It's Who You Know

You probably know the old saying: “It’s not what you know but who you know that matters.” In other words, in life, relationships are just as important as achievements, and sometimes more so. This saying sometimes helps us explain why someone was passed over for some honor, like a job promotion or an award, despite the fact that they were deserving. Maybe they had more experience or better expertise, but because they didn’t know the right people, they didn’t get chosen.

We tend to think that sort of thing is unfair. In business or sports or entertainment, we believe that honors and privileges shouldn’t be decided by personal relationships. But when it comes to faith, it’s a little more complex, because in the spiritual life, it *does* matter who you know. At its heart, faith is not about learning facts, or meeting certain objectives, but about growing in relationship with God. When I was a seminarian, a priest once told us: “It’s entirely possible to know all about God but not to know him at all.” In other words, he was telling us that there was a danger, perhaps especially for us seminarians, to learn all the facts of our faith, to seek to impress others with our knowledge of theology and Scripture and church history, but never to actually come to know God himself. As someone who was intellectually minded, I remember that idea sort of terrified me, because I realized helping others to get to heaven, and getting there myself, was going to depend not just on studying and learning but actually coming to know the Lord in a deeper way. 

In the Gospel today, Jesus is asked a question about this very thing – who, in the end, will make it to heaven? Whoever asked this question – whether someone in one of the towns and villages where Jesus was visiting, or someone from his own traveling party – this person knew Jesus well enough to approach him and ask him and to expect a reply. But it could be there’s a kind of presumption in the question, too, as if to say, “Jesus, will only those of us close to you – those of us who know you – get to heaven?” This person seems to believe themselves to be in the “in crowd,” those whose own salvation isn’t in question.

As he often does, Jesus gives a surprising answer. On the one hand, he confirms that eternal life will be based on knowing him; he is the master of the house who will open the door only to those whom he knows. This would seem to be good news to the person who asked the question, right? They must have thought: “Knowing Jesus is the key to eternal life – great, I got it made!” But then Jesus says something surprising. Apparently, not all of those who are in his company, who ate and drank with him, who heard him teach, will in the end know him well enough to enter eternal life. In other words, those who think themselves to be part of the “in crowd” may be mistaken, and they may find that others who would appear to know Jesus less well, those from the east and the west, from the north and the south, will enter eternal life ahead of them.

James Tissot, The First Shall Be Last (c. 1890)

On the one hand, this Gospel should be Good News for anyone who may feel themselves undeserving of heaven, whether because of past experiences, or present circumstances, or whatever else. A lot of the things that we use to judge and distinguish in this life – ethnic background, education level, personal accomplishments, career accolades, financial success, family harmony, etc. etc. – those things aren’t going to matter at all. What will matter – the *only* thing that will matter – is how well we know the Lord, and that is open to anyone and everyone. The word “catholic” means “universal” and that’s what we believe about our faith – that it is open to all, no matter who you are.

At the same time, today’s Gospel is also perhaps a challenging one to people like us, sitting in the pews, because most of us probably like to think that we won’t have much to worry about when it comes to getting to heaven. Much like the person in the Gospel who asks the question of Jesus, we would hope that we would be considered part of his inner circle. We might think, “I say my prayers, I go to church on Sunday, I try to treat other people well. Surely, I’m in the clear!” Hopefully so, but Jesus’s words today should at least give us pause about the possibility of being presumptuous about eternal life. Saying our prayers and coming to church and treating people well are all good things; so, too, is the desire to learn about what we believe, to help explain or defend it to others, or to grow in knowledge about Scripture or doctrine or spirituality. But none of these things is itself a guarantee of heaven, just like, apparently, eating and drinking in Jesus’s company and hearing him teach wasn’t a guarantee for those in his day.

What matters, in the end, is not what we know but who we know, as that old saying says. And that means knowing Jesus himself – not just knowing about him, or knowing him in a casual way, but coming to know him personally and intimately, as a Friend and as a Savior. You might say, “Well, how do I do that?” It’s a good question but the answer depends on where we are in our faith journey. Some of us may need a true conversion – a turning away from something that is standing in the way of our friendship with the Lord, some aspect of our life that is sinful, in order to give ourselves over to Jesus and let him be the Master of our life. For others of us, it may be a matter of persevering – of enduring the difficulties and the disciplines that the Lord sometimes sends us, as a way of purifying and strengthening us, as the Letter to the Hebrews says. Finally, for some of us, it may involve not doing anything radically different from what we are already doing, but doing it with a new focus: saying our prayers, not just to say them but to dialogue and communicate with the Lord himself to know him more deeply; participating in the sacraments not just out of habit but as spiritual encounters with the Lord who loves us and who is drawing us to himself from heaven; treating people well, not just because we’re being nice, but because we’re displaying the Lord’s charity, loving Jesus in others, especially in the poor and the needy.

In the end, knowing Jesus means challenging ourselves continuously, examining our own actions and preconceptions, and asking ourselves how we can know the Lord more intimately. As he tells us, we will have to strive not to take the easy paths of the world, the ones that can dominate our daily activities if we’re not careful. It will mean not presuming that we have done enough, that we know Jesus well enough, but to keep striving each day to enter through the narrow gate, the one that is shaped exactly the Lord’s Cross. It’s the Cross in the end that helps us to know Jesus more deeply, and even more, to be conformed into his image and shaped into his likeness, so that when we meet him one day, he will recognize us because he will see in us an image of himself.

Friends, as we prepare for this Eucharist, let’s hear the words of Jesus our Friend and Savior, speaking to us personally, encouraging us to do whatever we need to do to come know him more deeply and to love him more fully. May the graces of this Sacrament help us not be presumptuous, but to keep striving each day, so that we may grow in relationship with the Lord now so as to one day be welcomed by him into the kingdom to come.