21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
This first extract was written 500 years before Jesus. It was written after a period of 50 years in exile. The exiles are returning to Jerusalem. But the people returning are very different to the people who left. The vast majority of them have no personal memory of Jerusalem. In exile, many, many of them had married non-Jews; they had married into other tribes. Now they are returning to Jerusalem with all those strange men, women and children of every colour and ethnic origin. Now no people were more conscious of their ethnic purity than were the Jews.
This is the situation the prophet addresses. "I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory. As an offering to the Lord they will bring all your brothers and sisters on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules, on dromedaries, from all the nations to my holy mountain on Jerusalem." The prophet is telling his people that the love of God is not reserved exclusively to the Jews but extends to all nations. These new people must not be isolated as impostors but must be accepted as an offering to the Lord. The streams of people moving towards Jerusalem must now be viewed as an offertory procession.
And these same questions crop up 500 years later in Luke's gospel. Luke wrote his gospel in 80ad to a very definite plan. The gospel is written as a sort of record of a pilgrim on the road to Jerusalem. And that pilgrim's name is Jesus. In particular Luke seeks to address a number of concerns his community had. And one of these concerns is as follows: "How did the favour of God pass from the originally chosen people to the broader, more generalised group of Gentiles, including Luke's audience of Christians of pagan origin?" These concerns lie behind the questions: 'Will there be only a few saved?' "Yes, there are those now last who shall be first, those now first who shall be last."
Luke's gospel presents the life of Jesus as a long procession towards the city of Jerusalem. Jesus knew where he was going in life, according to Luke. Jerusalem was his destiny. Yet he was not so obsessed with the idea as to be blind to other places. On his way he found time for the people of the little towns and villages along the road. He had a clear sense of purpose. But that purpose had none of the anxiety of compulsion. Jesus could not be described as a driven man, or a workaholic. He lived in great freedom and gave primacy to whatever person he was addressing at that particular moment.
Jesus spoke of salvation as trying to enter by a narrow door. The image of the narrow door indicates the need for a clear sense of purpose and the disciplined commitment of moving towards it. It suggests taking responsibility for the direction of one's life rather that drifting along with the prevailing current or wind. It is hardly a compliment to be called narrow-minded, for it suggests the tunnel vision of the bigot who cannot see anything good beyond the scope of his own prejudices. Yet, in one sense, if we are to be effective or to achieve anything, it is essential to operate out of a narrow vision. We must focus in on our primary objective and consciously eliminate all other distractions. Like the good marksman, we must close one eye totally and narrow the vision of the other.
We live in an age that greatly favours broad-mindedness, or as Joseph Ratzinger used call it 'an age of relativism and indifference'. But this is also an age when people are finding it very difficult to make a total commitment of life to any person or any cause. Priesthood and the Religious Life are in trouble because of the difficulties posed by personal commitment. The same applies to marriage. Voluntary bodies like the V de Paul are finding it difficult to meet their commitments. So, the weakness of broad-mindedness comes from the wastage of energy which is scattered in too many directions. Dissipation is the inevitable result of the lack of clear purpose and definite commitment.
It is more than a mere coincidence that some hallmarks of this broad-minded age are boredom and depression. It has much to do with the absence of commitment to a clear purpose in life. Energy is plentiful where there is purpose. You see light in the eye and a bounce in the step of those who know where they are going. Yet too rigid a commitment breeds a joyless religion. 'Too much sacrifice makes a stone of the heart' wrote Yeats. And a joyless religion is the hallmark of bigotry, which knows much more about hatred than love.
The way of Jesus is the model. He firmly set his face towards Jerusalem. Yet he was sufficiently relaxed on the way to have time for all the other towns and villages. He feasted far more than he fasted, according to St. Luke. The fact that he was heading for a narrow door didn't prevent him from enjoying the odd good meal. Broad minded and narrow-minded people have a lot to learn from him.