{"id":4174,"date":"2013-09-02T14:31:43","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T13:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4174"},"modified":"2013-09-02T14:31:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T13:31:43","slug":"21st-sunday-of-ordinary-time-25-08-13-what-will-make-us-recognisable-to-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4174","title":{"rendered":"21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (25.08.13) WHAT WILL MAKE US RECOGNISABLE TO JESUS?"},"content":{"rendered":"

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (25.08.13)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

WHAT WILL MAKE US RECOGNISABLE TO JESUS?<\/strong>Jesus\u2019 teaching is forthright. The Gospel of Luke for the 21st\u00a0Sunday of the Year is brief and to the point. Jesus\u2019 descriptive phrase – \u2018the narrow door\u2019 – more than arrests our attention, it may make us uncomfortable. Why? Is it because we focus more on the negative than the positive aspects of the words?A \u2018narrow door\u2019 implies restricted access. Perhaps we fear that we will not be admitted, that we may not have the right credentials or that our \u2018past\u2019 may tell against us. If those or similar thoughts are playing in our heads then it\u2019s time to ask who is spinning them? It surely isn\u2019t God our heavenly Father. He sent us his only begotten Son to teach us how to approach the \u2018narrow door\u2019. His teaching makes it clear that our personal contribution of love and willpower, appropriate to our age and understanding, is indispensible.More often than not we\u2019re content to be, as it were, just one of the crowd. Celebrities and \u2018A\u2019 list people may seek the limelight but most of us prefer an incognito status. Narrow doors make that impossible. There comes the moment when we stand alone at the threshold. What will make us recognizable to Jesus? He has described himself not just as the gate keeper of the narrow door, but as that narrow door itself:\u00a0\u2018So Jesus spoke to them\u00a0<\/em>(the Pharisees and wilfully blind)\u00a0again: \u201cIn all truth I tell you, I am the gate of the sheepfold.\u201d\u2019\u00a0<\/em>(John 10:7)<\/p>\n

Perhaps an old Hasidic tale will help us answer the question of how we make ourselves recognizable to Jesus. A rabbi asked his students how they would determine the hour of dawn when night ends and day begins. One student answered, \u201cWhen, from a distance, you can distinguish a dog from a sheep.\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d the rabbi answered. Another student volunteered, \u201cWhen you can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine.\u201d Again, the rabbi said, \u201cNo.\u201d The students then said, \u201cYou tell us.\u201d \u201cYou\u2019ll know the sun has risen,\u201d said the rabbi, \u201cwhen you can look into the faces of human beings and you have enough light to recognise them as your brothers and sisters. Up to then, it is night; and that darkness is still with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some might fight shy of the \u2018narrow door\u2019 because they believe they don\u2019t have the means to look their best. They consider their clothes, general appearance, abysmal credit rating and historical misdemeanours let them down. Isn\u2019t it interesting that the only person whom Scripture records as being guaranteed immediate passage through that \u2018narrow door\u2019 hung on a cross alongside Jesus on Calvary. Scripture records him as \u2018the good thief\u2019 who defended Jesus from the verbal attack of the other crucified criminal.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Then he<\/em>\u00a0(the good thief)\u00a0said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”<\/em>\u00a0Jesus answered him:\u201cIn truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(Luke 23:42-43)<\/p>\n

When we stand at that \u2018narrow door\u2019 what does Jesus see \u2013 our mask or our heart? We are stripped of all our accidentals \u2013 clothing, academic qualifications, status and such like. He looks into our deepest heart. There\u2019s some indication of what the \u2018narrow door\u2019 experience may be like for some in Luke 11:37-52 when Jesus offers a critical but not condemnatory appraisal to the Pharisees and lawyers.<\/p>\n

Too easily we criticize the \u2018Pharisees and lawyers etc\u2019 as if we were some separate species. Jesus was not seeking their annihilation them but their conversion. An invitation which, at that time, they resented and rejected. This Sunday\u2019s Second Reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (12:5-7,11-13) has advice for those willing to prepare for their \u2018narrow door\u2019 experience:<\/p>\n

\u201cBrothers and sisters,<\/em>
\nYou have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:<\/em>
\n\u201cMy child, 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 child he acknowledges.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Endure your trials as \u201cdiscipline\u201d; God treats you as children. For what \u201cchild\u201d is there whom their father does not discipline? 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

We need to be \u2018clothed\u2019 in genuine, not affected, humility and contrition when we are called to that \u2018narrow door\u2019. It needs to have been our daily wearing apparel, our daily wardrobe, in season and out. We know, by heart, the words needed to accompany the apparel but are they truly expressive of what is in our heart or just rote learned and rote spoken?<\/p>\n

\u201cLord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,<\/em>
\n\u00a0but only say the word and I shall be healed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Someone asks Jesus: \u201cLord, will only a few people be saved?\u201d Jesus\u2019 response includes a description of a great cavalcade of nations being welcomed into the kingdom of God for there are no boundaries or limits to God\u2019s loving mercy. All are welcome to gather to God who forgives and saves. The proviso is that, for each, there is that individual \u2018narrow gate\u2019 experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21st Sunday of Ordinary Time (25.08.13) WHAT WILL MAKE US RECOGNISABLE TO JESUS?Jesus\u2019 teaching is forthright. The Gospel of Luke for the 21st\u00a0Sunday of the Year is brief and to the point. Jesus\u2019 descriptive phrase – \u2018the narrow door\u2019 – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archdiocese-of-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4175,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4174\/revisions\/4175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}