21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Readings:

1. Isaiah 66.18-21
   Psalm 117.1,2  Response: “Go out to all the world and tell the good news.”
2. Hebrews 12.5-7, 11-13
3. Luke 13.22-30

Reflections on the Gospel Reading

This Sunday we encounter another very difficult passage from Luke’s Gospel.  In it Luke impresses upon us once again the urgency of taking resolute action in response to the proclamation of the imminent arrival of God’s reign.  He also warns us not to be complacent or to rely on our status as Christians for some kind of an automatic ticket to heaven.

The Setting in Luke’s Gospel

It is important to remember how Luke put his Gospel together.  He probably never set foot in Galilee, Judea, or Samaria, and he was writing a decade or so after the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.  However, he had numerous sayings of Jesus and stories about Jesus from various sources – both written and oral – as well as sayings and traditions imbedded in the liturgy.  He arranged these materials into narratives that brought out the meaning of the life of Jesus for his community.  It is almost as though Luke had a pile of newspaper clippings, a few old scrapbooks, and a stack of 3×5 cards with individual sayings of Jesus on them without date or context and in no particular order.  In addition, it is as though Luke had interviewed a lot of people who knew people who had known Jesus.

To understand Luke’s “take” on Jesus we have to pay careful attention to Luke’s arrangement.  He organizes the central section of his Gospel as a journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. (Luke 9.51-19.48) From time to time, he reminds his readers about the Journey.  These reminders mark the major divisions of his narrative.

The beginning of today’s gospel narrative is one of those dividing points.  Here Luke begins the second part of his travel account. (Luke 13.22-19.48) After an introduction (Luke 13.22-35) that includes today’s gospel reading, the following section (Luke 14.1-17.10) can be divided into four parts:

1. Luke “presents the radical demands of discipleship [regarding] the Christian meal, relationships and possessions in the Kingdom of God.” (Luke 14, including the parable of the great dinner)
2. Luke “deals with the problems of reconciliation.” (Luke 15, including the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son)
3. Luke “takes up the important matter of wealth and the need to share with the needy.” (Luke 16, including the parables of the dishonest manager and the rich man and Lazarus)
4. Luke returns “to the issue of sin and reconciliation.” (Luke 17.1-10, including the command to forgive seven times) (See LaVerdiere 1990, 183-185.)

Luke’s Question and Jesus’ Answers

Given this context for today’s gospel reading, we see how Luke has arranged a number of sayings of Jesus in response to the question: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  In other words: “Will God save only a few in Israel?” where “salvation” is understood as “participation in the forthcoming theocracy.”  (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, 282) That is:  Will only a few people participate in the benefits of God’s kingdom when it comes?

This question almost certainly comes from Luke, not from someone at the time of Jesus.  Use of the title “Lord” here (as throughout chapters 12 and 13) probably indicates that the question reflects the concerns of Luke’s community and its Israelite contemporaries. (See Fitzmyer 1985, 1024.) Luke uses this question to organize disparate sayings attributed to Jesus in his sources.¹

1. The first saying of the Lord that Luke arranges in response to his question is: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.”

Here Luke’s Jesus gives a practical response to a hypothetical question.  Jesus is not like the character in Leonard Bernstein’s Mass who responds to the question, “Will I be saved?” with, “Possibly yes; probably no.”  By contrast, Jesus “leaves to God himself the answer about how many will find salvation.  He puts emphasis instead on the effort that human beings will have to exert to get in.” (Fitzmyer 1985, 1022) It will require the sort of effort needed to elbow to the front of a large crowd trying to squeeze through a narrow gate.

2. Then Luke abruptly changes the metaphor. The Lord says: “After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord open the door for us.’”

Now the emphasis is no longer on the effort necessary to fight through a crowd but on how to get through a locked door.  To do so they will have to convince the master of the house, whom they address as “Lord,” to open the door.  They must come up with a convincing argument.

Luke’s Jesus does not say what that argument is, but he clearly indicates that it is not enough to appeal to the fact that they ate and drank with him and listened to his preaching.  He warns that “one needs more than the superficial acquaintance of a contemporary.”  (Fitzmyer 1985, 1023) Just how much more is required will become clear to those who carefully attend to what Jesus says as he travels on to Jerusalem.  He will draw out the consequences of sharing a meal with him and listening to his words.

3. Then, the metaphor changes again. “And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. Etc.” The door, whether narrow or locked, disappears from the scene. The emphasis is not on how many will attend the kingdom banquet.  It is presumed that there will be many.  Rather, the emphasis is on the make-up of the guest list.  It will include many outsiders but not Jesus’ contemporaries.

In his own preaching, when he referred to people coming from the four corners of the earth, Jesus was probably speaking from within the Hebrew prophetic tradition.  He was referring to other Israelites who, like him, were journeying to Jerusalem.  He echoed the song of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem to give God thanks for escape from various dangers, (e.g. Psalm 107.3) and he alluded to the joy of exiles returning to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. (See, for example, today’s first reading:  Isaiah 66.18-21.)

Luke shades the meaning of Jesus’ saying to make it apply to a problem of Luke’s time.  Luke interprets the people who “will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south” to mean the gentiles who are joining the Jesus movement in surprisingly great numbers.  “You yourselves” who are cast out refers to most of the Israelites who did not accept Jesus as Messiah and join the Jesus movement that was evolving into the early Christian Church.

4. Luke concludes this passage with a familiar saying of Jesus that was found in two forms in his sources. In Mark 10.31 it reads: “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” (NRSV) (Note this ends with: “the last will be first.”) There it is used to encourage those who have sacrificed house, family, and fields for the sake of the good news.  Instead, Luke chooses the form found in Q that ends: “and some are first who will be last.”  Here it becomes a commentary on what lies in store for those who reject the good news of the kingdom of God.

Meaning for Our Time

What argument will we make to get an invitation to the heavenly banquet?  Will it be enough to claim that we are baptized Christians and that we regularly take part in Sunday worship where we listen to the words of Jesus and eat with him at the Eucharistic table?  Do we realize that by going up to receive Communion we are committing ourselves to a life of love for and service to the least of our sisters and brothers?  Have we lived up to that commitment?  Are we striving hard to prepare for the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace?

As we have seen repeatedly, many of Jesus’ sayings and parables only raise questions and do not give answers.  So, it should not be surprising that the answers to these questions are not found in today’s gospel reading.  Luke’s Jesus will spell things out as we walk with him to Jerusalem in the gospel narrative that follows.  For now, we live with the questions.

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Explanatory Note:

Q  “Q” (from the German “Quelle” or “source”) stands for a lost written document made up almost entirely of sayings of Jesus which scholars have reconstructed from an analysis of passages in the Gospel of Matthew and Luke that are very similar to each other but generally not found in the Gospel of Mark.  Examples would be the Sermon on the Mount or the Lord’s Prayer.  These scholars hold that Matthew and Luke were written independently. However, each of the authors had access to written copies of Mark and Q.

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In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:

Fitzmyer 1985 – Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV: Introduction, Translation, and Notes.  Anchor Bible Volume 28A. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985), pp. 1020-1027.

Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary.  The Word of God for the Church Today  (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 499-500.

Funk, Hoover & the Jesus Seminar 1993 – Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels:  The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus  (New York:  Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 347-348.

Johnson 1991 – Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke , Sacra Pagina Series Volume 3, A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1991), pp. 215-222.

LaVerdiere 1990 – Eugene LaVerdiere, S.S.S., Luke.  New Testament Message, Volume 5.  A Michael Glazier Book  (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 183-190.

Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition  (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), pp. 282-283.

NRSV 1994 – New Revised Standard Version – Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, Editors, The New Oxford Annotated Bible containing the Old and New Testaments.  New Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1994)

Pilch 1997 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle  C .  A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]:  Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 127-129.

Throckmorton 1992 – Burton H. Throckmorton, Jr., Ed., Gospel Parallels:  A Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels, Fifth Edition (Nashville:  Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992), 131-132.

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