Aug 26, 2007 Sunday: 21st Sunday Ordinary (C)
Psalm:Psalm 117:1-2
Second Reading:Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13
Gospel:Luke 13:22-30
Our parents love us unconditionally. Yet at the same time, they know that if left to our own devices, we the children can get ourselves into trouble. When we were young, we often thought that our parents were too strict, not letting us stay out with our friends, not letting us date whoever we wanted to. And they were always on our case about letting go of our bad habits. It's only later in life that we appreciate their discipline.
When I was in the third grade, my dad owned a pharmacy. When I wanted to buy some school supplies or candy, he would let me take out ten cents from the cash register which he always left open. The bad habit I'm about to tell you began innocently. My dad trusted me that I would take out from the cash register only what I asked for. He also trusted that I would only buy what I asked for. In the beginning, I was careful to spend dad's money. But I got hooked on playing video games in arcades. At that time in Korea, schools and parents were adamantly against video games, and they have made known to the students that if they were caught in arcades, they would be punished. I was fast developing an appetite for video games, and to feed my bad habit, I lied to my dad when ever I took out money from the cash register. I got even more bold. I would take out money from the register when he was not around. I was fast becoming a thief through my bad habits. Then one day, my mom caught me coming out of an arcade. She grabbed me by the right ear and dragged me home. As my parents whipped me, I cried and pleaded that I would not do it again. I still remember how painful that whipping was. I can tell you that pain helped me drop my coin stealing and video gaming habits. Looking back on that incident, I'm thankful for my parents for disciplining me. I cannot imagine what kind of person I would have become if I was not corrected. I appreciate the fact that by discipline, they helped me become the person that I was meant to be.
We hear Our Lord saying some harsh words in the Gospel today. “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!” How did you react to that verse? My first reaction was, 'Isn't God suppose to be compassionate, merciful, and loving?' Will God really put us out if we don't live up to his standards? This reminds me of the parents of my friends when I was a teenager. Although I hung out with friends whose parents did not care what their kids were doing, there were one or two of them whose parents were very strict. They had to come in by 11pm or they would not be let in the house. They were not to go certain parts of the town, and they would be dead if they were caught with alcohol on their breath. The fear that their parents have instilled in them kept them from getting into trouble.
What Jesus is telling us today is not just an empty warning. He said, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you,will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” We know from elsewhere in the Gospel that Jesus referred to himself as the gate and the gate keeper. He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” to God the Father. If heaven is about our full communion with God the Father eternally, we can only reach it through our relationship with Jesus, the 'narrow gate.' And Jesus reminds us today that casual acquaintance with him will not be enough. Being a Catholic or a being a born-again Christian is not a guarantee that we'll enter automatically. We will say, “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” 'We ate the Eucharist, drank your precious blood during mass, and heard your word preached.” Yet in our daily life Monday through Saturday, there is a real possibility that by our free choice, we betray the very creed we professed and the Eucharist we partook.
We know our faith teaches us that this earthly world belongs to the prince of lies, Satan, who is a marketing genius in selling sin. Although in our heart we desire holiness, there is another force called concupiscence that works against this holy desire. It's a desire or an appetite that is disordered and is easily tempted by Satan who presents deadly sins as harmless and fulfilling. Satan's top selling products are pride, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth, and greed. And we have to remember that Satan is also in the mortgage business. He wants to foreclose our soul slowly, offering us adjustable rate mortgages of 15, 30, or 60 years. However long it takes, Satan's goal is to convince us that we don't need to listen, follow, or choose Our Lord. With this in the backdrop, you can understand why Jesus sounds so harsh or strict to us. No parent wants to hear from a cop in the middle of the night that their child is lost. Likewise, Jesus does not want even a single sheep from his flock to be lost.
As I have begun on the road to being a thief by innocently dipping my hands in my dad's cash register, we begin our ultimate rejection of Jesus at the end of our life by small daily choices—our refusal to pray, refusal to be virtuous, refusal to love, and embrace of Satan's temptations. And like a good parent, God disciplines us to bring us back to our senses just as my parents did by whipping me to bring repentance and conversion. When we are high on pride, God will allow events that will humiliate us so that we may be humble again. When we are preoccupied with greed, He will take things away from us so that we can experience being poor in the spirit. When we are wound up on lust, He will embarrass and shame us to put us back on the road to purity and chastity. There is no better medicine than falling off from a high horse. And when God allows us to fall, take today's letter to the Hebrews as an encouragement. "My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges...At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it."
