Salvation: Gift and Choice

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 13:22-30

August 21, 2016

“Lord, will only a few people be saved? (Luk 13:23)”

Salvation is both a gift and a choice. It is free yet it is never cheap. It is a gift because it is freely given by God and no one earns it. Yet, it is a choice because we make all the efforts to receive it and make it ours. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has made available the grace of salvation for everyone. But, we need to participate in His work of salvation by living out the gift of faith in our daily lives.

There is a story of a rabbi who visited a soap maker to buy a supply for his household. Suddenly, the soap maker asked, “What good is religion? Look at all the suffering and evil in the world! Still there, even after years and thousand years of teaching about goodness and peace. Still there, after all the prayers and preaching. If religion is good and true, why should we continue to suffer?” The rabbi said nothing. He then noticed a child playing in the gutter in front of the shop, and the rabbi said, “Look at that child. You say that soap makes people clean, but do you see the dirt on that kid. Of what good is soap? With all the soap in the world, over thousand years, the child is still dirty. I wonder how effective your soap is, after all?” The soup maker protested, “But, Rabbi, soap cannot do any good unless it is properly used.” The rabbi replied, “Exactly!”

To make the gift of salvation ours is not an easy job. Jesus Himself admitted, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough (Luk 22:24).” It is tough because it demands radical transformation of our hearts, or metanoia. All external forces, like rules, regulations and commands, will not last. The gift of salvation cannot be forced from the outside, but has to grow from within us so that it will be stable and permanent in us. Yes, we are saved, but we are also saved each day of our lives. 

The call for living out our salvation is the call of the prophets of the Old Testament. The prophets reminded the Israelites that they indeed have been chosen by God as His own precious possessions, saved from Egypt and dwelt in the land of milk and honey. Yet, this wonderful gift will not last unless they also reform their hearts and truly become God’s people. God, through prophet Ezekiel, demanded this, “I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts (Ezekiel 36:26).” 

It is a radical choice to live up our salvation daily. We can be baptized as Catholics or Christians, yet we never go to the Church. We profess our belief in only one God, but we enjoy reading horoscopes, consulting fortunetellers and use religious items as mere protective amulets. We can easily shout, “God is good all the time,” but we have a lot of complaints in our lives. We are often instructed by Jesus Himself to love our enemies, yet we maintain hatred, remain vengeance-oriented and take pleasure when our enemies suffer misfortunes. We enjoy the worship and good preachings, yet we simply look for feeling-good experiences. 

God shall remove our stony hearts and replace them with natural hearts if we make the way. We are saved if we shall make every gift of salvation counts. We shall enjoy the Kingdom, if together with Jesus, we enter our daily narrow gate.

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP