21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 13:22-30

Jesus doesn’t answer the question.

Instead he says “try your best to enter by the narrow door because many will try to enter and will not succeed.”

He may not have answered the question but that’s quite a mouthful!

Who or what is this narrow door?

It has to be Jesus himself. He is the narrow door.

In the parable that follows surely Jesus is the householder who has got up and locked the door?

So, he is both the door and the doorkeeper.

And the people knocking the door (attempting to enter Heaven) are the people who’d lived with him, the people who “ate and drank” in his company, who heard him teach in their streets.

But here’s the knife! Here’s the cut:

Even though they ate and drank with him and heard him teach in their streets, they’re not being admitted to Heaven.

Omg … grasp that … they stood so close to him and yet are so far apart. In the end they had nothing in common with him: “I do not know where you come from” he says.

Now let’s do a reality check: We’re eating and drinking with him right now. He’s teaching in this very space… but has he or his teaching really penetrated us?

Are we close to Jesus? Are we close to his teaching? Are we living apart from him? How far apart? Two different worlds?

Well now, there’s our eternal future!

Simple