Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time C.  August 22 2010.  Our Lady of Grace  5:15,     7;30, 11:30.  Isaiah 66:18-21.  Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13.  Luke 13:22-30.

One of my bad habits is getting into the car, starting the motor, pulling out of the garage and driving down the road before I have figured out exactly where I am going. The excuse that I give myself is that I am really in a hurry and I don’t have time to ask for directions or to look at a map.   We are all a part of this hurry up world.  Running faster doesn’t mean that we are going any place.  The time we spend trying to figure things out, planning and setting a direction is a bigger part of success in life than running constantly at top speed.

Jesus knew where he was going.  He knew that he was going to Jerusalem to die and rise again.  He had a goal in mind and he kept walking on the road that led to Jerusalem.  He didn’t have to run because running is often a substitute for thinking.  Jesus sometimes spent the whole night in prayer. While the bends and turns in his life were often unexpected and mysterious, Jesus embraced every new situation knowing who he is and where he was going.  There was a very strong compass in Jesus’ life. No matter how often he got pushed around or fell on his face, when he stood up again the compass inside of him pointed toward Jerusalem.  Jesus saved a lot of time and avoided a lot of mistakes by spending time in reflection, prayer and listening to the events in his life. The discipline of listening is an essential part of every focused and successful life.

Someone asked Jesus, “Lord will only a few people be saved?”   Jesus never answered the man’s question.  We all have a tendency to look around and see what everyone else is doing.  Jesus says, “Focus on your own life and your own path. Where are you going?”   Jesus didn’t tell us how many would be saved.  That is a piece of information that doesn’t really matter.  Jesus said, “The gate to salvation is narrow.  Strive to be strong enough to get through it.  Just stay focused on walking the path.”

If we enter through the narrow gate of our own lives we will be saved.  Is will not do us any good to knock on one door or on many doors asking the Lord to open the door for us if we have not met him and welcomed him on the highway of our lives.  We may even beg to get into the Master’s house saying, “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.”  If we saw the Lord on the path of our lives but did not welcome him and allow him to transform our lives, the Master of the house will say to us, “Depart from me you evil doers.  I do not know you.”  The narrow gate is our life. The only important question is am I being saved now in the way that I am living my life? 

The second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews tells us about the importance of discipline.  Self-discipline and focus in life are essential skills that all parents must teach their sons and daughters.  The reading says, “For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?  At the time, 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.”  The reading the Church gives us today skipped a very important part of the Letter to the Hebrews.  The skipped sentence says: “If you are without discipline, in which all have shared, you are not sons but illegitimate children (bastards.)”  The Bible uses a much stronger word than illegitimate; that is why this sentence was skipped.  One of the essential features of legitimate and effective parenting is the imparting of discipline.  

This passage from the Letter to the Hebrews and other Scripture passages have been used to justify physical violence in dealing with children.  Many studies of child development show that physical violence used as discipline often results in angry and hostile children – the bully – or passive, non-responsive children – the bystander.  As Catholics reading the Bible, we can take the truth from this passage and leave behind the cultural practices of the age in which it was written.  The truth is that the child who is not taught discipline by his or her parents is shortchanged in learning what is absolutely essential for a productive and successful life.  Appropriate discipline is a gift given by parents to their children.  As the Letter to the Hebrews says, “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord…for what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?”

True discipline involves staying focused on the meaning of life – and not being distracted by what others have or don’t have, or how many people are going to be saved.  True discipline involves walking the narrow path of our lives and finding God on our streets, in our challenges and in our hearts.  True discipline involves listening, reflecting and praying in a way that keeps us in touch with the God who fills our lives. Physical violence may get a child to stop doing something, at least while your watching. There may be times when a child in danger needs to be restrained.  True discipline is the result of much patient listening, affirmation, setting limits and necessary expectations.   In the end, self-discipline is something within the child and the adult that allows each of us to walk through the narrow gate and meet God in our own lives.   

The man in today’s gospel asked if only a few are to be saved.  In the end Jesus says that “people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south, and will recline at the table in the Kingdom of God.”  Jesus said, “Many will come who you do not expect…so don’t get left out.”   I find this poem interesting:

I dreamt death came the other night

And Heaven’s gate swung wide.

An angel with a halo bright

Ushered me inside.

And there! To my astonishment

Stood folks I’d judged and labeled

As “quite unfit”, “of little worth”,

And “spiritually disabled”.

Indignant words rose to my lips

But never were set free,

For every face showed stunned surprise --

No one expected me!

For the gift of discipline and focus in our lives we give God thanks and praise.