Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The
text is the Gospel lesson from Luke 13.
Jesus is speaking
spiritual language, spiritual door language, spiritual entry language. This is
in answer to a man’s question, “Will those who are saved be few?” Jesus’ gives
a non-answer answer: “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell
you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”
I love this
sanctuary – well, besides all the steps. I love the sense of tradition and
history that the building holds. I love the details that have been done to the
walls. I love the place worn in the carpet in front of the altar where pastors
stand, interceding for the people of this congregation and community. I love
the altar, the detail, the gold edging contrasting against the white, the
spires pointing upward, with the arches and high ceiling, all drawing the eyes
and the spirit heavenward, joining the Psalmist, “Let my prayers rise before
Thee as incense; the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” I feel
like St. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration: “’Tis good, Lord, to be here.”
But I do not like
that door to (your) right of the nave and chancel. You might imagine why: it’s
terribly narrow. I measured it. It’s only 23.5 inches wide, and when you open
it, the way it swings on the hinge, it reduces the doorway to 22.5 inches of usable
space. I’m roughly 26” at the shoulders, so if I want to go through that door,
I have to go through by leading one shoulder and stepping through. If I were
carrying something, like a copier paper box, I don’t know if I could do it. I
don’t think I could fit through that door.
But Jesus says, “Strive
to enter through the narrow door.” Strive, struggle, endeavor, make every
effort, do your best – we like those kind of words. They’re American. Work
hard, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, “git-r-dun,” “just do it.” Obviously,
Jesus isn’t talking about physically entering a door. This is a spiritual door,
and it sounds like we best get busy doing some spiritual weight-lifting so we
can get ourselves into and through that doorway. After all, we don’t want to
miss out on the party Jesus describes.
Perhaps we should
read our Bibles more, or go to church more often. Maybe we should pray harder
or longer, get on a couple of different groups or committees, maybe even teach
Sunday school. No…that’s not what Jesus means. Perhaps we should practice care
for others, we should spend Saturdays at Forgotten Ministries and evenings at
Hope Outreach and afternoons here, mentoring a student struggling with his or
her schoolwork. Yes, those things are important, but that’s not what He means
here. Maybe we should be better Christians, living moral lives so people can
see our good deeds. Watch our mouths, don’t watch members of the opposite sex,
and keep our hands to ourselves, like our parents taught us. Again, important
work, but that’s not going to get us in the door.
In fact, those
very things can make us stumble at the door step, at the stoop of the door. They
can make us trip over ourselves, thinking we can somehow slim ourselves down
enough so we can fit. Drop a couple pounds of our favorite sins here, clean up
our act there, and we’ll be in good shape shortly. Anything that makes us think
we can do something to make ourselves entry-worthy is, in fact, the very thing
that keeps us outside. We might change our behavior, the external things that
people see around us, but what about what’s inside? What about those things we
keep locked up behind closed doors? In Matthew 15: 19-20, Jesus says, “19 For
out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality,
theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person.” We dare not
stand in front of Jesus’ door, thinking we’re all sparkly clean, arguing we
should be allowed in because we’ve somehow made ourselves presentable. That’s
not the case at all. There are things we simply cannot fix.
So don’t hear
Jesus’ word to “strive” as though He is giving you a prescription for what you
must do. Rather, He is speaking of what the struggle is: repentance. Repentance
is God at work in the sinner. The light of God’s word opens the doors we would
rather keep closed and it shines into the nooks of our lives and crannies of
our minds and hallways of our hearts and it sees and identifies our sins. All
those things we want to keep behind closed doors, locked away in the closets,
God calls out into the light. The world calls it efficiency; God calls it
laziness. Friends call it truth-telling; God calls it gossip. The media calls
it unbiased reporting; God calls it slander. Society calls it freedom; God
calls it lust. Self-help gurus call it self-worth; God calls it arrogant pride.
Advertising implies you have to take care of good ol’ number one; God calls it
idolatry. Shining into the darkness of our hearts, God reveals our sins for
what they are and that they separate us from God and they divide us from one another.
And repentance is
God exposing it for what it is. Repentance calls evil, evil; sin, sin; and
leaves no room for excuses or for our half-hearted, self-righteous attempts to
fix ourselves. Repentance surrenders ourselves, with our sinful thoughts,
words, and actions, and lays them at the foot of Jesus.
Jesus is going to
Jerusalem. There before Him is the door of the city gates. Soon after this, He
will be met by welcoming crowds, but only a few days later, He will be hauled
through the door of Pilate’s chambers where Jesus will be judged innocent, yet condemned
to die. He will be drug back through the door, down the streets, and out the
door of the gates that He once entered in triumph, but this time in shame,
taken outside the gates and nailed to the cross for all to see. And, when He
finally breathes His last, His body will be carried through the narrow door of
the tomb where He will be laid to rest, and the door blocked by a massive
stone. Jesus says, “I am the door.” Neither stone nor death stops this door
from opening and on Easter, the doorway of the tomb is open so that Jesus, who
is the door, stands open so all can see: Christ is risen indeed! In His death, He
paid the full price for all those sins which serve to keep the door closed,
that would otherwise keep us locked in the darkness of sin, death and
damnation. In His resurrection, He opens the door to the Father’s mercy.
There is one
aspect of striving that we know full well. We are striving, struggling, making
every effort on this journey of faith in life. To us, Jesus encourages us to
strive. But, how? And for what? The answer is the opposite is what we might
normally think. Our world says strive to be the best and the first. Jesus
instead says, strive to be last; strive to be least. Strive to be nothing.
Jesus said there are last ones who will be first, and first ones who will be
last. So, we strive, not to be good Christians, but to be repentant and
faithful Christians. Jesus will teach us how, how to be last. He will make us,
in and of ourselves, to be nothing – nothing about which to brag or boast. If
there is wisdom and learning to be done in this life, it will be done in us
according to His will and in His mercy. He will enable us to strive to be last.
Strive to be last and let God make you first. Strive to do nothing. God has
done it all. It is what He has done and continues to do with us. “Strive to enter through the narrow door.”
How Jesus delights to stand and welcome you through that narrow door. In His
resurrection, He has opened the door of eternal paradise for you and for me,
and says, “Welcome, you who are blessed by my Father. Enter.”
I began by saying
that I very much dislike that door over there. I gradually changed my mind this
week. It stands as a reminder of Jesus’ words – both of warning, but also of
promise. So, when you sit in the sanctuary and see it, or when you pass through
it, remember what Jesus says. Strive to enter through the door. In other words,
repent and enter through Christ. Through Christ, you are welcomed to the feast.
Through Christ, you are ushered into the presence of the eternal banquet.
Through Christ, you are declared righteous. Through Christ, you will be in the
presence of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all of the prophets of old.
Through Christ, you will be joined with others, from east and west, from north
and south, who likewise entered through the door.
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