Homily – 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Mum, why don’t the Smith’s go to Mass?  They’re not Catholic.  Will they go to heaven?  I feel uncomfortable when I think about it now – almost embarrassed.  But that was the question I can remember putting to my mother when I was a 7 year old.  That’s up to God, not up to us, or something like that was the reply.  I often wonder where the question came from.  There was some sense among Catholics, perhaps among Christians, that their religious adherence and observance was a clear and right pathway to eternal salvation.  A friend of mine recently told me of her sin one Saturday afternoon in country Victoria as a kid.  She saw a crowd gathering for a wedding outside the Church of England.  Waiting until all the guests where in the Church she snuck up to the door, gently wedged it open and peered in.  Immediately guilt ridden she ran back to the Catholic Church and waited for the afternoon confession.  The years since the Vatican Council have opened our eyes and our minds to the narrowness of that view and to the richness found in the variety of Christian denominations and their traditions.  Thanks be to God for that.

It seems that this temptation to exclusivism is not unique to our times.  “Sir will there only be a few saved?” is the question put to Jesus in the gospel today.  The question, one can surmise, is put to Jesus by a fellow Jewish believer.  Jesus is traveling through towns and villages towards Jerusalem.  It is fair to assume that he is in Jewish territory talking to his own.  In that sense the question is not that dissimilar to the one I asked my mother at seven.  The questioner has a narrow mindset.  His question about salvation is restricted to his own religious group – will all of us be saved.  Any consideration for others further afield is beyond his mindset.

The answer is long winded but finishes with a novel description of the end time.  There will be weeping and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom and you yourselves turned outside.  And people from east and west and north and south will take their place at the feast in the kingdom of God.  What has Jesus said?  Firstly, he has appealed to Abraham our father in faith.  This is important because Abraham precedes Moses and the law.  So the first thing about salvation is that it is about responding in faith not in a legal way.  Secondly, he refers to people from east and west and north and south taking their place at the feast.  Jesus has blown away the questioner’s idea that a few of his believing tradition will be saved.  He presents people from every corner of the world gathered in the kingdom: Jew and Gentile alike.  He rejects an exclusive notion of his call to follow him and the Father.  In fact you might even find yourselves outside.

This is a great insight in Luke’s Gospel.  All are called to follow Jesus in faith.  We will not be judged narrowly on the letter of the law but on love of God and love of neighbour.  So we should not ask the question – will only a few be saved?  But – how can I better serve God and neighbour? – and leave salvation to the Lord.

By Fr Brendan Reed

 

Homily Parish Priest

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Ray King

Love this homily, Fr Brendan. Keep the good words coming.

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