This Sunday is the 21st Sunday of Year C with the gospel reading from Luke 13:22-30. Jesus envisages some of those rejected as pleading that they had known the Lord (v.26). They ate and drank where he was; he taught where they were. But, they cannot claim that they ever entered into understanding of what he was teaching. There was no evidence of their acceptance, no response; or their response was insincere, if at all. It is a sad case that, in every age, there are people under the illusion that they were following Jesus.  While they claim that they ate and drank with him, they fail to understand they had no intimate fellowship; they heard his teaching but did not accept it as the word of God to be put into practice (“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it.” 8:21). 

As a consequence, in the end they will know complete rejection. The householder says that he does not know where they come from and he brands them as you evildoers (cf. Ps. 6:8). No specific evil deed has been mentioned, but in the end there will be only two classes, those who acted on the word of God and those who did not – even if they did nothing inherently evil. Since these people did not take the necessary steps to get inside, they are to be numbered with the evildoers outside. The result is there are those inside and those outside. There is no “in between.” 

On the outside people will understand the finality of their rejection, weeping and gnashing of teeth, the pain that comes from knowing one has been excluded from blessing (Mt 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30). Contrary to some popular perceptions of God, He can and will say “no.” Those on the outside will see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and then know that God has, in every age, provided his Word of salvation – but in these last days has given us a Son (cf. Hebrews 1:2). The pericope warns us not to assume membership in the kingdom on the basis of knowledge of Jesus, attendance at church, or on the basis of elect ethnic origin. The patriarchs of Judaism will be there, but that does not mean every physical descendant of Abraham will. Only the true spiritual descendants of Abraham will be at the banquet.

“In this respect, it is significant that, to the list of the great ancestors of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are added ‘all the prophets.’ This echoes earlier material in Luke, material where the emphasis had fallen on the propensity of some in Israel to oppose those who served God’s purpose and spoke on His behalf—both in Israel’s past and in its present (6:22–23; 11:49–51). In those earlier Lukan co-texts, woe is pronounced on those who persecute the prophets; such persons are promised mourning and weeping (6:22–26; 11:45–52). This, indeed, is their fate in the judgment: excluded from the joy of the eschatological feast, theirs is the lot of mourning, rage, despair. Jesus thus insinuates how some from Israel might be excluded from the kingdom banquet. Opposing God’s prophets, they oppose God’s purpose; opposing God’s purpose, they fail to comprehend who Jesus is and the nature of his divine mission (foretold by “all the prophets,” 24:27; Acts 3:18, 24; 10:43); consequently, they do not reorient their hearts and lives around the word of God and, in this way, they demonstrate that they are not children of Abraham after all.” (Green, 532-33)

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