Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel reading is a collection of sayings of Jesus. The opening exhortation not to give dogs what is holy or to throw our pearls in front of pigs may suggest that there can come a time when we may have to move on from those who are implacably opposed to the gift of the gospel. As we might say today, we can’t keep hitting our head on a stone wall. Yet, we need to be open to the possibility that those now opposed to the gospel may be open to it at another time. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus wanted to preach the gospel in a Samaritan village but they refused to welcome him because he was a Jew heading towards Jerusalem. The disciples wanted to ask God to rain down fire from heaven upon the village, but Jesus rebuked them and just moved on. In Luke’s second volume, the Acts of the Apostles, the Samaritans finally welcomed the gospel as preached to them by Philip. At the heart of the gospel is love, God’s love for us through Jesus, our love for God and his Son and our love for all God’s children. This call to love the other is expressed in the gospel reading as treating others as we would like them to treat us. We are to imagine how we would like to be treated – with kindness, understanding, compassion, forgiveness, respect – and we are to treat others accordingly. This is one expression of the ‘narrow gate’ that Jesus goes on to speak about. We are to pass through the gate that is Jesus and to walk in his way. This will often make demands on us, but it is the gateway and pathway to life in its fullest, and Jesus travels it with us as our good shepherd.