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Homily for Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time, 27 October 2021, Luke 13:22-30
Today’s Gospel is about Jesus’ “Trip to Jerusalem”. Luke tells us Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went, and making his way to Jerusalem. I am sorry to disappoint you if the only “Trip to Jerusalem” that you might be familiar with is the fun game for parties.
Whoever invented that game, I think, got it all wrong and should not have called it that. Maybe “Trip to Hell” would have been more accurate.You have eleven chairs arranged in a circle for twelve contenders who are expected to dance as they go around the circle until the music suddenly stops and they have to scramble to get seated ahead of everybody else.
One person always gets eliminated in the process because there’s always one seat less. The organizers will keep removing one chair after each round of dancing that leads to another elimination at each time. The process is repeated over and over again until there’s only one chair left behind for two contenders who struggle again to get seated ahead of the other in order to be declared the winner.
Like I said, “Trip to Hell” is probably a better name for the game because it is all about pushing and shoving and scrambling to get seated ahead of all the others until there’s only one left. I think of hell as a situation where people have mastered the art of grabbing a chair and pushing all others out of your life until you’re all alone. And that person gets his reward—a life of total isolation and alienation.
Luke tells us the occasion for Jesus’ teaching about the real trip to Jerusalem is a question that is posed by an unnamed companion on the journey. He says, “Lord, will there be only a few who will be saved?” Maybe it is that question that actually inspired the game. He sounds to me like a a zealous contender who feels confident that he will be one of the few who will be saved, or who will get the prize.
The question reminds me of members of some religious sects who claim with confidence that only the members of their group will be saved; all else will be damned. We used to have this twisted attitude ourselves in the Catholic Church. Remember the expression, “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” We don’t interpret that expression the same way anymore.
Well, now people ask, what makes you so sure that being inside the Church guarantees you of salvation anyway? The Gospel is actually a warning against people with the tendency to be exclusive and self-righteous, feeling confident that they will be among the few souls who will “deserve” a heavenly reward.
Jesus is saying, “You might be surprised to find yourselves locked out, while those who least expect themselves to be let in find themselves inside.” There is a story which I invented for a recollection when I was still a young seminarian. I ask people to imagine purgatory as a journey of weary souls, whose last leg is a dangerous climb on a steep rocky mountain that leads to the gate of heaven at the mountain top.
It so happens that one soul gets impatient about his fellow souls who are too cautious and climbing too slowly. To be able to get ahead of everyone else to heaven, he decides to pull down those above him and push down those below him in order to clear the way for himself. When he gets to the top, he sees the huge and heavy-metal gate of heaven closed. He knocks and asks to be let in.
But God, who checks on him through a CCTV says, “Why are you alone, my son?” He says, “Oh, sorry for them, they were going too slowly. I happen to be an experienced mountain climber so I got here ahead of them all. Do I get my prize now?”
And God in heaven says, “Too bad, my son, the pearly gate of heaven is too heavy, you cannot push it all by yourself. You better go down and help the others get here with you as soon as possible, so you can enter more quickly together.
In the Gospel, Jesus talks about many people from the east and west, north and south, joining him at table in the kingdom of God. It is those who tend to be so exclusive who may end up getting excluded in the end. The Lord will say “I do not know you.” Because they never made an effort to understand those who pass through the narrow gate, those who may not have had it as easy as they did: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the prisoners.
And so he says in the last line of the Gospel, “The last will be first and the first will be last.” St. Paul supports this in the first reading. He says, “All things work for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” Yes, in spite of their shortcomings, they will not be eliminated. He assures us that God does not call only those who are just. He justifies those whom he calls. He does not choose only the qualified. He qualifies those whom he chooses. It is not our own righteousness but God’s graciousness that saves us.
Maybe we should change the rules of the game to make it come closer to Jesus’ trip to Jerusalem. Instead of eleven seats, why not just one seat for all twelve? At each time that the music stops and the guy who is the closest to the chair, instead of getting himself seated, decides to give it to someone else, a new chair is added. Then on and on until all twelve are seated. Remember Matthew 19:28 where Jesus Jesus said to his disciples,“Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
