Homily – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time August 22, 2010 Cycle C Theme: Salvation Isaiah 66:18-21 Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13 Luke 13:22-30 Let me share with you a couple of stories: A priest and a pastor from the local churches are standing by the side of the road, pounding a sign into the ground that reads: “The End Is Near! Turn Yourself Around Now – Before It’s Too Late!” As a car sped past them, the driver yelled, “Leave us alone, you religious nut!” From the curve they hear screeching tires and a big splash. The pastor turns to the priest and asks, “Do you think the sign should just say, “Bridge Out?” The scene is of the newly arrived at the pearly gates of heaven being escorted to their new accommodations. As they follow along after their guide filled with all the beauty and wonder of all they see, unexpectedly their guide stops, taps his finger on his lips and whispers to them, “Quiet. Be still now until we pass this area. This area is filled with Catholics and they think they are the only one’s here in heaven. We don’t want to disillusion or disappoint them, do we?” The question about who or how many will be saved is a way for us to examine our answer to that very same question. There is that story of the individual at the Evangelical Conference who is late and arrives to find the huge auditorium packed to the brim. But then he spotted a chair way up front, slowly edged his way up, so as not to disturb the speaker he leaned over to the woman next to him and whispered, “Is this chair saved?” She whispered back, “No, but we’re praying for it.” The real issue of who’s saved and who’s not is really that of exclusivity. Who is in and who is out. That is a fruitless and irrelevant question according to today’s lessons. When he’s asked how many or how few, Jesus seems to respond bluntly in the Gospel today about the whole issue, doesn’t He? He says, “Forget the arithmetic and check your own behavior.” God calls every human being to salvation and so the real issue is not numbers or trying to find out if we’ll be in the final count, but the real issue is fidelity. How have we embraced God’s invitation and have we calculated the cost? As the man who answered the question “If he were saved,” said, “I’m still trying to figure out how to be spent!” Spending is the Gospel issue, not saving. Claiming kinship or proper credentials earns a withering “I do not know you or where you are coming from if you are all saving and not spending.” Or as the Gospel of Matthew as writes, “As long as you did it to the least of my brethren you did it to me.” -- Or not as the case may be. In the words the crucial question is “How did you spend yourself in service to others? Or was everything saved for one’s own self? Crying out “Lord, Lord.” Or claiming that you shared a few things with another is not going to cut it. Jesus does not put a number on the saved or erect a fence around the possibility of salvation. Jesus does say however that the gate is narrow, but anyone and everyone are welcome to walk through it. You see God is not putting restrictions on salvation the choice is ours. While it is true that we have always believed in the mercy and love of God, our history teaches us that at different times in our religious lives, we have been hostile to other religions, other denominations, and even to the secular world. That has been found expressed in the absolute terms that we’ve taken about how many are going to be saved, and more importantly who was not saved. The Second Vatican Council reflecting on the Churches experience of working side by side with religious people and secular humanists throughout the world, who are committed as we are to justice, love and freedom, found a necessity to draft a clarification on our Catholic teachings. In the document entitled, “Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non Christian religions” the Bishops of the world thought more generously about how God has a relationship with all people they in turn relate to God even if they do not name it in the same way as we are able to. Now the Council did not draw back from believing that Jesus is the way to the Father. But it also affirmed that God can work in an infinite number of ways to assist people to salvation. It is in this Church teaching that our relationship to all people whom share the best of our values, must be characterized by acceptance, collaboration, dialogue and charity. Again, this does not make salvation less important, it just clarifies for us that it is God, and not us, who does the saving and the judging. God’s salvation marks us out as a people who know who we are following, where we are going, how we are getting there, and why this world and the next matters to us. Salvation gives our lives meaning, direction and purpose. The way we live out this salvation should be irresistible to others. As that old folk hymn sings, “They’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” And so when you find yourselves hearing the question, “How many will be saved?” Jesus’ answer to us is clear. All have been invited and how you respond, how your life is spent and not saved, is the only issue. Amen. Amen.Msgr. Tom, Pastor, Christ the King