21st Sunday of Year C: OPEN BUT NARROW

Readings: Isaiah 66:18-21; Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30

Theme: Going to heaven requires deep self-discipline of prayer and self-evaluation (METANNOIA)

“A Christian like a candle, must keep cool and burn at the same time” – M. Rosell

Everyone wants to go to heaven but strangely enough we fear to die. Death is a common factor which each of us have in common, if we knew this at the bottom of our hearts and souls, pride would not be part of our daily vocabulary language, and behavior.

Christ is coming to gather the nations of every of every language (Isaiah 66:18). But who will actually enter, will your tribe be there and which tribe will claim the victory of torch bearer of salvation. The disciples asked Jesus the question and he was not prepared to answer. If it was you which answer would you give to such a question and what do you think Jesus will tell you? (Luke 13:23).

There is no favouritism in the Kingdom of God. It’s not like world cup inauguration or finals where the telescopic lens zooms in on the VIP section. It selects people for reasons of power, prestige, office and privilege, whose prime seats are especially reserved for them, whenever they choose to arrive. Such things my brother and sisters don’t exist in God’s kingdom. “People will enter from the east and west, from the north and south” (Luke 13:29), from the black and the white, from the rich and the poor.

None of us is sure who will enter eternal life, Jesus has given as some guides, of course he is not like the guide who says, “Well, I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicion”. Jesus is definite about his guidance. He says that the “door to eternal life is narrow” (Luke 13:24); those who struggle and suffer for the sake of truth, justice and love will enter into it; “endure trials as the discipline of God” (Heb 12:11). The word ‘discipline’ frightens away people these days, though out of the word ‘discipline’ comes the word ‘disciple’. Discipline has power to transform trials into triumphs, pains into peace, like the modern personal Air Cooler does with the heat. Unlike the conventional fans, which only redistribute warm air, the personal Air Cooler reduces the temperature of the air and gently blows this cooled refreshing air in your direction. So does discipline.

There are some of us who are good in mathematical formulae will calculate the many masses attended, number of confessions made, number of anointing one has received and many other devotional groups attended and calling themselves the “insiders”, may be disappointed. The poor may step ahead of the rich, the simple surpass the clever and sinners outshine the pious. That is Christ’s warning. Those who heed the warning are safe. Those who do not may face the kind of fate Alison Hargreaves the British mountaineer who was warned against going further than a given point by Pakistani army officer for it would be suicidal, but she did not listen. The result was that she died on the mountain; what appeared to be a safe mountain, suddenly turned, as she had been warned, into a raging holocaust of swirling snow and wind.


“God is not a cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things”. Harry Emerson Fosdick