THE NARROW DOOR
Luke 13:22-30
David E. Nichols
Nobody likes to be thought of as narrow. It’s a great insult when spoken about educated people. We are here because we have been educated out of our narrowness or we hope to be educated out of our narrowness.
One of the worst things that people can say about us educated Christians is: “They are interesting people, but they’re just so narrow.”
We would rather have almost anything else said about us by way of criticism than the words: “He’s/she’s narrow.”
You pay us a compliment when you say that we are “broad-minded.” To be “broad-minded” usually means that we are open to whatever comes along.
Read all the magazines--at least look at the pictures. Let your mind go free. Open it to whatever happens. Be open to experience. Read all the new books; see all the new movies. Be with it, hip, open-minded. For God’s sake--don’t be so narrow.
When I was a teen, I appeared in a talent show playing guitar, singing a Rick Nelson and a Beatle number. It was great. Instant popularity that lasted about two hours, maybe. Our youth sub-district, we had sub-districts then, that means that churches in the area where you lived would get together monthly for a big youth meeting. The next meeting was to be a talent show. I was ready. I had my numbers. I would represent my group.
My mother got on the phone and into an argument with my youth leader. My mother, you see, never failed to argue if something was important to her. She explained that I wouldn’t be singing at the youth talent show next month. The youth leader didn’t understand. My mother said something like: “Well, there’s too much of the world in the church now.”
That was it. I had missed my big opportunity to sing my two well-rehearsed songs for the youth of much of the area. It was my chance at fame, and maybe, girls. My mother nixed it. I remember at the time thinking that my mother sure was narrow-minded.
So, things are busy around here, in this college town. I was jogging the other morning and I couldn’t get across the street for all the cars. Orientation, classes to get or drop, fees to be paid, dorms, or apartments to be moved into. Majors to be declared. Assignments; syllabi. Things are buzzing around here most all the time.
And, we say that the main purpose for our being here at University is to teach/learn how to be open-minded. There are no easy answers, you know; sure, you may learn math, and science, but remember that life is difficult and complicated. You must be open-minded. Forget your parent’s teaching, your Sunday School faith. You’re at college now. Be open-minded.
Several years ago, I was eating lunch after church with a family out in the country. I was in school at Duke, learning to be open-minded, and I was serving this church, working with the youth. The conversation turned to this couple “living together”, “shacking up”. They lived just across the field. The mother said: “Well, you can’t be a Christian and live like that.” She was so narrow-minded, certainly, not open-minded like me. She had never been to college, you see.
Luke chapter 13 tells us the story of “narrow-minded” Jesus. Now, I know this may go hard for some of you “open-minded” people out there, but bear with Luke. See this through.
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. He is preaching and teaching when these people ask Jesus: “How many will be saved? Many or few?”
It’s the kind of question that we open-minded folk like to dwell on. How many will be saved? If many will be saved, then we’re in. If few will be saved, we’re surely in the few.
They ask: “How many will be saved?” And Jesus, in typical fashion, ignores the question, perhaps because he knows that the question is a set-up. It’s like when we talk about all the people who’ve never heard the Gospel. We’re sure we’re in; we just want to focus on the others out there.
Jesus won’t answer the question. He says: “Strive to enter the narrow door; for many will try to enter but will be unable. When once the owner of the house has shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply, he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evil doers!’”
Jesus says: “Then there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves will be thrown out. Then, people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the Kingdom of God. Some who are last will be first; some who are first will be last.”
“Strive to enter through the narrow door” sounds much like a saying from Proverbs. Proverbs, you know, are pithy, short sayings about life. Things like: “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Or, “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.”
It sounds like something from that wisdom tradition. “Strive to enter the narrow door.”
Jesus says: “Strive to enter the narrow door.” There will come a time when the owner of the house will shut the door-- you will weep and gnash your teeth. You’ll see others in the Kingdom. You’ll say: “Let us in. We ate and drank with you.” Jesus will say: “Where did you come from?” Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth.
Not a great way to get started with a new school year-- Strive to enter the narrow door.
And yet, maybe this is just the word that we need to hear.
We are accustomed in our time to thinking of life in broad terms in broad strokes. We are accustomed to thinking of approaching life with open minds. The church, God’s kingdom, in our thinking is so open that it doesn’t require any commitment or discipline on our part. God exists to affirm me and God, most assuredly, is open-minded. No requirements- no discipline. God exists for me.
Except that, Jesus says: “Strive to enter the narrow door.” Jesus says that the time is limited. You must choose now before the door is shut. When the door is shut, you’ll try to get in but you won’t be able to. We’ll say, “We knew you Lord-- we ate and drank with you.” “We weren’t all that bad.” “Open the door.” But the door will be shut. The last will be first and the first last.
There you are. Some of you for the first time. Some of you for the last time. Some of you out of habit. Others are searching for something/someone. Jesus says: “Strive to enter the narrow door.” And, it was all you could do to get dressed and ready, and out your door and through our huge doors into this sanctuary this morning. What with all you had to do, it was a struggle just to get to church.
Strive to enter the narrow door could mean, I guess, that you ought not to take your faith for granted. You ought not to assume that you are in God’s kingdom. It is a constant journey of growing and changing as God moves you along. Start taking it for granted and before you know it you’re thinking you can get along without God or something. Strive to enter the narrow door could mean, I guess, that you ought to work harder and pray harder, and sweat all your energy to get through the door into God’s Kingdom. Do good; think right. It’s good advice to do your best.
Or, strive to enter the narrow door could mean that the house, the kingdom, belongs to God and it is by God’s grace that we enter the door. It is by faithfulness, trust in God’s grace, that we enter God’s Kingdom at all. When the door is opened, you have to walk through it.
Halford Luccock, that great teacher and preacher, told the story about this Methodist congregation somewhere in the remote Dakotas. They suffered a severe blizzard one winter. The snow was high. Even the mail did not get through for a week. That meant that pastor and congregation had no clue what was the denominational emphasis that week. They did not know if that Sunday in February was United Nations Sunday or Festival of the Christian Home.
So, said Luccock, the pastor walked embarrassed before the congregation and said that “in the absence of any other reason for gathering, we’ll worship God.”
Or, there was the church in New England that took the cross off its steeple and replaced it with a weather vane so that they could tell which way the wind was blowing.
Sometimes I think we approach church as something that suits us. Looking to the world to set our agenda for us, we sometimes pay more attention to the world, or our feelings, than to God.
Strive to enter the narrow door, the worship of God, to meet God, to serve God, to follow his Christ. Come now while the door is open. Oh, some will accuse you of being narrow. Trust me. The narrow road is the only way to life, true life in the only Kingdom that ultimately matters. So high you can’t get over it; so low you can’t get under it; so wide you can’t get around it. You’ll have to come in at the door. Turns out that the one who spoke these narrow words is the door. Thanks be to God.
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