Reflection on the Readings

Being an “insider” appeals to the part of us that loves to be recognized as special. But it’s also highly practical.

• If you can drop the right name, the restaurant manager may move your party ahead of the line and seat you quicker.
• If you are a card-carrying member, the privileges of the club are available to you.

Recognition means a lot of other things, too:

• A cheerful greeting from the clerk at the checkout line and a little extra service from the garbage man.
• Sometimes you get a baker’s dozen at the donut shop or free samples from the woman who cuts your hair.

But what about when you’re not a card-carrying member? What about when you’re not with the in-crowd; when YOU ARE the stranger?

How different, then, is the experience of the stranger who wanders into the neighborhood. Enthusiastic hellos are few and far between when you’re the stranger. You may be regarded with suspicion, and if you have a foreign look about you, with contempt. There may be a few extra steps before you get a line of credit, with the bank wanting three kinds of i.d. before they’ll even cash your check. The isolation of being a virtual unknown is difficult, and most people avoid that at all costs.

The insider-outsider boundaries can make or break people in our society. But God views the insider-outsider boundaries that human society establishes and then confidently moves past them.

Early on in Salvation History, God brokered a deal with one man, Abraham, and his family. Later, God embraced the whole nation that emerged from Abraham’s lineage and ratified this choice in law through Moses, and in political authority through King David’s house. But by the time of the prophetic tradition, it seems that God is no longer satisfied with having “a people.” God wants to gather all nations and all people in an extravagant gesture of love. Friends, God ventures beyond a singular nation of Israel to embrace ‘nations of every language and from distant coastlands’ as we heard in our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah.

Jesus, like Isaiah in the first reading, shocks his listeners by telling them that God’s saving love would be made available to all people, all nations. Jesus says toward the end of today’s gospel that “many would come from the east and west, from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God,” while many of God’s own people, the Israelites, would be left outside. That was something Jesus’ hearers didn’t expect to hear.

When asked by someone in the Gospel scene, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus takes the opportunity to correct some wrong ideas about who is in and who is out.

• He explains that in God’s Kingdom there will be people from all four corners of the earth – just as Isaiah had prophesied.
• He shows us that salvation goes beyond tribal identity.
• He shows us that salvation is not a popularity contest.

Another question emerges – Does this mean everybody is in automatically? Is God so indiscriminate that no criteria are required to be included? Not quite. Jesus also addresses this question for us.

Jesus reveals the “narrow gate” as a deterrent to those who are still convinced that getting in means flashing religious credentials or simply believing that our decisions here on earth have no bearing on where we end up in eternity.

Some think Baptism is enough to gain entrance, others will rack up regular sacraments and prayers, and still others believe the trick is to keep the commandments and stockpile good deeds. Friends, these are obviously good steps to take if you’re already walking on the right road. But eating and drinking in the Lord’s company – to use the metaphor from our Gospel passage – is not enough to seal a friendship if you’re sitting at the Table with a stranger, who happens to be Jesus! Race, ritual, indifference, or wishful thinking aren’t the keys to salvation, IT’S THE HEART THAT KNOWS THE LORD!

Fr. David C. Santos, Pastor