Wednesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
When asked a difficult question, Jesus responds today in true Jesus fashion - by side-stepping the question a bit and offering a story. The story begins with some advice: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” And then it continues. You may find the door locked, and you’ll knock and the master will answer. You’ll ask to be let in, and the master will essentially ask, “Who do you think you are?”
The people trying to enter respond, “We ate in your presence, you taught in our streets…” Here is a key to the passage, I think. Notice how passive their response is - we ate in your presence. They don’t say, “we fished together, prepared meals together, conversed, laughed, spent time getting to know one another.” No, we ate in your presence, and you taught in our streets. They don’t say, “We learned from you, you are our teacher, and we are your students. We learned to practice the wideness of God’s love that you taught us with everyone we encountered.”
Jesus is essentially saying that you can’t just hang out with him. You can’t just be in his presence. No, not even reading spiritual books, hearing the Word, or being in his presence in adoration is enough. Although all of that is good and holy and brings us on the way.
Jesus asks more of us. Jesus begins the story, “Strive for the narrow gate.” He invites us to be active. He invites us to do more than sit in his presence; he invites us to walk alongside him, practicing God’s love, compassion, and mercy; practicing God’s justice, creating communities and systems that care for those most in need and protect the most vulnerable.
The gate may or may not be narrow. Jesus doesn’t actually tell us. What he does tell us is to strive, to be active disciples. He also says that in the end, “people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” This sounds like a wide and inclusive love, in the end.
How might our prayer and study of the Word lead us today to action, to practice God’s love today?
—Kelly Adamson