PERSEVERENCE

21st Sunday C Luke 13: 22-30 12: 15 Scott Peck, the best selling author and popular speaker, became famous when he wrote his first book entitled The Road Less Traveled. The first sentence in that book is a perceptive commentary on life -- simple and direct: "Life is difficult." For some, that is an understatement. I’ve heard people say, “Hell is living here on earth.” For all who are alive and aware, it is an experienced truth :Life is difficult. Jesus would concur. Jesus is always calling you to decide -- to choose your way -- and that way is often "The Road Less Traveled". Here in Luke's Gospel, it is expressed in a cryptic sentence. "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to...." Let's begin with that simple but profound and provocative statement: Life is difficult. That statement, Life is difficult, is a huge lake into which you can jump at any number of places. For example, there was minister who had a terrible day on the golf course. On the last hole, he actually went into a tantrum, cursing and beating the ground with his club. Finally recovering himself, he looked woefully at the caddy, and muttered, "I guess I'll have to give it up." "Give up golf?" asked the caddy. "No, not golf," the minister said, "my ministry." Life is difficult. Just think of rearing children. Have you heard it put this way? "The trouble with children is that when they are not being a lump in the throat, they are being a pain in the neck.” How many of you -- just this week -- have had lumps in your throat because of your children? Some of those lumps came out of sheer joy. Something happened that was so pleasing to you -- maybe surprising, but deeply moving -- So deeply moving that your emotions welled up and a lump in your throat kept you from speaking. The tears in your eyes were tears of joy and they glistened as you smiled with unbridled delight. For others, the lump in the throat was not a delight as sweet as an angel’s kiss, but sorrow as bitter as sucking on a lemon.. Your child disappointed you gravely, betrayed your trust. But more painful and destructive, betrayed his or her best self, and there was nothing you could do about it but cry and swallow hard and try to breathe more easily around that lump in your throat that blocked life and joy. Life is as difficult as Jesus’ narrow door. What you need to enter that narrow door, to cope with the difficulties of life is perseverance – The Road Less Traveled. Robert Wicks in his book, Seeds of Sensitivity: Deepening Your Spiritual Life, says, “Spiritual success is not measured by what we accomplish but by the tenacity to persevere when we don’t see immediate results.” A sense of duty, a sense of obligation will not lead to perseverance but to a stale and tedious struggle. In the TV series, the XFiles, Agent Scully says, that what can be imagined can be achieved, that you must dare to dream but there is no substitute for perseverance and hard work and team work because no one gets to where he is going alone. Melannie Svoboda in her book Traits of a Healthy Spirituality wrote, Perseverance is the ability to persist in an undertaking over a long period of time despite counterinfluences, periodic setbacks or bouts of discouragement. At the Judgment God will not ask you how long you stayed in a certain vocation or place or relationship or occupation but how well you persevered in loving. The acorn does not persevere in remaining an acorn; it perseveres in becoming an oak tree. God calls you not to be stubborn acorns but to become majestic oak tress and that takes perseverance. Someone said, the mighty oak tree is just an acorn that held its ground. To switch metaphors, keep in mind that perseverance isn't just trudging through a snowstorm of frigid determination. For example, perseverance in prayer is not the craving for prompt responses or easy visions. Perseverance is not the tongue parched from repetitive prayers in a superstitious cycle. Perseverance in prayer is not a backroom plot to bribe God. Perseverance in prayer is a slow process like a brook wearing away a stone. Perseverance in prayer is time consuming like the planting and reaping of a harvest. Prayer of perseverance is like painstakingly picking your way through the twists and turns of the Appalachian Trail not a prayer of anxiety like fleeing from imagined dangers along that Trail Perseverance is not one long race but many short races one after another. HUMOR Billy Bob wanted a job as a signalman on the railways. He was told to meet the inspector at the signal box. The inspector asked, “What would you do if you realized that 2 trains were heading for each other on the same track?” Billy Bob replied, “I would switch the points for one of the trains.” “What if the lever broke?” asked the inspector. “Then I’d dash down out of the signal box,” said Billy Bob, “and I’d use the manual lever over there.” “What if that had been struck by lightning?” “Then,” Billy Bob persevered, “I’d run back into the signal box and phone the next signal box.” “What if the phone was engaged?” “Well in that case,” persevered Billy Bob, “I’d rush down and use the public emergency phone. “What if that was vandalized?” “Oh, well then I’d run into the village and get my uncle.” Billy Bob persevered, “Because he ain’t never seen a train crash.” THOUGHT: Enter the narrow door through constant perseverance.