Tough Messages!  These past few weeks I’ve been racking my brain…and heart…trying to come up with something uplifting to send us out into the spiritual obstacle course that is our daily life.  These gospels haven’t helped.  In fact…last week a nice lady…as she was shaking my hand in the narthex after mass…said…you were tough on us today father.
 
This section of Luke’s gospel…our last four weeks…the 12^th 13^th & 14^th chapters…it’s filled with tough messages…things that…if we’re paying attention…hit us right square between the eyes.    Like last week Jesus actually saying that that he came not to bring peace but rather division…father opposed to son and mother to daughter (Luke 12:51).  Or the week prior…you better be ready and gird your loins…when you least expect it the Son of Man will come(Luke 12:32).  Or the passage a week prior to that about the man building up his barns to store his many possessions and at the hour he does not expect the Lord will come and the barns will be of no help (Luke 12:13).  These messages are tough…they give us no wiggle room…you’re either in or you’re out…they hit close to home because they’re true and we’re all probably guilty of them at one or multiple points of our lives. 
  
And now today…a tough message on Salvation…arguably the most important reality of the entire human experience.   Will we make it to heaven or not?   Salvation is the Bottom Line and Jesus says very clearly strive to enter into the narrow gate because many will try but won’t be strong enough.  That’s pretty serious…Salvation is serious business.  And thus…Heaven and Hell should be serious business!  So today we’re going to talk about Hell for the express purpose of talking about Heaven.

Probably the best explanation of Hell I’ve ever heard goes this way…Hell is God’s great compliment to Human Freedom.  This is really important…Hell is God’s great compliment to Human Freedom.  What this means is the very existence of Hell is actually very good news and yet these days we don’t talk about Hell much...we don’t seem to have much fear of it either.   In fact…some try to brush away the possibilities that Hell even exists.  When face to face with God, who in his right mind would actually choose to go to Hell?  We’ve lost a healthy fear of Hell and from this…we lose a full appreciation of Heaven.

Of everything that God has given us…this world…our lives…the lives of those around us…our talents and blessings…of everything God has given us…the greatest gift is Free Will.  It’s the sacred ground of the human soul.  Without free will we become somehow less human…without it we would be something like automitons acting out some pre-programmed plan from God.  We know that’s not how God is…the gods of other religions control their subjects…but not God.  Like we talked about a couple of weeks back…He loves us into freedom.  And so, it seems to me that the best way for us to celebrate Heaven is to be aware of the power and the truth found in the freedom to also choose Hell.  This is what the narrow gate is all about…it’s is as much about Heaven as it is about Hell. 
CS Lewis understood this when he wrote in his work Mere Christianity…If someone is free to be good he is also free to be bad. Free Will is what makes evil possible. Free Will is also the only thing that makes goodness possible. 

This is the point of…Hell being God’s great compliment to Human Freedom.  He doesn’t want anyone in Hell…but even more so he doesn’t want to take anyone’s freedom away…even if they freely choose Hell…because really…he desperately wants all of us to freely choose Heaven in the choices by which we live.
 
Pope John Paul II…in his famous book Crossing the Threshold of Hope explained…The words of Christ are clear.  The Gospel speaks of those who will go to eternal punishment.  Can God then, who is ultimate justice, tolerate terrible crimes and let them go unpunished? No. Final punishment…Hell…explains JPII…is necessary so that we can re-establish a moral balance of the human experience.   In other words, without Hell being the place where bad choices and evil acts propel us…how can we ever place the right value…how can we calibrate our souls to celebrate the sheer joy…the daily miracle of overcoming sin and choosing Good…choosing right…participating in the invitation of our loving God to Heaven?  This is the Good News of the Narrow Gate and the good news of Hell.
 
God wants us to be saved…he wants us to fit through the narrow gate.  The Church herself speaks of this…In hope we pray for all men and women to be saved.  Catechism 1821.  But God wants us to be saved without taking away our free will.  And this is very Catholic by the way.   We understand Salvation to be a cooperation of sorts…a partnership.  Ultimately salvation is a free gift from God…we don’t earn our way through the gate…but we do prepare ourselves in such a way that we will fit through the gate.  And we do this by our daily actions…by getting rid of the things that we don’t need…the things that make us too big.  We do this by travelling light…only bringing to God what we need to fit through the narrow gate.  We shouldn’t try to experience salvation on our terms.  We have The model…we have the teacher…Christ and his words.

So yes this gospel is a tough message.  Talking about Hell is tough.   And it will be sad if some people can’t make it through to Heaven.  But more importantly this truth of God and of this gospel is good news of eternal life.  We hear and embrace the truth of Hell for the express purpose of hearing and embracing the joy and the mercy of God who wants us to choose Heaven.  Pope John Paul again…The thought of Hell shouldn’t create anxiety or despair in our hearts.  It is just the opposite.  The thought of Hell is a healthy reminder of the freedom that rests in the example of the Crucified and the Risen Jesus who has conquered Satan…and has conquered Hell…and has given you and me His Spirit which invites to choose God and the choose the narrow gate and to cry out by our very lives…God! Save us!