30 Oct 2024 – Wednesday of Week 30
30 Oct 2024 – Wednesday of Week 30
1st Reading: Ephesians 6:1-9
Practical advice for parents and children, masters and servants
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “honour your father and mother”. This is the first commandment accompanied with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are servants or free. And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.
Responsorial: from Psalm 145
R./: The Lord is faithful in all his words
All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord,
and your friends shall repeat their blessing.
They shall speak of the glory of your reign
and declare your might, O God,
to make known to men your mighty deeds
and the glorious splendour of your reign. (R./)
Yours is an everlasting kingdom;
your rule lasts from age to age. (R./)
The Lord is faithful in all his words
and loving in all his deeds.
The Lord supports all who fall
and raises all who are bowed down. (R./)
Gospel: Luke 13:22-30
Enter by the narrow door. Surprising people will enter
Jesus went through one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.
“When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!’ There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.
Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
Maybe the narrow door is …
Today’s readings seem to point in two opposite directions. In the epistle, the way to salvation seems by way of doing our normal domestic duties, with patience, respect and honesty. But the gospel gives the opposite impression, that eternal life is elusive and difficult to attain. We are left to puzzle at the enigmatic one-liner, “Some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last.”
Perhaps that one-liner is the clue linking those opposite poles. Some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last. Does it mean a reversal of values within our own hearts? In all of us there are impulses drawing us to do good. Maybe the narrow door is a relative term, to suggest that to enter heaven we need more detachment from things and a slimmed-down lifestyle. A kindly, small-scale act of self-giving may turn my life around. Some priority I had neglected now comes first; earlier ambitions and obsessions now take last place.
Ephesians lists some commonplaces of everyday ethics, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Parents, do not anger your children. Servants, obey your human masters. Masters, stop threatening your servants.” But it adds some Christian qualifiers: Parents must train their children in the way of the Lord. Servants must show their masters the sincerity you owe to Christ. And each one, servant or master, will be repaid by the Lord. These qualifiers give the ethical advice a specifically Christian tone. What seems like everyday decency may turn out to be the “narrow door” that leads to salvation.
Who will be saved?
“Will only a few be saved?” Jesus refuses to give a direct answer but invites us to enter by the narrow door. The way to salvation, fullness of life, requires effort on our part, just as entering through a narrow door we need some slimming down and concentration.
The narrow opening need not imply that only a few will get through it. In fact, Jesus says elsewhere that people from east and west, from north and south, will take their places in the kingdom of God. The Book of Revelation says that a vast multitude are gathered around the throne. But that is not a reason for complacency. We still have to strive to enter by the narrow door, and we do that by following behind Jesus and seeking to do the will of God.