This is a translation of the homily for the Second Sunday of Lent (year III) in Husnes Church and Varaldsøy Church in Kvinnherad, Norway, Sunday 16th March, 2025. The readings are as follows: Isaiah 55:1-7; 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; and Luke 13:22-30. When quoting Scripture, I will use the Revised Standard Version (RSV), unless otherwise noted.
Collect of the day (translated by yours truly):
Let us Pray:
Unfathomable God, you see our life and our struggles. We pray: Give us an enduring faith, so that we may never let you go, but await your blessing, through your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one true God, world without end. Amen.
Come, for all is finished! With these words, from the liturgy of the Church of Norway, I invite people to take part of the Eucharistic meal, and I think I want this as a headline this day. For this is what it is all about. We have read from the prophet Isaiah, in the Old Testament. He was sent from God to speak God’s word to Israel. And we can read all about that in his book, which emphasises something important – that God seeks us, but without demanding anything from us to grant us His salvation:
Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
This is about us being able to go to God to receive the new life, eternal life, completely free. And in the Bible, food and drink are often used as images of the life we receive from God. Eternal life is compared to a feast where we are allowed to “sit at table in the kingdom of God,” as Jesus said in today’s gospel. We all know how great it is to be part of a festive meal. It is not just about the food and drink. On Christmas, we do not go into our respective rooms to eat. We gather, and we eat together. When I celebrated my confirmation, almost 27 years ago, I had a meal with several members of my extended family. I saw that I am not alone, that I belong in a family, in a lineage. And so it is with God. God is our Father, He took us to Himself in baptism, where we became His children. He has given us life and created us for fellowship with Himself, given in the waters of His promise. According to His word and His promise, God received us there and saved us from sin and death. We are united with Jesus Christ to new life and we are incorporated into the Christian church.
I was baptised on 23rd October, 1983. That is my Christian birthday. There, God accepted me, and saved me from sin and death. There, I was made a partaker of His gifts and received His grace, through the waters of baptism, completely free. I did not have to do anything. I could not do anything. It had not even been three months since my birth, and I was completely at the mercy of others. And that is exactly what this is all about: grace. It is about the fact that we do not have to do anything to get a share in salvation with God, a share in eternal life. But who gets a share in that? And how many?
This is exactly the question Jesus was asked in today’s Gospel, as he and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem. But Jesus does not answer the question directly. He basically tell us to mind our own business. We need to look at ourselves and strive to enter in, as He says: “Strive to enter by the narrow door.” But do we really need to strive? In one sense, yes, but it does not mean that we can save ourselves, or that salvation comes down to how much we do. Jesus does not refuse to take us in. As He says, in John 6:37-38: “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” Or in John 10:27-30: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
So Jesus does not turn anyone away. But what does His words in today’s Gospel mean? It means that we have to fight with ourselves, fight against what may shut us out. On the one hand, many people struggle with sin and shame, which can lead to feelings on inadequacy. We might ask ourselves if we are good enough, and answer in the negative. Are we worthy of receiving salvation? Many people struggle with that. But this is something we must fight against. We must always remind ourselves that nothing, not the greatest sin in the world, can separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ. For grace is enough for us and the only thing that can separate us from God is ourselves. And that can happen when we do not see ourselves as worthy enough, when we forget that salvation is not our achievement but God’s gift to sinners.
But on the other hand, there can also be something completely different that separates us from salvation, and perhaps something worse, our pride. If we are to accept the grace that God brings, it must mean that we need that grace, that we are not perfect. And that is not always good news to human ears. What do you mean, I’m a sinner? Should I not get to decide for myself? Am I not my own master? In Paradise Lost, John Milton envisions that before God, Satan says that it is “better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.” And often this Latin phrase is attributed to the book, though it is not found there: non serviam, “I will not serve.” But we can say that it works almost like Satan’s motto. It is what defines him. And unfortunately, that is often the case for us humans too. We would rather serve ourselves, we would rather do things our way. “I did it my way,” as Frank Sinatra sings. Jesus, then, is saying that we must fight our way forward, not because He does not want to accept us or because He wants to turn us away, but because we must fight with ourselves, whether we feel too proud to accept the gifts that Jesus gives or to live according to God’s will, or we feel too unworthy to accept them. This is what Jesus is talking about when He says that there are some who knock but do not get in. They, He says, will “see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God.” And they will see that people “will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” No people are specially invited. He wants everyone to be included. But it requires humility, it requires that you understand that in the kingdom of God the same standard does not apply as here.1 For in the kingdom of God, says Jesus, “some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
The problem with sin is that some people feel too unworthy, others too proud. Both are wrong, but in different ways. There was a wise man who once said that the difference between our relationship with God and the devil is that before the sin is committed, God wants us to think about the shame of sinning and the guilt, while afterwards we should think about the forgiveness that God gives. So we should not despair. But the devil turns this upside down. Before the sin is committed he tries to get us to think about forgiveness, but afterwards he wants us to focus on the shame and guilt, that we are not worthy.
But we must resist this. We must fight with ourselves. Whether we feel pride or we feel shame, we must always remind ourselves that God is the greatest and that He wants us well. Today’s Gospel is challenging. But it is not about God not accepting you. It is about those things that tries to prevent us from reaching God, sin (both pride and shame) and the Devil. But Jesus gives you everything, completely free. He comes with grace. Because that is exactly what this is all about – grace. That word comes from Latin and it originally meant kindness or favour. But the Greek word cháris originally meant gratitude. And all of these things are part of what makes grace grace. It is God’s kindness and favour to us, and having received it, we can respond in joy and gratitude. But the word, at least in its Latin guise, also means something free. And that is important. It is given to us, as a gift. And our gratitude must be the same. A genuine act of gratitude must be free, it cannot be forced. But it does not start with the gratitude, it starts with the gift, as we have seen from the prophet Isaiah:
Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
God makes us partakers of his divine life, completely free! It is not about our own efforts. It is about being in Jesus, resting in Him, relying on Him, on God. It is about having a share in God’s life. We have a share in what the Bible calls the mystery. It is something we cannot fully explain. It is something that must be experienced, something we must participate in. It is the “mystery of faith,” as the Eucharist is often called. It is the love that was first given to us in baptism, and which we can receive again, when we read the Bible, when we pray, when we go to communion.
There, we are given concrete permission to go forward and receive, so that we can share in the love. We may have to fight with ourselves, either we feel too proud to accept the gifts that Jesus gives or to live according to God’s will, or we feel too unworthy to receive them. We must always remind ourselves that God is the greatest and that he wants us well. Yes, he loved us so much that he came to us as a human being and that he later gave us something we can touch and feel, something we can look back on.
And we must remind ourselves that since He loved us so much that He sent Jesus, we can show that we love Him, and other people, by living according to His will. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to go to communion. Come forward to receive, because there Jesus will meet you very concretely. There you will get a taste of what awaits you when Jesus comes again. Jesus says that we should receive communion, because there we will receive forgiveness of sins, life, and blessedness.
We must always remind each other of this. We must be awake, we must be alert, we must have our focus in the right place, we must look forward to what is going to happen, and we must always remind each other of this. Yes, if we believe in Jesus, we will be with Him forever. But until then, we must remind each other of this, of the gospel, of the love that has been given to us in Jesus, as Paul says in Romans 8:38-39:
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, who was, is, and will remain, one true God, world without end. Amen.
«I Guds rike gjelder ikke samme målestokk som her» / «I Guds rike har ein ikkje same målestokk som her» by Vidar Kristensen (1988), in Norsk Salmebok 2013 (Stavanger: Eide forlag, 2013), no. 435.
Thank you.