Gates And Doors

Homily for 5:30 Mass

Today we hear about a gate and a door.  First, what is the narrow gate we must attempt to go through but struggle to enter? Furthermore, what is the difference between a narrow gate and a wide gate.  

A wide gate is what a flood of scrambling lemmings runs through, and then over a cliff to their individual destruction. There’s jostling and bumping of bodies. There is no independent thought or critical thinking. Every individual does the same thing, perhaps at the command of some blind leader to criticize and condemn the other person or group with a different point of view or belief. 

An observer would not be able to tell one lemming from another. They are just an unruly crowd of squeaking animals pushing and shoving. Social media is sort of like that. It’s a very wide gate with anyone being able to pass through often being unidentifiable, anonymous, and cowardly.

Now, think of a narrow gate through which most of us have to pass. One example is the gate we must go through at airports to clear security. Phones out of pockets, shoes off, being X-rayed, and of course, hands above our heads so we can be imaged to see what we might be concealing under our clothes. We are scrutinized.  We are assessed.  We are checked out.  We are identified.  We are specifically identified through facial recognition technology.  They know who we are. 

That’s what happens with the narrow gate referenced by Jesus. We struggle to go through his gate because we know we will be scrutinized and evaluated. Our sins we want to hide will be revealed.  We have guilt. There’s no escape; we cannot sneak through. Perhaps the angels serve like Airport Security officers from TSA) – TSAngels. 

Jesus tells us we must strive to enter through the narrow gate. We must be strong enough meaning we must strengthen ourselves by obeying his commandments such as loving our neighbor, and God. We must ask for forgiveness when we mess up, and we must forgive others for what they may have done to us and those we love. That’s certainly a tall and challenging order, but it’s the passageway up to and through the narrow gate leading to salvation.

What also makes us strong enough to enter?  Not fearing and having courage. 

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear,” according to Mark Twain.  

Eleanor Roosevelt said: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’”

The Reverend Billy Graham once said: “Courage is contagious. When a brave man [or woman] takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.” 

Here is one I’ve always liked:  "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." Mark Twain

That covers the gates. Now, what about the door?  Each of us must courageously step forward and knock on the locked door to say, “Lord, open the door for me.”   

It would be quite scary if the Lord appeared at the door, looked at us up and down, and said, “I don’t know where you are from. I do not know who you are. Depart from me, you evildoer!” If we heard this, we would wail and grind our teeth because, according to the reading, we would be cast out.

How can we prevent being cast out and thrown away? As Luke tells us, we need to live with an understanding that the last will be first, and the first will be last. There are a few ways to interpret this instruction. Here’s one that is quite consistent with Jesus’ teaching and opposite from what the world teaches us especially about social ranking, pecking orders, and status. It’s a teaching that most of us seem to have learned and applied to just about everything in our lives, such as with sports, in business, in classrooms, and in family life.

Those who finish first are always declared the winner. In fact, many of us live by a “winner-take-all” philosophy. Jesus challenged this teaching, declaring the last shall be first. It should not be about winning for position and status in life. It should be about how we run the race and compete with integrity, honesty, respect, fairness, humility, and hard work. Those among us who don’t have these traits are last in the eyes of God. It’s a hard lesson for us to accept considering our seeming worship of first place whether it be sports or any other endeavor.

Many of us Catholics would rather talk about winning, succeeding, overcoming, and conquering rather than yielding, submitting, obeying, and surrendering. But surrendering to God is the heart of worship. Does that heart beat within us?

When we live by the creed of the first will be last and the last will be first, when we put other people before ourselves, God will know where we are from. God will know who we are. When we knock on the door and say, “Lord, open the door for me,” we will never hear: “Depart from me, you evildoers.” Instead, we will hear: “Come to me, you doers of good – my good and faithful servants.”

Deacon David Pierce