indifferent, or burying resentments.

Okay now I’m here, now my life is in front of me, in front of us.

This is not the end, but the beginning again.

It happens in your work, where your success is terrific and exciting

and you want to tell God himself how many people are going to be saved:

and then you find that you are driving people crazy with your arrogance.

It happens sometimes even among young people when the tears of a class member,

tears you have caused in a person you hardly think about,

with a remark you found easy to throw out for entertainment, and

suddenly your world is different: you can no longer pretend

that a clueless little fat kid kid is not important. And it shocks you.

Your world is not only different, it is larger. You have to start including people.

You see these moments of embarrassing self-discovery

are actually the sacred well we’ve been looking for.

It’s worth climbing the mountain to find it.

It’s waking up to yourself.

Our Buddhist friends have this great teaching, that the journey is essentially

appreciating exactly who you really are

and breathing out upon yourself the breath of compassion and mercy.

Both parts are important: not to hide, and not to get down on yourself.

And to move from there toward a new appreciation of other people,

your intimate friends, your neighbors, across the boundaries,

seeing the struggle that we all have

in mercy and compassion. We are all in it together.

And all is grace.

Or, in the teaching of Jesus, this is the call to trust the compassion of God

even as we allow our tears to fall for what we cannot accomplish as we’d like.

It’s the summons to love our neighbor as ourselves because we are the same.

The boundaries are not necessary: race, gender, nationality, age.

It comes to this: if we’re always trying to succeed, to get God on our side,

by being good, by being a member of the club,

then we miss the essence of our journey, our calling, our mission in life.

We don’t know who we are.

But as we contend with the life and person we truly are given to live,

we shall know how close the kingdom of God really is,

where the last will be first.