The Narrow Gate
Jun 25: Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
Whether we’re facing an imposing army or a more spiritual battle, we need God’s help to keep on the straight and narrow path.
Reading 1
2 Kgs 19:9B-11, 14-21, 31-35A, 36
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent envoys to Hezekiah with this message: “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria. You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all other countries: they doomed them! Will you, then, be saved?’”
Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the temple of the LORD, and spreading it out before him, he prayed in the LORD’s presence: “O LORD, God of Israel, enthroned upon the cherubim! You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and the earth. Incline your ear, O LORD, and listen! Open your eyes, O LORD, and see! Hear the words of Sennacherib which he sent to taunt the living God. Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and cast their gods into the fire; they destroyed them because they were not gods, but the work of human hands, wood and stone. Therefore, O LORD, our God, save us from the power of this man, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone, O LORD, are God.”
Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, in answer to your prayer for help against Sennacherib, king of Assyria:
I have listened! This is the word the LORD has spoken concerning him: ‘She despises you, laughs you to scorn, the virgin daughter Zion! Behind you she wags her head, daughter Jerusalem. For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant, and from Mount Zion, survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.’
“Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not reach this city, nor shoot an arrow at it, nor come before it with a shield, nor cast up siege-works against it. He shall return by the same way he came, without entering the city, says the LORD. I will shield and save this city for my own sake, and for the sake of my servant David.’”
That night the angel of the LORD went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke camp, and went back home to Nineveh.
King Hezekiah's army is about to get slaughtered. They have no chance against the Syrians, as king Sennacherib rightly points out.
But despite being a king (or maybe because he's a good king), Hezekiah knows it's not all about him. His people are in danger; worse, God's glory and faithfulness would be called into question if he allows the Assyrians to destroy the temple as they have other, false gods.
Hezekiah also knows it's not within his own power to defeat the Assyrians. He puts himself at God's mercy, for God's own glory.
God answers his prayers by defeating the Assyrian army in one night.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 48:2-3AB, 3CD-4, 10-11
R. (see 9d) God upholds his city for ever.
Great is the LORD and wholly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain, fairest of heights,
is the joy of all the earth.
R. God upholds his city for ever.
Mount Zion, “the recesses of the North,”
is the city of the great King.
God is with her castles;
renowned is he as a stronghold.
R. God upholds his city for ever.
O God, we ponder your mercy
within your temple.
As your name, O God, so also your praise
reaches to the ends of the earth.
Of justice your right hand is full.
R. God upholds his city for ever.
Ancient Israelites took military victories to be signs of God's love, and defeats as punishments. It's often more complicated than that, but it's still worth pondering how God's mercy is working in our lives.
Alleluia
Jn 8:12
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
whoever follows me will have the light of life.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t claim to be “the light of Israel.” Prohibitions against usury and such usually only applied to fellow Israelites; Jesus wants to bring God’s light and justice to the whole world. Remember, Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law; he wants to make it universal.
Gospel
Mt 7:6, 12-14
Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.
"Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few."
“Don’t cast pearls before swine” was originally a derogatory saying, meaning that Jewish revelation should not be shared with Gentiles. In the context of previous verses,1 Jesus flips that around—don’t be a hypocrite, trying to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.2 But on the other hand, don’t waste time trying to preach to someone who won’t listen.
Ultimately, every law about how people treat each other, from splitting grazing land to loaning money, comes down to the Golden Rule. And if we try to apply that, rather than pedantically split legal hairs, we really will be going through the narrow gate.
It’s much, much easier to find exceptions and loopholes to the law than to treat someone like you’d want to be treated. Most of us don’t, at least not without Jesus’ help. So we pray for guidance to that narrow gate, instead.
Which we didn’t read yesterday because of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist