On August 31, 1998, the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, many papers came out with the headline "Where is the Soul of Princess Diana." They were reporting the story that some women in England had withdrawn their children from an Evangelical Sunday school because the Sunday school teachers were teaching the kids that the soul of Princess Diana was in hell, whereas the women had already told their children that the soul of the Princess was in heaven. As a result, the question, "Where is the soul of Princess Diana?" became an issue. A popular radio station in Toronto went as far as to interview the Archdeacon of the Anglican Diocese to find out exactly the whereabouts of Princess Diana's soul.

 How would Jesus have answered such a question? Suppose Jesus was on earth today and a reporter went to him and asked him, "Where is Princess Diana's soul?" what would be his answer? I think Jesus would look the reporter in the eye and tell him or her, "Try and save your own soul now that you still have the chance."

 This is exactly what is happening in today's gospel. Jesus is going through the towns and villages teaching and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone interrupts him and asks, "Lord, will only a few be saved?"(Luke 13:33). What does Jesus answer? "My friend, strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able" (verse 24). We see that Jesus is not really answering the man's question: "Will only a few be saved?" In fact he is answering a more important question, "How can I be saved?"

 As far as the important question of our salvation is concerned, there are two kinds of questions we could ask. We could ask curiosity questions aimed at obtaining information, facts and figures that do not affect our salvation one way or the other. Or we could ask a relevant question, which is a sincere quest for the truth that leads to salvation. Go through the gospels and you will find that Jesus has no time for questions of curiosity. In fact whenever someone asks a question of mere curiosity he does not answer it but uses the occasion to answer the relevant question that such a person should be asking. "Lord, will only a few be saved?" is a typical question of curiosity. If you know the answer, how will it affect your salvation one way or the other? So Jesus switches the question around, to one that is relevant for salvation and responds to the inquirer, "Strive to enter through the narrow door..."

 Curiosity questions have a special appeal to the mass media and to popular imagination. When will the world come to an end? When is Armageddon coming? Who is the Anti-Christ? What is 666, the mark of the Anti-Christ? What will be the rapture? I want you to see that these are all questions of curiosity. Jesus does not answer such questions. Just before his Ascension his disciples asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" How did he reply? "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:6-8).

 On a lighter mood, an open-air evangelist, preaching on today's gospel text was warning his congregation about the eternal damnation. "On the day of Judgment," he said, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." An old woman in the crowd had a problem, "Look preacher, but I got no teeth!" "Never mind, Madam" says the preacher, "teeth will be provided." A curious question indeed!

 So you see, it is a waste of breath to ask, "Where is the soul of Princess Diana?" It is a good example of a question of curiosity. Rather we should be asking questions of personal importance like, "What do I need to do to be saved? How can I serve G od better in my present situation in life? How can I make use of the opportunities God gives me here and now for my eternal salvation?" Let us take a moment and ask ourselves some of these relevant questions today.

 The credit card is a great invention. With just a plastic card one can go into a shop and buy whatever one wants - a dress, a pair of shoes, grocery, a television set, and even a car - take it home and begin to enjoy it, all with just a promise to pay later, as money becomes available. It is a wonderful system that could be a lifesaver to someone in temporary financial crisis. But the credit card system can create in people the mentality of "have it now and pay later," which does not work in life generally. In the real life, most of the goods that come to us are prepaid. To pass your exams, you have to study beforehand. You cannot pass your exams now with a promise to complete the required courses later. To win a football match, the team must practice hard before the match, not after. Most goods and blessings that come to us in life are prepaid.

 Discipline is the name we give to the necessary hard work and self-denial that people endure in order to prepay for a future reward. Discipline, as everyone knows, can be a very painful experience, but those who succeed after going through the rigour of discipline usually look back and agree that it was worth it. As today's second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews says, "discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11).

 Wise parents raise their children with discipline. With discipline children are helped to cultivate good habits, such as, early to bed and early to rise, brushing their teeth and taking a shower, cleaning their rooms and helping out in the kitchen. With discipline children learn how to join the in the family meal rather than watch television all the time, how to make time to do their homework rather than browsing the internet all night long. At the time, they may object and think that their parents are harsh, but later in life, when they begin to reap the rewards of a disciplined life, they will thank their parents for inculcating some discipline into them,

 Our second reading today compares God to good parents who discipline their children out of the love they have for them.

 My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; 6 for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts. 7 Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? (Hebrews 12:5-7)

 What discipline are we talking about here? For the early Christians it was the discipline of enduring the persecution, in which they were expected to remain steadfast in confessing their faith in Christ in the face of false accusations, torture and a painful death. This is seen as a discipline because it is a temporary pain and suffering that leads to eternal life, peace and happiness with God forever. For us today, our discipline could be the courage to speak the truth, to do what is right, and to keep the commandments of God, even when it is no longer fashionable to do so. Such a discipline will be inconvenient momentarily. It may cost us our friends, our jobs and some financial gain, in the short run. In the long run, however, it brings us the rewards of joy, peace and the contentment of a good conscience both in this life and in the world to come.

 The passage ends by strongly urging believers to brace themselves up and overcome the disease of spiritual laziness that affects us all: "Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed" (Hebrews 12:12-13). Why are many of us nominal and lukewarm Christians? Because we are hesitant to submit ourselves to God's discipline. Let us today resolve to take upon ourselves the yoke of God's discipline, knowing that God has given it to us out of love and that this is the only way to make ourselves worthy of the future glory that our heavenly and loving Father has graciously reserved for His faithful children.

 Jesus tells us very clearly today that it is not enough to follow Jesus, eat meals with him and listen to him. There is something more that has to be done. What is it that we must do?

 To answer that question I am going to take you full circle back to the beginning of this Church year in Advent when we were told that we had to “repent”, and remind you that the meaning of this word is “to turn around or to turn back”.

 But before we do that, let’s look at the Gospel reading more closely. At the beginning of today’s Gospel someone asks Jesus very pointedly “Lord, will only a few be saved?” To understand this question we need to look at a little bit of Hebrew tradition and culture. This was not a trick question really, as we have seen in the last few weeks, but a question based on the traditional Jewish idea that all Jews would be saved, that is would have a share in whatever the Messiah was bringing them. The Pharisees, however, who were very conservative and strict observers of the law, were teaching that not every Jew would be saved. The age to come was only for a few select people.  So this question, in a sense, was not about the Christian being saved or getting into the kingdom, as we often have applied it to ourselves today, frightening many Christians that they might not be able to get to heaven, and that God’s saving grace was not meant for them, but about Jews being saved by a Messiah.

Jesus answers the question rather indirectly and subtly, as he can sometimes do, and instead talks about the narrow door which could be difficult to get through when everyone is pushing and shoving. Jesus then uses a parable to explain to his followers that there is more to being a follower of Jesus than they might think.

 Father John Pilch, a sociologist, explains that the idea of insiders and outsiders was very central to the Hebrew way of thought.  The family was inside; everyone who was not family was outside.  Being Jewish was inside. Not being Jewish – being a Gentile – was outside. There were, however, ways in which an outsider could become an insider.  You could marry into a family, for example. You could convert to Judaism. Or there were rituals that could cause someone to be family.  I remember when I was a boy that we used to become blood brothers by intermingling our blood.  That was supposed to make us ‘family” in a sense. For the Jew, another way of becoming an insider was to eat with others – to share bread. We have ritualized this element in our Christian tradition and we talk about the Mass as a meal where we come to share bread and become one.

 Now Jesus’ disciples had all supped with Jesus and probably felt very strongly that they were now family. I am sure they must have felt that if Jesus were the messiah, that they would – as family – share in whatever rewards that would bring.

 But in the parable Jesus tells, the insiders are turned away! Not only turned away but they are called evildoers and will not be able to enter the owner’s house. But why? they say.  We have eaten and drunk with you. We are family now.

 Again, as we have seen over and over, Jesus turns expectations around and is counter cultural in order to get his followers to look at the world and their lives in a new way. It is not enough to be in the ‘family’, just to eat and drink and listen, but something more is expected. And, in fact, people who are outside the family may get in before family. “Then people will come” Jesus says, “from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.”  Jesus has here turned around the expectations, the world view of these people who follow him. He concludes with the familiar aphorism: Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” How subversive Jesus is being, in an attempt to get people to re-evaluate, to look again at what seems normalized for them.

 What isn’t contained in this excerpt though is the real answer that Jesus has gives and has built toward. We must repent, turn ourselves around, make changes in our lives, put into action what this new order shows us through the Beatitudes, for just one example. When we have done this, we will have prepared ourselves for the narrow gate or we can be sure the door will be opened to us when we knock.

 I don’t really believe that Jesus was saying this to use scare tactics with people – the “Wait till your father gets home!” syndrome. But I do think he was trying to make us think twice about things we take for granted.  It is easy to get comfortable within our own paradigm. Jesus wants to make us uncomfortable and look at things in new ways, and in so doing cause us to reevaluate – to turn around and look at ourselves. To make straight the crooked road.

 In the first reading today we read how Isaiah prophesied that the Lord was coming to gather all nations and tongues, and how the Lord will even make priests out of them. The narrow door is open to everyone. That should give us all hope. But besides the fact that we are all saved, all invited, St. Paul, in our second reading, reminds us that we must still discipline ourselves. Bad things still happen to good people, and he suggests that we look at things that happen to us that are difficult as strengthening us, getting us ready to get in the narrow door.

 So what can all this mean to us for this week.  We should be rejoicing that Jesus has saved us all, but not get self-satisfied in our daily lives.  We need to discipline ourselves, use the the things that happen to us to help us grow, rather than get us down. We need to remember that the tested people, the people with the most problems, the last people,  may be the ones who get in the door first. And most of all, we need to remember to repent, to turn around, to look at what we are doing.  Those are the people that will easily slip through the narrow door.

 By Bishop Kasomo Daniel

 The Bishop of The Society of St.Peter and Paul (SSPP)