13. Sunday after Pentecost, 08/22/2010

Sermon on Luke 13:22-30, by Walter W. Harms

22 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, 24 "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25 Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' "But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.' 26 "Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.' 27 "But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'28 "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."

Striving to Enter the Narrow Door

One of my greetings to people often is: "Now be good!" The response almost always is: "Well, I'll try to be good." You can quickly see that there is a vast difference between "being good" and "trying to be good."

But isn't it true though? We know what we want to do, to be, to arrive at, and. well, we often don't get there. We are haunted by failures. All kinds. Failures to reach certain goals. Perhaps in education, careers, relationships, finances, even personal development.

Even when we do reach a goal, right on the other side of that goal is another challenge. Win the trophy this year, but will it happen next year? Get into college or university, but will we make it out. In these times, get a good education, but will we be able to find a company that will hire us?

We humans are surrounded by possibilities which we cannot reach. We either continue to try to reach the goals that we see in front of us, or we might become coach potatoes who give up, throw our hands up in despair, failure, or worse.

Most alcoholics I have known were absolutely wonderful people. They were personable, energetic, achievers, but, in their minds, they could never be as good as they wanted to be, so they achieve oblivion through the fog produced by alcohol.

Then along comes this Jesus. He really doesn't give an answer to the person who asked him if those who will be saved are few. Jesus often gives an oblique answer-one that doesn't necessarily satisfy the asking person, but confronts that person and then us with the reality of the situation.

The situation is how do you get "saved." That's the question that is really asked. And it is the question before you and me this morning: are you saved? Now you may have been asked that question by a very zealous evangelical type person.

But what does it really mean: to be saved?

It would appear that being saved, that is from Jesus' words, means that saved has to be with being in the kingdom of God-that term is somehow as difficult at the "being saved" one.

The kingdom is where God calls the shots. God is not only the one in charge of everything, he is our owner, our master, the one who makes sure that "everything turns out for good to those who love him and who are called according to his purpose."

In our society, where you and I live, we do what we want to do. We call the shots. The only orders we take are those our doctors give and then we do them reluctantly or perhaps not at all.

The majority of folks today believe that they will go to heaven. They will be saved, regardless of what they have done. They have no idea how that occurs, what it takes for that to happen, but with heads in the sand or in the clouds, they believe everyone will end up in some kind of heaven, which they believe will be some kind of a good place, whatever a "good" place means to them. You and I may very well be caught up in that same kind of thinking.

So it comes as somewhat of a shock when Jesus tells the religious folks that surrounded him that they needed to "strive to enter though the narrow door."

Do you have any idea what Jesus is talking about? What's the narrow door? What's the "striving to enter" that we need to do?

Have we not been striving to enter that narrow door? I mean tha, well, at least many of us not been Christians all of your lives, baptized as infants, confirmed in the church, attended pretty regularly, given more or less generously, been in classes, helped around the church, brought red jello and potato salad to the fellowship dinners? Isn't all of that enough?

We know the 10 Commandments, we can recite the creeds and the Lord's Prayer, we know the liturgy and hymns. We have maintained more or less pretty decent lives and haven't gotten into too much trouble.

Is this the striving Jesus is talking about? It comes as a shock us asJesus tells the religious folks of his time, that they will be cast out, that they are workers of evil. Now those words, folks, are pretty sharp. Would Jesus saythose words to us? Would he?

The narrow door. That's according to the Word of God is Jesus. There is no other name among men by which we will be saved.

It means that we trust Jesus to get us into the kingdom. Nothing else. Being good, nice, honest, decent, loving, fair and anything else won't do it. To be in the relationship where God is our Father, the source of life and all that we have, takes faith in this Jesus.

This Jesus does more for us that we often imagine. He knows our failures, our disappointments with ourselves. He knows the guilt we have, often so deep with us that we don't know about it ourselves and he has removed that guilt, he has removed our reluctance to trust him, he has destroyed the power of evil to twist and distort our lives so that we doubt if anyone would, could or even think about us being in their presence.

All of that he took with him into his death on the cross. All the shame, the guilt, the foolishness of thinking we can get there on our own, and obliterated it.

Now before God the Creator and Judge of all people we stand as whole as we will ever be or thought we could be. We are perfect. Not a mole, a wart, a scar, a mind that doesn't function properly.

Jesus is that narrow door.

Now strive to enter that door. When you leave here today, go as free people. Go and live as freed people. Don't let all that this world throws at us as what we should do or become get you down. Remember and hang on to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy of knowing you are his died the shameful death on the cross, so that you might have the joy of salvation on your faces, in your hearts, and in your being and living with those who surround you.

Strive to believe that Jesus is here with you. Strive to know he will fill the shameful gaps of our existence with his presence, his power, and his love.

Will those who are saved be few? It will only be those who wrestle with God as Jacob did at the brook before he entered the promised land. He wrestled and won from God his blessing. You can wrestle, you can strive, and you will win. Because Jesus wants to give you his blessing now and always. Amen.

retired pastor Walter W. Harms
Austin, TX U. S. A.

E-Mail: waltpast@aol.com

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