“THE NARROW DOOR”

Luke 13:22-30

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our text for this morning: “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”

Imagine, if you will a huge coliseum - a coliseum bigger than the Air Canada Centre, bigger than the Rogers Centre, bigger the Astro Dome in Huston Texas, bigger than anything you and I could ever imagine. Imagine a huge coliseum with many, many wide doors so that people can get in. There is, however, a door not seen from the front. It is narrow. You can only get to it from the back.

Let me stretch your imagination a bit further. This huge building is not a sports arena but the very building of eternity. When you enter it, you enter into eternity.

The huge throng of people who enter the wide doors are not prepared for what happens next. In our text Jesus says, “the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it - and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Compared to the huge throng, there are only a few who are found at the little back narrow door - and Jesus is there to greet them, holding the door open - and he invites them to enter, ushering them down a long corridor. At the end of the corridor there is a very large room where they are greeted by the Lord God Himself and a host of saints all gathered around the Throne. This is the glorious imagery of heaven.

As Jesus was making his way to Jerusalem, talk about eternity all started with a question. Someone asked Jesus a question: Lord, will only a few be saved?” We all want to know something of the odds. What’s our hope for eternity.

Jesus didn’t respond with a simple ‘YES’ or ‘NO’. He hardly ever does. He sidestepped the question and replied with a riddle: “Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail.”

Our stewardship campaign is now over. Throughout the last few months, we have had many opportunities to celebrate our emerging vision - one that invites us to imagine a church where our primary mission is to ‘Connect people to Christ as we discover, rejoice and serve TOGETHER.’

Our spirits, our minds and our wills have been stretched and encouraged to consider what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ in these changing time. On Celebration night, a few weeks ago, we got excited about our life together and what it is that makes Knox United, Ayr a spiritually vibrant and exciting community of faith in these days. And last Sunday, we capped off the campaign with the good news announcement of your donations and pledges totally over $407,000.

Knox Ayr is a church on the move into an exciting and challenging new future. Throughout this past year, we have emphasized the mission of Knox to be an open, inclusive and welcoming place for all - a community of faith where people may come and connect with Christ. But then we come to this morning’s text - Jesus’ riddle about the ‘Narrow Door.’

Have we got it all wrong? Should we change our ‘Vision’ for Knox and re-imagine a church of ‘The Narrow Door’? A church for insiders only? A church just for us. A church with a door that closes in your face? A church with a ‘table for 4 and no more?’

If you’re anything like me, a passage like this one from Luke 13 cannot help but make you squirm. “Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom,” said Jesus, “for many will try to enter but will fail.” Sounds more like exclusion rather than inclusion.

Jesus told riddles, and too often we try to solve them rather than struggle with what they are trying to teach us.

For Jesus, the point of the riddle was in the struggle, not in the answer. So often his riddles, his parables, his metaphors were a way to force his listeners to struggle a bit with the mysteries of life as God intended it. The impossibility of the literal image of the ‘Narrow Door,’ creates a certain mystery that intrigues us. It’s possible for Christians to get it all right and still get it all wrong. 

So we have this door. It is narrow. It is difficult to get through with an over-weight ego or a lazy spirit that just wants the answers. Jesus loved to run people through their paces at God’s version of spiritual olympics in an attempt to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

So what do we make of a too-narrow door? Jesus is supposed to be inclusive, but his riddle sounds harsh and exclusive.

On first reading, it seems quite logical that we all need to go on a crash diet. The riddle makes it sound like we need to shrink, to go on a spiritual diet, to give up something in order to go through the narrow door.

The Christian life, you see, is about letting go of some unnecessary baggage. The material things of this life that we enjoy are wonderful blessings, but, when it comes to entering eternity, they have the potential to distract us from the abundant, rich life which Jesus offers. The prophet Isaiah once said, “The religion that expresses itself only in ritual and selfish gain always falls short of what God requires.” Living unto ourselves, depending on ourselves, thinking we have everything because we’ve worked hard can, ultimately, seduce us away from the One who knows what a real and satisfying life is meant to be.

That’s why Jesus went to the Cross. He is the Way. He is the Door to a full and abundant life. The door is narrow but the invitation is broad enough to include the whole world - to include you and me this morning. Come on in. Everything you and I could ever need or want for abundant life today and for eternity is on the other side.

The psalmist says, in Psalm 95, “Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart.” Any time and every time your hear God’s voice, open your heart to it. Jesus is calling. The door is now open while you have hears to hear.

As I struggled further with this intriguing little puzzle, we shrink that we may grow. We let go of in order that we may gain. We become poor in spirit that we may become rich towards God. When we go through this ‘Narrow Door’ we become larger, more spiritually mature, open to the possibilities of life within the Kingdom of God.

But then there’s another interesting twist in Jesus’ riddle. We have to be big to go through the door - big enough to know that we don’t have all the answers - big enough to acknowledge our failures - big enough to recognize our need and dependence on Someone greater than ourselves.

In our postmodern, hyper-tolerant society, there is the belief that there are many different doors, many different ways into the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the pervasive myth of the culture you and I live in today. It is the way which leads to a dead end.

In today’s world, it takes large living to go the way of the Narrow Door. It takes large living to include the last and the least and the lost. The riddle of God’s kingdom, you see, is that what’s right isn’t always popular and what’s popular isn’t always right.

In the 14^th chapter of the Gospel of John Jesus makes the claim that He is the only way to the Father. He is the narrow door which leads us down the corridor to the throne room of heaven.

The riddle Jesus offers often has no immediate solution. It is to be lived out to experience its meaning.