Get the Message

Wednesday, August 17th, 2016

Anytime I hear the phrase “and there will be wailing and grinding of teeth” in the Gospel, I roll my eyes. Like most difficult things Jesus says, I relegate it to Oh, that is just ancient sensibility, he is not talking about us and certainly not about me. This Sunday’s Gospel has this bizarre image of a master denying entry to his servants and sarcastically taunting them with thoughts of not knowing them. Jesus is even insinuating that he himself, the Messiah of love, will be on the other side of the door, quite literally shutting us out!

Praying through the readings I forced myself to really put myself in Christ’s story. Am I the servant or the master? It affected me deeply. I began to see Jesus as telling us that we, by our own actions, not God’s, are keeping ourselves out.

Jesus is telling us, supported beautifully with the other readings from Hebrews and Isaiah, that this stuff is hard. Keeping faith in this temporal part of life is difficult stuff. Many try and fail.  That is not to say they are condemned, but that they are shutting themselves off from God’s mercy, not God.

Anytime I hear the phrase “and there will be wailing and grinding of teeth,” I shouldn’t read it as apocalyptic in the sense of God’s punishment, but the wailing that comes from the pain of our bad decision making or the grinding of teeth that comes with laboring so hard because we think we can do it on our own.  Christ wants to make it easier! Don’t shut him out!

I’m not sure if I believe in hell, but I’ve seen people in it.  This life can be hellish without the love of the Savior. “Behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last,” Jesus tells us. He’s not punishing people, he is just saying that the first people to roll their eyes at the message are often the last to get the message. God bless.

I’ll be seeing you,

Elliot

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