By Deacon Jerry Franzen – Cathedral 8/21/16
Isaiah 66:18-21 Hebrews12:5-7, 11-13 Luke 13:22-30
Praised Be Jesus Christ! Good Morning!
In today’s Gospel,
Jesus spoke about the difficult path to salvation.
The entrance to salvation
seems to be a narrow,
difficult passage that will require strength.
When asked for further
details
Jesus said that there would be some
who would come to that door to salvation
and be told that they could not enter,
because they were not known,
they were strangers.
Even though they had eaten
and drunk with him
and heard his teachings,
some would
still be like strangers.
Listening while you are
eating and drinking is pretty easy,
nothing difficult about that, nothing requiring strength.
It would be like
watching TV with a soft drink and some chips
or attending a movie with a drink
and
a barrel of popcorn.
That would make for an easy path
to salvation.
But Jesus spoke of a narrow
gate to salvation,
one requiring more than table fellowship and listening.
I
One of the more famous
attractions in Wisconsin
is an area known as the Wisconsin Dells,
an area along
the Wisconsin River.
In this area, rock
formations rise steeply
along the banks of the river.
In some places the
formations rise up
right in the middle of the river.
These formations resulted from
layers of sediment
that were deposited
by the glaciers
that once
traversed this area.
The differently colored layers
of rock can be clearly seen
as the formations extend above the waterline.
I understand that the word
“Dells” comes from a French word “dalles”
which means layers.
On a boat trip along the
river one can see the rock up close.
At some places on the trip,
the boat will pull
into a cove in the rock,
and people can disembark and literally walk back
into
the rock formation along a narrow pathway
in a vertical crevice.
The crevice is only 2-3 feet
wide at some points on the path;
the rock walls along the crevice rise 30 to 50 feet high.
Of course, there is gift shop at the end of
the path.
For me walking this path brought into clear focus
Jesus’ command to
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”
II
In the 11th, 12th
and, this, the 13th chapter of Luke’s Gospel,
people bring questions to Jesus
as he is on his journey to Jerusalem
In response to these
questions, Jesus taught the people about
what was necessary
to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
He taught them how to pray.
He taught them about true blessedness
–
hearing God’s word and acting upon it.
He taught them to beware
of the leaven of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
He taught them how to be
faithful and prudent stewards.
He taught them about the
dangers of storing up riches.
He taught about repentance,
forgiveness, and reconciliation.
He used parables to teach
about the kingdom
of God
All in the course of three chapters.
And now in today’s reading in
Chapter 13 Jesus is asked,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
“With all of these instructions you have given us,
how can we do it; how
can we enter into the kingdom?”
And Jesus’ response is that
the gate is truly narrow;
Yes, he said that many will not be able to enter.
And the people’s response
was:
“Why won’t God let us in?
We have been taught
by you, the Messiah;
we have eaten meals with you, the very Son of God.”
And Jesus replied that the
master will say
that he doesn’t know
where some of them came from.
Twice we heard: “I do not
know where you are from.”
Not that he didn’t know
them,
but that he did not know where they came from.
Those words about where I came from have haunted me.
How do I make it so that God knows where I am from?
What does this mean?
III
The gate to salvation is
narrow.
The path of a follower of
Jesus is long and very restricting.
A narrow passage indicates a
passage that would restrict
what the person is
carrying.
A narrow gate can’t
accommodate a person
who carries a lot of baggage.
If I had tried to carry a large
backpack and a big suitcase
through that crevice in the rock at the Dells,
I would not have made it.
I would have been stuck at
the narrowest points.
Imagine attempting to follow
the path of Jesus
and carrying along a lot of worldly baggage like:
Greed: How can I get more and more money;
more pleasure?
Are there no
limits to my need for gratification.
Excess baggage like hunger
for power.
How can I lord
it over as many people as I can?
And what about vengeance?
When will I get revenge for being wronged;
And hate.
Greed, hunger for power,
seeking vengeance
and hate are some elements
of worldly baggage
that
will impede us in our journey to salvation.
If we have become so
inflated with our own self image,
so taken by ourselves at the expense of our neighbor,
we won’t fit
through that narrow gate.
But Jesus says that we must
strive to enter.
Jesus was implying
that we can do it,
if we have the strength.
This reminded me of the Romanian Gymnastic coach
and what he said to Mary Lou Retten in the Olympics of the past:
"You can do it! You can do it!
Maybe I could have been
strong enough
to lift my hypothetical suitcase or backpack over my head
and to somehow squeeze through the rocks.
But Jesus is not talking
about physical strength,
he is talking about spiritual strength,
the strength of will to make the commitment
to
untie that worldly baggage,
to let loose of it and leave it behind.
It’s the strength by which
we know
that we can make it in this life, and into eternal life.
In a sense, it’s the
strength by which we seek to become weak.
Jesus has said:
“Unless you become like
little children, …”
Little children can get
through the narrow gate easily;
they haven’t developed the baggage.
Just being taught by Jesus
and eating with him were not enough.
God has to know where you
are from.
Just coming here today and
being taught by the Word
and being nourished with the Eucharist at the table
are not enough for our salvation.
When we come to the final
accounting,
it will be a matter
of whether God knows where we came from.
It’s a matter of knowing as humans
know.
We really get to know
someone by how they act,
by what they do on a regular basis,
and by what they do in special situations.
How one acts is based on
one’s mindset,
one’s principles and values and one’s upbringing.
We say, “I know where you
are coming from.”
It’s not the number of
classes, workshops, retreats
or Bible studies we
have attended,
not the
number of festivals, committee meetings
or celebrations one has attended.
It’s how we have shed the
baggage of ourselves and our sin,
how we have trimmed away
those
things we think we need
so that we have the strength to walk the narrow path
that leads to that narrow gate.
God will know us by how we
have walked that path,
about where we are from,
by
the path we have taken.
We are taught by the Word
and fed at his table each Sunday.
May we all today resolve to
begin again that journey,
to leave here today on this week’s segment of the path,
resolved to
trim our worldly baggage
to act in such a way that God will say:
“I know you,
your actions show that
you are one of my disciples.”
