In last week’s Gospel (Luke 13:22-30) we heard our Lord’s response to those who found themselves locked outside the kingdom of heaven: “I do not know where you come from, depart from me all you workers of iniquity” (Luke 13:27). They were the ones who had built their houses without a firm foundation, not on rock but on sand (cf. Luke 6:49, Matt 7:26) who had indeed heard the words and teaching of Jesus but had not acted on them, who had not striven to pass through the narrow door. (cf. Luke 13:24). In vain did they cry out “We ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets” (Luke 13:26)
Today we are in the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. He has invited Jesus to eat and drink with him. This ruler, his guests, would have listened to Jesus teaching in the streets: perhaps even just before in the synagogue, for it is the Sabbath, and they may have just come from there. The meal they are sitting down to eat would have been prepared the day before. So, like those to whom the door of the kingdom was shut, having heard Jesus teach, they are about to eat and drink in his presence. They may not realise it, but the stakes are very high. We are told they were “watching him carefully” (Luke 14:1): not so as to be attentive to Jesus teaching, but to catch him out in something he might do or say. Jesus would have known this, but he pays no attention - to their suspicion and the hardness of their hearts. His actions and words are not constrained by the response he receives. Although not included in today’s reading, Jesus first asks them a question. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? (Luke 14:3). He then heals a man with dropsy. But both Jesus’ question and his subsequent appeal to the Pharisees after the healing, that they would not hesitate to pull a donkey out of a well on the Sabbath, are met with stony silence. (Luke 14:4-6)
This is the context of the subsequent parable on humility, of choosing the lowest place and of the teaching on liberality by welcoming the poor, crippled, lame and blind. Jesus is the sower and he is scattering the seed of the Gospel liberally, but it seems to be falling onto the stony path - the hearts of the Pharisees (Luke 8:5). So why does Jesus continue? Why does he even begin?
Because Jesus is “forbearing toward us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Yes – the door is narrow but God’s desire is all should be saved. Jesus is the mediator of the new covenant in His Blood (Heb 12:24) which has been poured out for us, for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus in the familiar words of Philippians “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant...and humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:6.8). Jesus moved to “the lowest place in the world, the Cross” (Pope Benedict XVI Deus Caritas Est, 35) - his humility. From the Cross His blood is poured out for us – his liberality. Humility and liberality find their fullest expression in the Cross: and it is only by the Cross that we can enter the kingdom of heaven. The Cross, in the words of Psalm 117, is “the gate of the Lord” and “the righteous shall enter through it” (Ps 117:20), it is the narrow door which we must pass through. From the Cross - the lowest place - Jesus has redeemed us. Now seated at the right hand of the Father – the highest place – Jesus intercedes for us and constantly comes to our aid. Passion and Ascension. It is the culmination of Jesus teaching to those gathered at the meal - “he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11)
There is another place in St Luke’s Gospel where Jesus teaches us that “he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:14). It is the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who are both praying in the temple. Jesus tells us that the Pharisee prays with himself: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men… even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes on all I get” (Luke 18:11-12). The Pharisee places himself above others. He is self-righteous. He sees only the good in himself and the evil in others. He does not take the lowest place. But the tax collector does not even raise his eyes to heaven but beats his breast saying: “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13). Jesus tells us that the tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home at rights with God. (cf Luke 18:14)
So with us. To pass through the narrow door which is the Cross we need to flee the broad, wide and easy path of complacency and self-righteousness and to take the narrow, hard and rugged path of humility, acknowledging our need of God’s mercy and never tiring of asking His forgiveness; to never compare ourselves with others and put ourselves above them, but to look to the Cross and know that compared with Jesus we are only ever just beginning to love as He loved us.
To help us pass through the narrow door we implore the intercession of Mary. She is the Gate of Heaven, who as the humble handmaid of the Lord stored up all the words of her Son in her heart and did them following him all on the way to the Cross. Staying with him at the lowest place in the world she was taken up to Heaven in glory; she who humbled herself was exalted as Queen of Heaven and Mother of us all.
DJC