Jesus passed through towns and villages, teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ And you will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’ Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’ And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and you yourselves cast out. And people will come from the east and the west and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God. For behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” (Luke 13.22-30)
As we listen to the scriptures for this Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time, we do not hear the soft-spoken, kind-hearted Jesus whom we have come to expect in the Gospel of Luke, the one who fed the crowds gathered around him, who healed the slave of the centurion, and who forgave the sinful woman of her many sins.
Instead, we find in this passage someone who issues stern warnings, who promises dire consequences for those who have rejected his message, and who sounds for the world like he is having a very bad day. So, we are left to wonder the reason for the switcheroo. There are several good explanations, the first being that Luke is simply working from material that he found in earlier sources. There is little that is new in these few verses, both Mark and Matthew using much the same material.
More importantly, we may want to remember that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In Chapter 9 we were told that “he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” And he knows better than anyone that he isn’t going there for a picnic. Quite the opposite. In Chapter 12 he admitted to his followers, “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished.”
From his first days of preaching and teaching, he has been hounded and harassed by the Pharisees and other religious leaders who have accused him of working hand in hand with Satan. So, when he enters Jerusalem, he will be stepping into enemy territory and knows that in all likelihood he will not leave the city alive.
So he has every reason to present a sour mood in the words that we hear him speak today. We find him here taking on the mantle of the prophet, ready to point fingers and to promise retribution for those who have failed to heed his call to conversion. He knows his time is short, no true prophet ever being allowed to die in his sleep.
Here on out, therefore, we will find Jesus assuming more of the prophetic role, his teachings taking on the tone and overtones of a prophet who does not hesitate to point to the pig-headed ways of the Pharisees and other people who fail to follow the path of the Most High God, instead choosing to follow the way of wickedness through their hypocrisy and high-mindedness which are devoid of honesty and humility.
Typical of the prophets of old, Jesus’ words begin to convey a sense of urgency, not only because he knows his days are numbered, but also because he wants the morally bankrupt to know that their days also are numbered. And while he knows he will be rejoined with his Heavenly Father, he also makes it clear that those who have failed to live as God wants them to live in the world will not enjoy a place at the banquet table of the Most High God.
In other words, judgment waits on the other side and those who have wasted their time and their lives here on earth can expect dire consequences. Using the image of the master of the house who has locked the door for the night, Jesus predicts that those late to the game will not find an open door, but will find themselves on the outside, knocking and pleading to be allowed entrance into the house, but will hear the Master say to them, “Depart from me, all you evildoers!”
In all likelihood, Luke has placed into Jesus’ mouth the words of the Psalmist who in Psalm 6 says “Away from me, all who do evil.” Or, steeped in the ancient scriptures as Jesus was, perhaps he voiced the words himself. Either way, they certainly convey the severity of the prophet who wants to shock the people out of their complacency and indolency.
The image also parallels in many ways the story of the foolish bridesmaids that is told in the Gospel of Matthew who also found themselves arriving late to the party with the door locked, leaving them on the other side while those who were wise and vigilant are inside, celebrating at the wedding reception. The message in both stories is the same. Those who waste their time in this world will find themselves “wailing and grinding their teeth” in the world to come.
Obviously, this sense of urgency to form and conform our ways to the ways of God is something that we also very much need to hear and to heed in our own times. For whatever reason–the most likely culprit always being our sinful natures–many of us live as if we have all the time in the world, somehow denying to ourselves the reality that our “years are seventy, or eighty for those who are strong,” as the Psalmist says.
And the harsher reality is that for many of us even that many years is not allowed us. Nevertheless, we move through the world with the lethargy and laziness of a teenager on a Saturday morning, convincing ourselves that there will be plenty of time later on to get our lives in order. In other words, there’s no rush and in this way we postpone and procrastinate the tasks that we need to do in order to live in compliance with the ways of Jesus.
Of course, it’s a fool’s errand, every day that passes another missed chance to change our ways, every ignored opportunity to do as Jesus says another unrecoverable moment, every walking away from the job Jesus has given us another penalty incurred. The truth of the matter is the only time we have is the present moment.
And it is always in the present moment that we come face to face with the poor person who begs for help, or the maligned person who suffers persecution, or the foreigner who lives in fear for his life and livelihood. In that moment, we make the decision either to show them the face of Jesus or to show them the indifference that they see in most everybody else’s face every day. In a flash, the moment before us passes and we have either done as Jesus would do or we have done nothing.
The wrong is compounded because over time we become habituated to doing nothing, our tolerance for non-action increasing as does the alcoholic’s tolerance for booze. Surely life at large has taught us how easily habits are formed and how challenging they are to break. So, while it is often difficult to do the right thing at the moment, it becomes even more difficult if we have a long history of not doing the right thing, our ability to do the right thing calcified from a lack of use like an arthritic knee.
We live with ourselves and with our shortcomings by telling ourselves it is simply who we are or by convincing ourselves that we will have a better day tomorrow. Both are fool’s gold, misleading us and leading us to believe that there will be no consequences to our hard-heartedness and our apathy in acting for the good in the here and now.
But Jesus makes clear that everyone pays the piper. Those who have ignored his teachings will be “cast out,” not allowed into the wedding banquet, left to weep on the other side of the closed door. On the other hand, those who have heard his teachings, investing time and effort into making them a part of their persons, will “recline at table in the kingdom of God.”
A closer look at the passage reveals Jesus making very much the same message here in Luke’s gospel that he will make in the final judgment scenario in Matthew’s gospel where the sheep are separated from the goats. The criteria for the separation should be well-known to us, spelled out by Matthew in terms of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, ministering to the sick, and welcoming the stranger. While Luke doesn’t offer a detailed checklist, there is no doubt that the demands for righteous living are the same.
One other image that Luke uses in these verses that we also find in Matthew is the image of the narrow gate. He begins these prophetic pronouncements with that image, telling us that “some asked Jesus, ‘Lord, will only a few people be saved?’ to which Jesus answered, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.’”
Unlike Matthew who offers the contrast of the wide gate, Luke is satisfied with the single image of the narrow gate, believing it can stand on its own. He is right. We all know it is difficult to enter through a narrow space. We don’t need the contrast with a wide space to understand the problems associated with squeezing our way through an opening that does not permit easy access.
With this image of the narrow gate, Jesus makes it clear once again that his way is not the easy way. While the world at large generally would have us believe it smart to take the easy way out, Jesus teaches the opposite, insisting that those who follow in his footsteps must choose to take the difficult way or the narrow gate, in this way underscoring the notion that doing the right thing can be seen as more difficult than doing the wrong thing.
But discipleship with Jesus means accepting the difficulty of doing the right thing, all the while aware of how much easier it would be if we were to do the wrong thing or to do nothing, which often ends up being the same as doing wrong. It also means we will find ourselves walking alone more often than walking alongside others, walking away from the crowd more than standing with the crowd, and walking on the least worn path rather than trodding on the well-worn path.
Again, we know that Jesus is on his way to his crucifixion when he speaks these words. He fully knows the high cost of his words and of his ways. He nonetheless chooses to stay on course, refusing to take the easy way out. He lives his words to his final breath, offering us his personal example to follow.
Now is our moment. As with most things in life, it is a fleeting moment, passing in the blink of an eye or gone in an intake of breath. How we choose to fill that moment is a decision each one of us makes. Jesus puts before us the choice that he made. If we want to sit with him at the banquet table of the Father, then our choices will have to align with his, meaning we will have to “strive to enter through the narrow gate,” at the same time praying that we have enough strength to crawl through the narrow opening.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 