Bishop Glen John Provost
Bishop of Lake Charles
Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception
 
"Lord, will only a few people be saved?" Luke 13:23

Is Christianity a faith of challenge or easy answers? Once I knew a thoughtful Catholic lady married to a husband who claimed to be an atheist. She often said that her husband maintained that because of her faith in God she had taken the easy way out. That he, because of his intellectual curiosity and questioning, had taken the much more challenging route to truth. She said she had mediated on this for a long time and had come to the conclusion that he was wrong. He was wrong, she said, because it is easier to say "no" than to say "yes." If we say "no" to God you don't exist then there are no obligations, no necessities. However, if we say "yes" to God - you do exist - then affirmation moves to response. That takes effort.

Belief requires action. As Jesus says, "None of those who cry out, ‘Lord, Lord,? will enter the kingdom of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). This is very much what Jesus says in the Gospel for this Sunday. "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough" (Luke 13:24). Belief entails response, and response requires action.

The challenge of believing is no easy road. Someone asks Jesus in the Gospel, "Lord will only a few people be saved?" (Luke 13:23) . It is a typically curious human question. Jesus answers that the gate to salvation is narrow. One must be strong to enter it. Implied in Jesus? answer is the lesson that there is more to salvation then just being present. "We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets" (Luke 13:26) is just not enough. The ascent of faith should lead through conviction to action.

Jesus taught over and over again that His message required conversion. That conversion requires humility, the humility to admit failings and total dependence on God. This is not a once in a lifetime event. It is ongoing. How did Cardinal Newman say it? To live is to have changed, and to have lived well is to have changed much. What kind of commitment stops us from growing? Growth implies change, and for the Christian that change is conversion.

I return to this notion of humility. If I smugly say, I have achieved salvation, then I presume too much. As Jesus warns, we are setting ourselves up for a big disappointment. "Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last" (Luke 13:30).

Salvation, rather, is a power living and working. Because it is dynamic, it is never stagnant. As the Letter to the Hebrews says in the second reading, "Whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges" (Hebrews 12:7). The relationship between God and the one He seeks to save is dynamic. It is like the relationship between a parent and a child. When a parent disciplines a child, asks more of the child than has been required before, this is an invitation to growth. All the while the child through obedience learns how the parent loves. Only in this way do the child and the parent grow into a more faithful relationship. Love without discipline is indulgence. Love with discipline and expectations perfects. Love without discipline sets up false expectations. The love of a parent and God our Father in this are identical. Love perfects precisely because it has expectations. For this reason the reward of faith requires more than just lip service. Salvation is rooted in love, and love makes demands. Whether they are few who are saved remains an open question.