As you know, I am always addressing with you and our staff here at Holy Savior and Immaculate Conception how we can be more welcoming, how we can be messengers of God’s hope, compassion and mercy, how we can invite others to the faith, and how we can go out to find the lost sheep. As a parish, we hopefully do this in our words and our actions. Then we have today’s Gospel. These images that Jesus presents us are not welcoming and inviting: a locked door, a narrow gate, and wailing and grinding of teeth.
It is significant that we meet Jesus today in Luke’s Gospel as he is journeying to toward Jerusalem. He is teaching and proclaiming the kingdom of God in the towns and villages along the way. Not only is Jerusalem the place where the prophets journeyed, but is also Jesus’ final destination, where he will face betrayal, abandonment, and death on the cross. Jesus has been preparing his disciples for this. He must have this in his mind as he is making his journey and as he meets the man on the road and is asked the question, “Will only a few be saved?” We don’t know what motivates the man asking the question. We are given no context as to how and why it is asked. Maybe the man does not want discipleship to be too difficult or too demanding. Maybe he wants an easy way out.
However, Jesus does not offer him an easy way out, as he tells him that he needs to strive to enter the narrow door, but that who want to enter will not have the strength to do so. Jesus answer prompts the man to ask himself: Do you have the strength to follow the road of discipleship? Do you have the faith, the persistence, the endurance, and the commitment? Do you want the strength to be a disciple? We ultimately do not know the man’s answer back to Jesus.
I remember reading the book The Cost of Discipleship many years ago, being challenged by Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s assertion that being a disciples of Christ entails hardship and suffering, that discipleship is not meant to be an easy road. Bonhoeffer writes: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Jesus’ answer in the Gospel should not push us away. It should engage us and challenge us. We are disciples of Christ know that there are expectations and Gospel values that we are to strive toward. In this specific Gospel passage and in the Gospel of Luke in general, Luke tells us that authentic discipleship takes strength, faith, and tenacity. We modern disciples of Christ, just like the early Christians, are reassured that the Gospel message that we hear and embrace is authentic and based on the true teachings of Jesus and apostolic Church. We are to embrace this Gospel message, but this Gospel message embraces us as well. And Jesus embraces us.
We are to strive to enter the narrow gate of authentic discipleship. But we must never forget that all are invited, that all are welcomed, with generosity and grace. The door of discipleship is always a door of God’s love, mercy, and compassion. It is a door of respect and integrity. It is the door of Jesus. We open the door for others whenever we embody these Gospel values. We are to stay on this path. We are to embrace our crosses. We are to welcome, to invite, and to love.
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