Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time

August 24, 2025

Luke 13: 22-30

Through the centuries people of faith has been fixed on how to be saved. We sometimes make the answer to this question far too complicated. No matter how firmly we believe, we try to find things we can do that will assure our salvation. But the thing is, we don’t earn our our salvation. Salvation is God’s gift through though the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But that doesn’t mean that we can go through life as if unconscious of the meaning of Jesus’ life, his example, his teaching.

That is what Jesus is saying in the gospel today in answer to the question: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He does not really answer the question directly. It is because restrictions on entering the kingdom of heaven do not lie with God, but rather with the human response to God’s invitation. Adam and Eve are a good example of this. Any delay or failure to enter the Kingdom lies with us.

So, yes, a person has to enter before the narrow gate. Why did Jesus use this image? Picture the entrance in to any walled town in Jesus time. The gate was usually a large arch with two smaller arched gates on either side. This large gate allowed people with carts, camels, wagons of goods to sell, to pass into the town with little difficulty. But if you did not have any baggage, you could skip the crowd running into each other to get in, and go quickly through the smaller, or narrow gate. But notice these people have little baggage.

This is the way that Jesus is telling us will get us into the kingdom. It is when our focus is on God and the good of our neighbor, and not burdened with a lot of stuff, that we will gain entrance. 

Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen tells us that we will have three surprises in Heaven. The first surprise: We will be surprised to see that many people we expected to be in Heaven are not there. St. John of the Cross gives the reason why they are not there: “At the evening of our life, we shall be judged on how we have loved.” The second surprise: We will be surprised to see that the people we never expected to be in Heaven are there. That is because God judges how person lives out his intentions and rewards them accordingly. The third surprise: We will be surprised to see that we are in Heaven! Since our getting to Heaven is principally God’s work, we should be surprised that God somehow “went out of His way” to save us, simply because we showed the good will and generosity to cooperate with His grace. 

Only that is not all. Jesus ends with: “For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” But this is no news if we remember other things Jesus has told us: the last shall be first; those who lose their lives will live; sell all you have and give the money to the poor; forgive not once or twice but seventy times seven time; love your neighbor as yourself. None of these things fit our standard of fairness. The truth is that God loves us all, saints and sinners alike; each of us is God’s favorite. It is an open invitation; some arrive early, others are late-comers. Some have to get rid of a lot of baggage first, others travel light and can enter quickly through the narrow gate. What is our response to choosing the narrow gate?

Fr. John Tran