RBWords

     Jesus responds, in today's gospel scripture, to a question that seems still to be alive in some Christian circles!  Who is going to be saved?  The response from the Lord himself is:  "The one who is 'strong' enough!"  Group affiliation or personal acquaintance will not be sufficient!  Not even family kinship will be sufficient!  What counts is whether or not someone "does the will of my Father," or "Whoever hears these words and acts upon them."   This is a consistent theme in the gospels.  Why does the question continue to lurk: "Who can be saved?"

 

     I think the very existence of the question is a challenge to the conscience.  Is there a worry that the wrong "sort" of people will be saved instead of the "right sort?"  This is the "country club" attitude, and I fear it is all too common in Christian communities.  Isaiah and Jesus warn us today that the self-righteous may find themselves on the outside looking in!  If you have access to the writings of the Southern Catholic writer, Flannery O'Connor, I recommend reading her story, REVELATION.  At the end, the principal character, Ruby Turpin, who is very self-righteous, has a vision while hosing down her hog pen!  In that vision a long line of people is journeying toward heaven - all kinds of people that she would never have anything to do with.  At the very end of the line are the self-righteous folks like herself and she can see in their faces that their very self-righteous "virtue" is being burned off them!

 

     The "strength" we need to enter through the narrow way will come from God.  "Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it!"  Our job is to do that and forget about WHO is going to be saved!  AMEN