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"NARROW DOORS AND LARGE LIVING" | Luke 13.22-30 | August 22, 2004 |
Twelve pears were hanging high
Twelve men came riding by.
Each took a pear, and left eleven hanging there.
It was frustrating to figure it out and after only a few seconds I begged for the answer. I didn’t like not knowing; I didn’t like to have to work it through myself. She would show us little ‘magic’ tricks and we would clamor to know how she did it. But she would hold out. “See if you can solve the puzzle,” she’d say.
Jesus told riddles, and too often we try to solve them rather than struggle with what they are trying to teach us. For Jesus, eastern thinker that he was, the point was in the struggle, not in the answer. So often his riddles, his parables, his metaphors were not so much a way to give a secret-code answer as they were a way to force people to struggle a bit with the mysteries of life as God intended it.
He keeps his disciples, and us, guessing about the narrow gate and passing through it. The double entendre, the impossibility of the literal image, create a certain mystery that intrigues us. It’s almost mean of Jesus to taunt his followers in this way, but like a good rabbi, his job wasn’t so much to offer solutions as to present dilemmas and stimulate self-evaluation.
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 does one make of a too-narrow door? Jesus told another riddle about a narrow passage and a camel, saying that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into heaven. But isn’t Jesus supposed to be inclusive? This sounds pretty harsh. The riddle is a laughable picture, but our laughter is soon sobered by the serious implications for people who want to make this world a better place to live.
On first reading, it would seem logical that we need to shrink, to become smaller, to go on a spiritual diet, to give up something in order to go through the narrow gate. Think about that, though. Struggling with the implications of the puzzle, it would seem that quite the opposite is implied: we are to become larger, to become spiritually mature, to open ourselves up to the possibilities of life in God’s kingdom. Jesus told the religious folk of his day that the prostitutes and embezzlers were getting into the kingdom before they were; the world Jesus proclaims turns the accepted priorities on its ear. Now the first are last and the last are first.
The odd and difficult thing about the narrow door through which Jesus says we must pass is that we have to be big to get through it. It isn’t a matter of following the straight and narrow; it isn’t about believing the right thing. It’s not about following rules and never making a mistake or never doing anything wrong or confessing our sins. It’s about being big enough to include those different from yourself; big enough to acknowledge our own prejudices; big enough to admit that we don’t have the answer; big enough to realize that it is the struggle to get through the gate that becomes the journey of faith; big enough to be the least of these; big enough to be the loser for someone else’s sake. If someone takes advantage of you, are you large enough to avoid retaliation? If someone belittles you, are you large enough to enter the narrow doorway of overlooking their pettiness?
When you play a game with a four-year-old, you don’t use every bit of strategy you know how to win the game. You don’t become ruthless and conniving in order to be first and best. Rather we enjoy the game with the four-year-old, play fairly, and are big enough to be small like the child, so that winning or losing isn’t the goal of the game.
Judy and I attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona, Spain this summer. As we sat with 9,000 people from 50 countries around the world speaking languages we’d never of heard before and wearing clothes we’d never seen before, we felt very small. It was a crash course in moving from first to last. We assumed that everyone would know at least SOME English, though we didn’t know one word of Catalan and only a few elementary words of Spanish. Being in the minority is a disconcerting thing when you can’t get a newspaper in your language and you can’t order food at a restaurant or you can’t find out how to buy a ticket for the underground. Being in the minority was humbling.
One day we were searching for the Palau Musica in Barcelona, studying the map, twisting upside down to get our bearing, when an older woman walked by, and with a big smile, pointed to our map, then gestured to the next light and pointed left all the while speaking Spanish so fast it sounded like jibberish. How did she know where we wanted to go? I said Palau Musica to which she replied, Si, Si, and once again pointed to the next light and gestured left. We were able to utter ‘muchas grasias’ and went to the next light and turned left, still bewildered. And then, two blocks down, sure enough was the Palau Musica. What a welcome relief it was to find someone willing to look beyond their momentary business to offer us a gesture of direction even though it is still a riddle as to how she knew what we were looking for! It was a small thing in the larger scheme of things, but it made our day that someone would see past themselves to offer help.
It is the smallest who are selfish, who have to be first, the best, the only, and have exclusive rights to God. It is the smallest to have to brag, who have to prove themselves, who have to outdo everyone else. It is the smallest who, when cut off on the road by another driver, offer an obscene gesture. It is the smallest who are swept along by popular opinion and business as usual.
Jesus says that it is a paradox that the smallest are not the ones who get through the narrow gate. The riddle of God’s kingdom is that what’s right isn’t always popular and what’s popular isn’t always right. It takes larger living to include those who are different from yourself, those you don’t understand, those that don’t like you, those who are better than you, to celebrate with those who win gold medals when you have only a bronze. The narrow gate of God’s kingdom is passed by those who live large, Jesus said.
Twelve pears were hanging high
Twelve men came riding by.
Each took a pear and left eleven hanging there.
After much begging and cajoling and whining, my grandmother finally explained that Each, with a capital E, was the name of one of the twelve men, so after he took the hanging-high pear, there would, naturally, be eleven left. It all made delightful sense and we went on our way, now eager to have some fun stumping our peers with the riddle.
The riddle Jesus talks about is one that often has no solution but is to be lived out to experience its meaning. Being last or least or lost for someone else’s sake makes no sense in our culture, but it is what is honored in God’s culture. Narrow doorways and large living become a way of life in a turbulent world, riddled with misunderstanding and hatred, in search of the riddle of peace. In such a world, living as large as a camel and going through the narrow eye of a needle isn’t so preposterous after all. Amen.
–Gary L. McCann
LUKE 13.22-30
Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching and healing. Some asked him: Are there only a few people who are going to be saved?
He said to them: Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading to get in. He will reply: I don’t know you or where you come from. Go away.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed, there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.
ISAIAH 58.1-9
The religion that expresses itself only in ritual and selfish gain falls short of what God requires. The ritual God requires is to loose the chains of injustice, to free the oppressed, to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter, to clothe the naked. Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear and the glory of the Lord will be revealed.
Tao Te Ching 53
The great Way is easy
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.
When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn—
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.
| Copyright © 2004 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved. |