Last week, we had a severe earthquake here in Wellington. It struck at about 2:30 in the afternoon with a magnitude of 6.5. With that offices in Wellington decided to close for the day to allow people to go home and check their own houses and to avoid falling debris should there be strong aftershocks. The result was a huge and long traffic jam because everybody was rushing out of Wellington. This took about three hours to clear but eventually everybody managed to go home. By the time, I went home myself from an appointment in Wellington about five hours after the quake the motorway was again free flowing again as if nothing happened a few hours before.
When Jesus was asked “Will only be a few people saved?” Jesus answered, “…strive to enter the narrow gate.” With this passage, I imagined myself with the scenario above.
During the time of Christ, Jews believed that there will only be a few who will enter heaven. First, they believed that salvation would only come for the Jews and second, even among the Jews, only those who were strict adherents to the Law would be saved. So they thought that salvation would only be limited to a very exclusive club. However, Jesus answered the question quite differently. Jesus emphasised that first, salvation is for everyone. He described that in heaven, there will be people coming from the north and south, from the east and the west who will recline at the kingdom of God. Jesus is debunking the notion that salvation is exclusively for the Jews. Jesus is emphasising that salvation is for everyone! Secondly, he is asking that all should strive to enter the narrow gate. Jesus never pointed out that because the gate is narrow that only a few would pass. It is like the volume of traffic in Wellington on a busy Monday morning: vehicles will all struggle to pass through the narrow streets but if your vehicle doesn’t bog down in the middle of the highway, you will be able to pass the street to your destination. You may get delayed or it make take a long time but as long as you are patient and don’t give up then you will make it. But when the time comes that the door is shut, then the people who find themselves outside the gate will appeal to no avail. It means that the process of passing through the narrow gate should start in earnest.
Today unfortunately, some Christian denominations have used this passage to emphasise that there will only be a few who will be able to enter heaven. Even us Catholics believed that heaven is only for those who are “extraordinarily good” like the saints that we venerate. And also there is an impression that heaven is only for clergy and religious brothers and sisters. However, Pope Francis has emphasised in one of his homilies that heaven is for everybody. He even specifically said that even atheists would be able to enter heaven. So we should get rid of the notion that heaven is only for a few. Heaven is for everybody as long as you want to enter.
However, when Jesus said that we should strive to enter the narrow gate, it doesn’t mean that everybody could just enter without any serious effort. Jesus is emphasising that the sacrifice that he paid in order for us to enter the narrow gate is very precious and should not be taken for granted. God would not turn a blind eye to people who want to enter heaven but who don’t want to strive or make any effort to reform their lives towards sincere conversion. God would not simply give heaven on a silver platter without any effort on our part. We should be able to also do our own part in order to gain salvation.
May this gospel for today continue to inspire us to strive to enter the narrow gate. It may take us a long time and much effort but at least we are assured that at the end of the narrow gate is the radiant light of Christ waiting to welcome us into eternal life.