I often get the impression that people see some of the
other world religions as much more challenging than our own.
The Muslims often seem to be much stricter in living out their faith
than we are and it is very impressive. Buddhists seem to have great
discipline and meditation. We can appear to be a bit too
easy-going sometimes, especially for younger people with high ideals. However, I think that we forget how demanding our
faith can be too. Jesus was quite definite about what you could
and could not do. And when asked a direct question, he gave a
direct answer.
There
is an idea around today that really the best thing to do is to make
your own of our faith. Take the bits that work and that suit
and dump the rest. After all, what do those men in Rome know
anyway?! They are out of touch with the real world. This
is a mistake for the simple reason that faith doesn’t work like
that. We can not take certain parts and leave the rest.
We must be prepared to come to the Lord on his terms and not on our
terms, even though this can be very difficult sometimes. This
is why Jesus talks about entering by the narrow door. ‘Try
your best to enter by the narrow door…’ It is the more difficult
way, but the way that leads to God.
What
is this narrow door? It is just trying to live as the Lord
Jesus taught us; keeping the commandments of God and keeping to what
we know is right, regardless of what everyone else is doing.
That is the narrow door. Not sleeping with someone before you
are married, as the Lord taught, keeping Sunday holy, not stealing,
or killing, or lying, etc. The Lord gave us the commandments as
a guideline, or a blue print for living. If we follow these we
will flourish, they will help us to do well as people. They
make for a society that works. But if we just do our own thing,
we will get into trouble.
The
story of Adam and Eve in the garden is teaching us the same thing.
It is saying that as people we have limits which we must not try to
go beyond. If we do we won’t be able to handle it.
That’s why the Lord told them not to touch certain trees.
They are symbols of our limitations. As soon as Eve took the
fruit from the tree of good and evil she was in trouble, she felt
guilt and shame, she was confused and she didn’t know why.
The story was explaining that they had gone beyond their limits as
human beings and so they couldn’t handle it. They needed
God’s help again. Then when God came to them in the garden he
asked them why they were hiding, what was wrong? God wasn’t
just giving out to them but helping them to see where they had gone
wrong. ‘Have you been eating from the tree from which I
forbade you?’ ‘Who told you you were naked?’
Whatever God does is always helping us in the long run, but we often
don’t see it that way and we cry out to God, ‘Why are you doing
this to me?’
God
didn’t give us the ten commandments just for the sake of giving us
laws, to make life difficult for us, but to help us. And then
when Jesus came along he helped people to understand these laws at a
deeper level. He began to teach people to live from the heart,
to pray from the heart. You hear in Matthew’s gospel where
many times Jesus quotes the Law, which are from the Commandments and
then He says, ‘But I say this to you.’ ‘You have heard
how it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy, but I
say this to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who
persecute.’ Jesus is teaching us to live at a deeper level at
the level of the heart, so that we’re not just doing the bare
minimum. Outward observances are not enough.
Now
the most important part of all this is to realise that before we can
do any of these things, we must begin with our relationship with
Jesus Christ. It is not a relationship about a thing but a
person. Once this relationship grows then it makes it possible
to live the way he asks us to, not the other way around. People
often get bogged down with Catholicism because they begin with all
the controversial issues and of course they get into a black knot and
just think that the whole thing is a waste of time. We are also
heavily influenced by the media here because they will keep bringing
up the controversial things. If we focus first on God and on
trying to get to know him a little bit more, then the other issues
begin to fall into place. Relationship with God first, through
prayer, mass, reading the word of God, then everything else begins to
make sense.
‘Try
your best to enter by the narrow door.’
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