IN OR OUT?

Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 13:22-30

The Gospel today opens with “Through towns and villages Jesus went teaching, making His way to Jerusalem.” Immediately, Luke zeroes in at two important aspects about Jesus.

First, Jesus is a teacher. However, unlike the meaning of the word “teacher” today, He is not attached to any school or college, has no regular class schedule, and does not have a fixed roster of students. Jesus, Palestine’s most popular itinerant teacher, stops at any field or hilltop or sits in a boat from where He teaches whoever wishes to listen. And the course He teaches is more important than what any university at all times ever offer. His course description reads: “Salvation: How to Enter Heaven”.

Second, even as He teaches, Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. Jesus does not travel aimlessly. He is making a specific journey to a specific place for a specific purpose. And He is well aware of what awaits Him in Jerusalem: death on a cross and resurrection after three days. Jesus is not contented with teaching us how to get to heaven. He knows He has to open the gate for us Himself which means He must pay the price. His death on the cross just outside Jerusalem is the price He pays.

Like any good teacher, Jesus spends much of His time answering questions. As all teachers who deserve the title, Jesus knows that the most interesting moments in teaching is when students fire questions from the floor. Today, Jesus fields a question that certainly keeps His students, who are serious about His course of salvation, at the edge of their seats: Will there be only a few saved? In the final tally, will hell be more jam-packed than heaven? Are we in or are we out?

Those who are listening to Jesus are expecting an answer that is radically different from what their religious leaders usually give. Many scribes and scholars of the Mosaic Law teach that not only Gentiles but even pure-blooded Israelites will not enter the kingdom of God. Salvation, according to them, comes only from strict observance of the 248 positive prescriptions and 365 negative prohibitions that these religious leaders developed from the Ten Commandments. These 613 prescriptive and prohibitive rules are burdensome for most of the Jews. If the scribes and the scholars of the law were right, then only a few would be saved. But after hearing Jesus many times in disagreement with their religious leaders, the Jews are hoping for a lenient answer from Jesus. After all, Jesus appears to be spending much of His energy toppling the edifice of scribal law. But the Jews are disappointed. Jesus does condemn the rules of the scribal law as inhumane and, thus, not from God, but He is not building a cream-puff religion as its substitute.

Jesus answers with a direct challenge: “Try to enter by the narrow door.” Clearly, Jesus does not answer the question regarding final demography in relation to salvation. In His view, the question misses the point because the point is not how many will enter heaven but whether we will make it there ourselves. Instead of inquiring as to how many will be saved, we should rather ask our selves: Are we in or are we out? And without any blinking of the eye, Jesus warns us that it is not that easy to be in after all, for “many will try to enter and will not succeed”.

If we think that being baptized and going to church on Sunday already assure us of a ticket to heaven, think again. After challenging and warning us, Jesus paints for us a nightmare scene: a terrified, hysterical crowd pounding in terror at the door of heaven, begging admittance. And with icy words, Jesus greets this frightened crowd, “I do not know where you come from.” Then the people in the crowd with faces lined with dreadfulness manage to explain yet, “But, Lord, don’t You know us? We once ate and drank with You. You even taught in our streets.” Then the words of Jesus will send chilling spells down their spines, “Away from me, all you wicked people!” But who are these door-bangers? They are not the common delinquents of society. They are not the drug-pushers, gunslingers, and child-molesters whom the world calls “evildoers”, but it appears that they are good people, respectable citizens, and even churchgoers.

Among them are countless contemporaries of Jesus, who first heard Him and saw Him in flesh and blood, but refused to accept Him. Mere blood ties with Abraham nor rigorous observance of the law cannot save them. Among them too, however, are those living today and those yet to come who fail to internalize the grace they receive and share the blessings that come their way.

Certainly, in the end, heaven will surprise us because “there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.” The question should therefore not be “Are you in or are you out?” but “Am I in or am I out?”