21st Sunday 2016

Isaiah 66:18-21
Hebrews 12:5-7, 11-13
Luke 13:22-3

This concluding chapter of Trito-Isaiah, from which this passage is taken, begins with images of motherly love; the Lord will not abandon His people and punish the enemies of His people. The next verses focus on the positive, the return of the exiles. Following that, the author reverts back to the negative with ideas predating and proceeding the notion of hell (1).This back and forth “adds a reminder that salvation cannot be achieved without judgment (1).”

The Collegeville Bible Commentary indicates that those coming to worship in Jerusalem are the Diaspora Jews in exile returning to their homeland. However, The New Jerome Bible Biblical Commentary states, “The book ends with most radical announcement. Gentiles take their place in the priesthood (2).” However, The New Interpreter’s Bible One Volume Commentary suggests that only returning members of the community will act as priests and Levites. Regardless of the intention of the author of Trito-Isaiah, “An enlarged priesthood (is necessary) to meet the needs of the larger worshiping people; for with the new creation the round of worship from sacred time to sacred time will draw in all mankind.”

The gospel also speaks of membership in the Kingdom, which is clearly the desirable ‘place’ to be. “God’s realm belongs then instead to outsiders, people from every corner of the earth, and those who are at the bottom. So dramatic inside-out, upside-down reversal that marks God’s realm is a matter of divine grace (3).” We might do well also to recognize a distinction between in and out. There is ‘The Kingdom’ and a ‘Not Kingdom.’ If you are a believer, inside is the place to be; if you are not, you may perceive outside as not outside, but all there is.

In Isaiah, those who remain outside the kingdom a) undergo a dramatically horrible fate, and b) have done evil deeds. In the gospel, those who don’t seek to come inside, a) also are subjected to a terrible afterlife, and b) have simply not committed to the narrow way. They have not accepted or practice Jesus’ way. He says in John “I am the door,” and we know it is difficult to enter via the narrow door/gate. Barclay says of Jesus “he declared that entry to the kingdom can never be automatic what is the result and the reward of a struggle.” We too are reminded that the Kingdom will be full of surprises.

Resources:

1-The Collegeville Bible Commentary, Old Testament. The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnosota, 1992.
2- The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1990.
3- New Interpreter’s Bible One Volume Commentary. Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 2010.

Refection Questions:

What does the following phrase mean to you; “(F)or with the new creation the round of worship from sacred time to sacred time will draw in all mankind.”
Recall a time when you were an ‘insider,’ and a situation in which you were an ‘outsider.’ What does this reflection teach you about membership to the Kingdom of God?

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