Strive to Enter Through the Narrow Gate

This week’s lesson is an ominous message from Jesus, telling us that some people will find it hard to enter his Kingdom. On his way to Jerusalem, the journey that will take our Lord to his death, someone on the road asked him a question.  “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.’”

Jesus then tells his questioner a parable about the master of a house who had already locked his door and ignored those outside pounding on it to enter. Hoping the master would listen, they recounted how they ate and drank with him. The master responded, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.”

Jesus uses the phrase “narrow gate” referring to how difficult it is to enter heaven. Plenty of Christians are not happy to hear Jesus’ warning. There is an evangelical notion that believing in Jesus as the Lord and Savior is enough to enter the narrow gate. Are they the present-day people who ate and drank with Jesus and are now pounding on the door of the master?  

If you take today’s message seriously, a truthful mind must acknowledge the difficulty for those who want to end up in heaven.  Complaining about the teaching on the other side is the sentiment that God so loves his people that he will turn his head the other way and let people sneak into heaven. But that is not what Jesus is saying. Intellectual honesty is necessary for any Christian, and it is especially necessary to interpret today’s Gospel reading.

At first blush, the parable of the master closing the door seems quite harsh. After all, people relate to the master to some degree by eating with him, yet they are kept outside. Even now, plenty of individuals have some relationship with Jesus throughout their lives and expect to deserve eternal life. The presupposition is that God is somehow the problem because of his strict entrance requirements. It is the master or God who locks the door on us, and he is the problem. People do not like this teaching because he is supposed to be all-loving and will forgive all sins. The dichotomy of an all-loving God and the refusal of heaven are incompatible in most Christians’ minds.

What we are called to contemplate this weekend is not that God is the problem; we are. The message comes alive once we reverse our initial thought and place the onus upon ourselves. God’s will is that all be saved; however, through the gift of free will, we can act in defiance of him, as we sometimes do when we choose to sin. Sin is antithetical to God and, by definition, separates us from him and his kingdom—venial sins, not so much, but mortal sins, for sure.

Depending on how a life is lived, the determining factor is how wide or narrow the avenue to heaven becomes. That has nothing to do with God; it has all to do with how we fashion the gate of heaven. Jesus opened the gates to heaven wide open when he died and ransomed us from death. Only the person can close the gates to heaven partially or permanently through their actions.

Charles Dickens knew this phenomenon well when he wrote his book, The Christmas Carol. You will remember when Scrooge’s financial partner, Jacob Marley, returned from the dead, encased in chains, and visited him with a warning. Scrooge, trembling, asked his former partner why he was in such a state. The ghostly Marley replied, “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on my free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”  Far from old, the message is as relevant today as it was during Jesus’ and Dickens’ time.

Jesus’s final warning should not go unnoticed, either. The young think they will live forever, while some older people wish to dismiss how little time they have left. The truth is that life is fragile and tenuous. The master’s door can be closed for each of us without warning. We can never be presumptuous to think we have time to right our ship, for the hour and day are unknown to us, no matter how old we are.  

Through the narrow gate story, Jesus gives us some more direction. Our objective should be to work toward adequately opening the gate to heaven so we can enter. With the help of God’s never-ending grace, it is up to us to determine how wide the gate will be by how we live each day.