Suck It Up | August 21, 2016

August 21, 2016

Raise your hand if you have ever been in a crowded banquet hall with round dinner tables and every seat is occupied? Your table is on the opposite side from the door and now you have to pee, which requires you to maneuver through the crowd toward the door. Sometimes you can squeeze between people’s chairs fairly easily, but most of the time it takes great physical ability to stretch your body in such a way and suck it all in to make yourself skinny enough to shimmy through. Heaven forbid if you should have to ask the person sitting in the chair to scooch up so your fat self can get by…so embarrassing. Not to mention, you have to pee, so scrunching up anything makes the whole endeavor even more urgent and crucial. This familiar anecdote might just hold the essence of today’s gospel.

As Jesus was passing through towns and villages, someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” And Jesus said, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter, but will not be strong enough.” All of today’s readings emphasize the importance of discipline in our lives and Jesus tells us very clearly that we need strength to be able to get to heaven. Strength comes from working out, conditioning, and practice. When we meet God face to face we will meet him with what we have trained and practiced for in our lives. So if there is a guacamole-eating contest to enter the narrow gate, I’m in! Or if there is a matching your shoes to your outfit competition, I’m in! Or if there is an anxiety over things I can’t control tournament, I’m in! Or if there is a self-loathing match, winner winner chicken dinner!! Olympians are a product of much training, sacrifice, and conditioning and we can apply their example to our spiritual lives. They choose every day to sacrifice certain things in the name of their passion, and with the ultimate goal for excellence in their field. This can and should also be the way we approach our faith lives.

Let’s go back to needing to pee in the crowded banquet hall. Sometimes we are far away from where we need or want to be. Sometimes an urgent need or dire situation gets our butts out of the comfy chair we are in and moves us toward the place where we can find relief. To get there, however, we must navigate the way with thought and prayer. It won’t always be easy to get through, but the urgency of the need will keep us striving to get there. Sometimes we need to stretch ourselves in ways that might seem impossible and other times we just need to suck it up and go through something uncomfortable. The hardest thing might just be to ask another person for help, to move out of the way, and/or to admit that we need them in order to reach the place of significance. These are very practical tools to help us pass through the narrow gate.

Meditate on the things that are keeping you from passing through, pray about the areas that you need to stretch, face the things that you need to suck up, and seek the help of other trusted pilgrims on the journey. A full bladder leaves us antsy, uncomfortable, and agitated, and the same is true of a restless heart. We need to empty ourselves so that we can rest in Him, and a rested soul is one that is pliable enough to squeeze through the narrow gate where eternal rest awaits. Have a blessed day.

Reading 1 IS 66:18-21

Thus says the LORD:
I know their works and their thoughts,
and I come to gather nations of every language;
they shall come and see my glory.
I will set a sign among them;
from them I will send fugitives to the nations:
to Tarshish, Put and Lud, Mosoch, Tubal and Javan,
to the distant coastlands
that have never heard of my fame, or seen my glory;
and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations.
They shall bring all your brothers and sisters from all the nations
as an offering to the LORD,
on horses and in chariots, in carts, upon mules and dromedaries,
to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the LORD,
just as the Israelites bring their offering
to the house of the LORD in clean vessels.
Some of these I will take as priests and Levites, says the LORD.

Responsorial Psalm PS 117:1, 2

R. (Mk 16:15) Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise the LORD all you nations;
glorify him, all you peoples!
R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R.. Alleluia.
For steadfast is his kindness toward us,
and the fidelity of the LORD endures forever.
R. Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Reading 2 HEB 12:5-7, 11-13

Brothers and sisters,
You have forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:
“My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
or lose heart when reproved by him;
for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
he scourges every son he acknowledges.”
Endure your trials as “discipline”;
God treats you as sons.
For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?
At the time,
all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain,
yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who are trained by it.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.

Alleluia JN 14:6

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the way, the truth and the life, says the Lord;
no one comes to the Father, except through me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel LK 13:22-30

Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”