Some one said to [Jesus], “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter by the narrow door…” St. Luke 13:22-35
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Jesus is making his way towards Jerusalem in today’s Gospel according to Saint Luke. He is heading towards his confrontation with the authorities of the Holy City, walking in the footsteps of prophets before him. Today’s story has two parts; the first is Jesus’ response to a question whether those who are saved will be few in number. The second part of the story is Jesus’ refusal to be distracted by Pharisees who want him to go away and tell him King Herod Antipas (the regional ruler of Galilee) is trying to kill him. Dismissing Herod as a “fox,” Jesus asserts that a true prophet cannot perish other than in Jerusalem and prophesies that Jerusalem will not see him until it hears the cry, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
One of the preoccupations of the Palestinian Jews of Jesus’ time was: Who is a true Jew? Who is safely in? An extreme group were the Essenes in the Qumran community which had withdrawn into strict communal asceticism by the Dead Sea (they were the keepers of the Dead Sea Scrolls). They felt the rest of Judaism were too far gone. A less extreme group were the Pharisees, the strict keepers of the Law with whom Jesus had many conflicts but from whom he drew some disciples. The Sadducees dominated the temple in Jerusalem and had an uneasy but working relationship with the Roman overlords. In this setting comes the question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”
Those who are happy with the answer, “Yes, few,” inevitably regard themselves as among those few. I remember years ago two proselytizers from a sect appeared on our porch, and I was apprehensive when my wife Nancy engaged them with a question. Don’t you teach that there are only 144,000 saved, she asked. Yes, they replied. But your group has millions of members, she observed; don’t you have a seating problem? To my surprise they politely departed.
The fact is on several significant occasions, not the least of which was the night before he died, Jesus spoke of his death in Jerusalem as a pouring out of his life on behalf not of few but of many. He spoke of this in other places as a “ransom for many” and it was taken later in the New Testament to mean a death, a sacrifice, or a ransom for many or even for all.1 In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to these many in terms that bother his Pharisee hearers, as he speaks of men coming from east and west and north and south to be in the kingdom with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the prophets, a great catholic inclusion that will reverse the sectarian presumption: Behold some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last. Jesus is saying that the Gentiles, the great unwashed outsiders, may be far ahead of the Pharisees, in spite of the fact that they ate and drank in Jesus’ presence and he taught in their streets.
Jesus never directly answers the curious, numerical question about how many (or few) will enter the kingdom of God. He responds directly and personally: Strive to enter by the narrow door. The meaning is almost, push, struggle to go through, like getting onto the New York “F” train subway. Just as surely as Jesus would not be distracted by the Pharisees from fulfilling his own destiny, his climactic moment of truth, in Jerusalem; similarly he says that salvation, eternal life, entering the kingdom is a pressing matter of our desire simply to go through that door. The narrowness is not a matter of sectarianism, of religious formulas, of membership. The narrowness is a matter of God-given desire, an issue of a person’s spirit.
The great question in human life is: What do you want? Some people are confused about this question, or simply choose to give it many answers, living their lives like cafeteria shoppers or dilettantes, balancing off desires, needs, vocations, careers, relationships as time and occasion suit them. Other people are very single-minded in pursuing desires, needs, a goal, a career, a relationship. Whatever the case, the way we express and manage out desires shapes and defines us. Into our midst comes Jesus, who says, only a chapter earlier (12:30-31) in Luke, “All the nations of the world seek these things. Instead, seek God’s kingdom.” As for the things about which we are always anxious, these things shall fall into place and be ours as well. But it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom; fear not. Seek that kingdom first and foremost.
Striving to enter by the narrow door, paradoxically, does not produce obsession, fanaticism or zealotry. It puts everything else in right order and proportion. Seeking first God’s kingdom, striving to enter that narrow door while we have time and opportunity to strive, is to do what we were made for. We are made in God’s image, and the purpose of our life is to know God and to enjoy him forever. It is to love God in response to his love which creates, redeems and blesses us. The stronger our desire is in this regard, the more truly ourselves we become. And then everything else falls into place. But if we worship and love something or someone as though it or they were God, we practice idolatry, and we put an intolerable burden on the object of our worship and love, our idol, which it or they cannot bear. However, if God is first, then we possess all things as the good gifts of God they are, and we may love other people (including family, friends and loved ones) as the children of God they are, children for whom, among many and all, Christ poured out his own love and life, even to his death in Jerusalem.
Christ does lay down a qualification about entering through the door of his kingdom. There comes a time when the door is shut. In other words, our time is precious and the days of our life matter. Each day is an opportunity to strive, to seek the kingdom of God, to clarify and purify our desire. But we do not have an unlimited number of days; this matter is urgent. Night comes when no one can work. Lent is a gift to us, in which we see our Lord on his way to Jerusalem. In today’s Gospel he turns towards us as someone asks a question about whether few will be saved. And the Lord speaks to us in his reply: Strive to enter by the narrow door. Join me in my kingdom. It my Father’s good pleasure to give it to you. Let this be your desire. The gift of Lent gives us some leads on how to strengthen that desire to enter: pray; come to church and receive the sacraments; read and meditate on the Scriptures; repent of your sins and forgive others theirs; abstain from some things in order to concentrate on vital matters; practice kindness and generosity. The Lord recognizes these good works as the signs of genuine faith. He welcomes those who do them.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
