Having Faith will not save you, Doing Faith will. 21st Sunday

How many will be saved? I certainly don't know and Jesus doesn't tell us.

But, the Kingdom of God is full of surprises. It is more expansive and inclusive then we can ever

imagine. The kingdom of God is, of course, God’s kingdom and only God is sovereign and Lord over

every creature and all of humanity. It is his by right and it is only by accepting his gracious invitation

that we enter or not.

 We can take heart because God in his creative spirit spoke to the emptiness saying “Let there be” and all was conceived and brought into light and life. We know that after creation God looked at everything he made, including us, and found it very good.

Sadly, we know that humanity stumbled. Sin entered the world to deform it and to become the human condition. But, God never fell out of love with us. He never forgot us; he made covenant with Noah. He promised Abraham that his people, the people of God, will be as countless as the stars more numerous than all the grains of sand. In Isaiah the Lord says I come to gather nations of every language, even those who have never heard of my fame or have seen my glory. They will come to know me.

 In my imperfect understanding, but confident hope, I pray that God, who saw all he created as good, will gather together all of creation, including broken humanity, healed and made one through Christ. This will be the kingdom of God fulfilled and eternal.

This is Salvation history, seen by a humble servant.  But, there is a fly in the ointment.

 This fly comes as the gift of free will and our prerogative to freely choose. 

Freedom is the foundation of our relationship of creature, (who must choose to love and then learn

to love) to our creator, (who simply loves). 

 Love is tricky business and the dilemma of love is that it can only come and blossom in freedom. No one can be made to love.

We know countless stories and songs of unrequited love, it is part and parcel of human relationships. But, this is also the position we place God in. His boundless, faithful love is given to each of us and this requires equal measure (so to speak) of our love in return.

 But, the rub is God will never force us to love him.

As Christians, with the gift of the Good News, the gift baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we

have been given much. We heard last week that  “much will be required of the person entrusted

with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”

 We have been given life and Faith and our life is to be lived in the light of that Faith.

 As we heard in the second reading, our love for God is grounded in joyful self-discipline.

Being a Christian and Catholic is challenge not a free pass, as some would like it to be.

 How often has God's gift of love and liberation gone unanswered or answered in self-serving

platitudes, narrow observances, begrudged efforts (weak knees and drooping hands, Paul says).

Good enough is not nearly good enough and self-righteousness is not righteous to the Lord.

But, then again, there has also been darkness amidst the light.

 Israel turned its back on the God of the exodus. The prophets, sent by God, were ignored, John the Baptist was beheaded.  Jesus was ridiculed and hated, and in the end they choose, not to love him as he loved them, but to kill him.

The story is old. Our track record for being in right relationship with God is not so great.

We lack vision and heart. We sit back safe in our houses of worship and still we see this transitory

world and ourselves in it as the most important thing.

True, we give of ourselves now and then to a very select few. We stretch ourselves a bit when the mood suits us or guilt pushes a bit harder than usual. 

When we turn to God, we expect God's will to miraculously match our will. We seek his comforts

and blessing, but not God himself. 

This is skating on the thin ice of the delusion of religious entitlement.  And as we skate, let us

remember the question,” how many will be saved” is the same as who will be saved?

 There will be a reckoning. Jesus tells us this in many ways. There will be sheep and goats. There will be faithless servants and foolish virgins who are not prepared for the master’s return. There will be those who knock at the last moment. But, like the goats they never recognized Jesus in others, especially, the naked, the hungry and the in-prisoned, and so now they themselves are not recognized by the Lord.

They say the gate we pass through is narrow, but it is only narrow because we have made it so.  I tell you, God’s gate is wide open. We have restricted it by heartless indifference and self-serving inaction. The Father's Kingdom waits for everyone, its gate is not narrow nor is its banquet table skimpy. I imagine that in the fullness of time we will see this.

At that time people from east and west, north and south, will pour through and come and take their

place at table of God.

These are the people God knows. Not because of race, or nationality, or gender or even religious affiliation, but because he knows their hearts, their thoughts and works.

But, until then, out of love of God and for our salvation we must do our best to either open the gate a little wider for another to enter, before us, remembering, the last shall be first and the first last. Or if some stranger holds open the gate for us we do not hesitate because he is a stranger, rather we rush in, thankful and full of love.

 How many will be saved. God knows.  What I know is that everything good has been given us; life, God's eternal love, his son Jesus and through him the Holy Spirit.

 Grace upon Grace is ours. We need to realize this and simply and courageously accept this, be

transformed by this and consciously respond, over and over, in growing freedom, to God's love –

by loving, serving and giving glory to Him through compassionate lives well lived. 

Jesus never answered the question asked him that day.

What he did say was, I am the Way. He also said, love one another, as I have loved you. 

Do this and the question, “who will be saved” answers itself.