21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – August 24, 2025

St. Teresa – Hutchinson, KS

Isaiah 66:18-21; Psalm 117:1-2; Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13; Luke 13:22-30

Difficult Goal? Better Have A Plan

A couple of years ago, ESPN and Netflix put out a documentary series called “The Last Dance,” a documentary on the life and career of Michael Jordan. And it was very popular. People loved getting an inside look into the life of Jordan, and were in awe at the extreme dedication he had to basketball, to greatness, to the workouts and diets and schedules and routine. And there are several of those documentaries coming out: Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Derek Jeter. People love getting the inside scoop into the extreme dedication these athletes have to greatness, to the pursuit of greatness. They have this difficult goal in front of them, and they go to extreme lengths to achieve this goal. They have a plan, and they are relentless in sticking to the plan.

And it’s not just athletes that do this. The U.S. Military has the task of getting guys ready to serve as the most elite military on the planet. And so there is a very specific plan for breaking guys down, breaking down bad habits and instilling new habits. There is an extreme dedication to the plan. And what I hear a lot of people who were in the military say is how grateful they are for the discipline and work ethic it engrained in them.

Playing a musical instrument well is hard work. Lot’s of hours, practice every day, sticking to the plan.

Becoming a priest—having gone through seminary and now working in a seminary I can assure you, there is a long and rigorous process to become a priest. There is an intense schedule each day, a rigorous schedule of prayer and study and service and formation and evaluation.

And I could keep giving example after example. Consistency, discipline, extreme dedication to a goal, having a plan—on and on and on. You know that if there is a goal you want to accomplish, a difficult goal you want to achieve, it’s going to take these things. No one disagrees with this! No one disagrees when you say, “In order to be great, it takes hard work, dedication, and discipline.” No one.

…Until following Jesus is brought up. And that’s why these things Jesus says today can sound strange to our ears.

Jesus’ Call to Enter the Narrow Gate

Have you ever seen those memes of #ThingsJesusNeverSaid? Pretty hilarious. It’s just a picture of Jesus and a quote followed by #ThingsJesusNeverSaid. Like, “You’re perfect just the way you are.” Or, “It doesn’t matter what you do as long as deep down you’re a good person.” “Do what makes you happy. Just be kind.” We have all these things we say, things we attribute to Jesus, things we assume he would say if he were walking around today. But then we get readings like the Gospel today (or the Gospel last week) and it’s just a bunch of #ThingsJesusActuallySaid…and we’re like, “Whoa. That’s weird.…Let’s just skip that bit.” But no! We can’t!

Today, Jesus lays down more hard sayings! “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” That’s hard. “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!’” Ouch. What’s going on?

A big study was done back in 2005. And what it revealed is that most people (who would now be between the ages of 30 and 50 years old) who call themselves Christians or Catholics believe in this version of Christianity, of Catholicism that goes something like this. According to this study, most people who are Christians or Catholics believe that: a) the key to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person. That means: being nice, kind, respectful, and responsible; working on improving yourself; taking care of your health; and doing your best to be successful. Sound good? People also believe that: b) being a Christian then means feeling good, happy, secure, and at peace. It is about achieving well-being, and being able to solve your own problems; being friends and with other people; going to church when it makes you feel better. And finally: c) there is this God who created the world, and defines what is right and wrong, but He’s not personally involved in your life. Or if He is, He gets involved by helping you find $20 on the street when you really need it; or by helping you get a good deal on a new pair of shoes.

That is what most people between 30 and 50 believe this is all about. And when that is what you believe this is all about…well then your response is pretty predictable. Your response is to try to live a life that makes you happy, be kind to others, and be grateful to this “God” when things go the way you want them. And as long as you do that, you get to go to heaven when you die!

But then we get to readings like today…and we don’t know what to do with them. “A narrow gate? People are going to be shut out of the kingdom? What??”

The Rule of Life

Following Jesus Christ, being his disciple, being a faithful Christian, experiencing the joys of his Kingdom—all of this doesn’t happen by accident! This is what Jesus is trying to get at.

One of my friends who is a priest down in Wichita told me a story that he was encouraging a guy to go to Mass more often. And this guy said, “I like Jesus and church. Sometimes I feel good when I go. But Father, I’m not one of those ‘fanatics’ that goes every Sunday.” Maybe we’re supposed to be a little more on the fanatic side of things. Maybe there is a real dedication, maybe even an extreme dedication to following him that Jesus is asking of us.

And this means getting really practical. You get calendars from school, make your plans around whatever the school tells you to do, you move mountains to show up to practices and games for your kid’s sports. You make sure you show up to work on time, put in extra time for a raise, make time to go to the gym. But what about the most important thing in your life? The most important thing in your children’s lives? “Eh, we’ll get to it if we have time…maybe.”

This time of the year, as school begins, I always think back to when I was growing up, and my parents would have us all sit down for a family meeting and we would set up the “Rule” for the family that coming year. A “Rule of Life.” In a monastery (with monks or nuns), there is a rule of life which guides the house. St. Benedict would say that the rule is what allows a house to become a “school in the Lord’s service.” So a rule of life is like a trellis, you know, like what vines grow on? Just like a trellis guides the growth of a vine, our rule of life was meant to guide the growth of our family, to become a house that was a “school in the Lord’s service.”

And so in our house, our little monastery, our little domestic church—we had a rule. A daily schedule of prayer, the week was centered on the Mass, Sundays were a day for the family and rest (not just to catch up on stuff and get ready for the week ahead), our lives didn’t revolve around the school calendar or the sports seasons but around the liturgical seasons of the year: Advent and Christmas and Lent and Easter. 

And why? Why the extreme dedication, the discipline of all of this? This was “narrow gate,” the “Rule of Life,” the “trellis” to help guide our lives. Why? Because my parents had a specific goal in mind: they want us to be saints, to be heroic disciples of Jesus Christ, to find true happiness by following him. And what parent wouldn’t want that for their child? Don’t you want that for your kids?

“Go out to all the world and tell the good news.”

And my parents didn’t do this in some selfish way, or trying to shelter their kids from the world, no! Like our readings point out, especially our Psalm: the point isn’t hide in fear and avoid the world—but to be prepared to go out into the world! The Psalm said, “Go out to all the world and tell the good news!” The purpose was never to hide us in a cave and never let us out into the world. It as to prepare us, to form us as faithful disciples of Christ, and then to send us out to proclaim the Good News in all of the different ways God has called us to do so. Do you think this happened because my parents said, “Follow your dreams and just do what makes you happy”? No. There was a rule, a narrow gate, a discipline, an extreme dedication to the goal.

Especial as this new school year gets underway—this is a great time to begin again. Perhaps you need to write out a daily, weekly, and monthly schedule. Begin to literally schedule time to pray throughout the day. Begin to literally plan times for your family to eat dinner together. Put Sunday Mass on your calendar first and then fit everything else in around it. Focus on the liturgical seasons more.

Because what it comes down to is this: maybe Christ is asking us to make a more concerted effort to follow him. Maybe this won’t happen accidentally, but through our dedication to it. And maybe there is a greater joy, a greater happiness, a more real and authentic experience of faith waiting for you as you enter through this narrow gate.