Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Priest
In the Gospel
Reading for this day, Christ tells the people, “not everyone who says to me,
‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the
will of my Father in heaven.“
On orthodox
Christian theology, those who do not enter the kingdom of heaven will find
themselves in hell. And so the implication of Christ’s words is that in hell
there will be people who have said their prayers and addressed Christ as
Lord.
This must be one
of the most fearful passages in the New Testament. Who, then, is saved if calling Christ ‘Lord’
is not enough? And what do we have to do to be in the group of the saved?
We might try to
answer these questions by thinking of Peter, who is the rock on which the
church is built. Christ says that those who enter into heaven are the people
who have built their house on a rock. What makes Peter a rock for the church?
The first thing
to notice here is that Peter is not a sinless man. If getting into heaven
requires doing the will of the Father, then doing the will of the Father can’t be a matter of being righteous. In
fact, Peter’s sin is just the same as the sin of Judas, the villain of the
Christian story: Peter betrayed Christ in Christ’s hour of need.
Of course, Peter
repented his sin. But, then, so did Judas. The difference between Peter and
Judas does not lie in their repentance, but in their attitude and relation to
Christ after they sinned.
When Judas saw
and repented his sin, he killed himself. He threw himself away as hopeless.
When Peter saw and repented his sin, he did not let go of Christ. When after
his resurrection Christ asked Peter, “Do you love me?”, Peter was willing to
say ‘yes’. Both Peter and Judas said ‘Lord’ to Christ. But only Peter really
came to Christ. Judas said ‘Lord’ to Christ, but in the end he was unwilling to
come to Christ.
And so this is
the difference between those who enter the kingdom of heaven and those who
don’t, between those who do the will of the Father and those who don’t. Peter came to Christ as he was, not righteous but sinful. And he
cleaved to Christ anyway, even with his own failures and errors. Peter is the
rock of the church because he built the house of his life on the rock that is
Christ.
In John 6:28-40,
people anxious not to be excluded from the kingdom of heaven ask Christ what
they must do in order to do the will of God. And this is what Christ tells
them: they must come to him.
And, Christ adds,
no one who comes to him will ever be cast out.
This is a good thought
for us to reflect on as we wait for him to come to us in Advent, isn’t it?
Dr. Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy.
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