12th Sunday after Pentecost

Today we find Jesus and his disciples continuing their way from the north up to Jerusalem. Jesus is on his way to die. And he knows it. And that fact is crucial. The fact that Jesus knows he is on his way to die is crucial if we are to understand today's Gospel. He is teaching along the way, and someone asks him, "Lord, will only a few be saved?"

We human beings like that kind of question. It's the kind of question that simplifies the world for us. That kind of question makes it easy for us to understand life, or so it seems. The question implies that there are those who are "in," and there are those who are "out." There is "them," and there is "us."

We aren't told what tone of voice the question was asked in. Perhaps it was asked in fear: "Will I be one of the few?" But, it might just as well have been asked in smugness: "Well, of course, we know that we are the ones who are 'in,' don't we?"

Notice that, as usual, Jesus does not answer the question directly. Instead, he says, "Try to enter by the narrow door, because many will try to enter and not be able. Once the master of the house has gotten up and locked the door, you may find yourself outside knocking on the door saying, 'Lord, open to us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know where you come from.'"

In responding to the question this way, Jesus is suggesting that the question was badly put. The critical matter about salvation, Jesus is saying, is not about numbers, whether there will be many or few. The crucial matter is, "What about you? There is a way to enter. Strive to do it. But the way that leads to salvation is narrow."

But on the matter of numbers, note that at the end of his response Jesus makes it clear that many, not just a few, will be saved. There will be multitudes at the heavenly feast, many from north and south, east and west. Multitudes from all over the world! It's just that they may not be who we think they'll be. And it's possible that we ourselves may not be there, because many who have thought they have the inside track will find themselves on the outside, and many who were on the outside will be in.

This passage is not about numbers. It is about the way to salvation. Jesus is saying that just because you're one of God's chosen people doesn't mean you get an automatic ticket to heaven. Many who walked the streets the prophets walked, many who walked the very streets that Jesus walked and who knew him as a skinny kid from Nazareth, will not enter the kingdom, because they put their trust, not in the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but only in the fact that they were the physical descendants of Abraham. "See here, Lord," many will say, "We lived in your land. We were circumcised. We met and argued and sang in your synagogues."

"But that door is closed," says Jesus. "The door of belonging to the right club is closed. The God of Jacob has closed it, and he will say, 'Go away. If church attendance and circumcision and baptism and home-town loyalty are all you've got to offer for identification, that's not enough. I don't recognize you.'"

But many who have never been in the club. Many who never walked the streets of Bethlehem or Nazareth or Jerusalem, many from every corner of the earth who are not of the people of Israel, many outsiders, many foreigners, will sit down at the heavenly feast with the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Because there is a door that's open, the narrow door. You may enter by that door. So strive to do so.

What does Jesus mean when he tells us to strive, or try hard, to enter there? The narrow door is still open. Strive to enter by this door.

The Greek word here translated as "strive" or "try hard" is agonizesthe, from agonizomai. It means "to agonize." To agonize as in an athletic contest. To agonize as in running a race. Agonize to gain the victory. Agonize through hard training and discipline. Agonize to enter the kingdom by the narrow door.

First, let's get rid of some things Jesus does not mean.

One thing Jesus does not mean is that there will be only a few who will be saved. That is clear. There will be multitudes from all over the world at the feast in the kingdom of heaven, says Jesus.

And second, when Jesus urges us to strive, when he urges us to try hard, to agonize to enter the kingdom of God by the narrow door, there is another thing that is absolutely certain here, and that is that Jesus is not being a Santa Claus. He is not saying, as Santa Claus does, that you should try hard to be a good boy or girl so that God will then love you and let you into his kingdom. This is one thing we are absolutely sure Jesus does not mean!

Jesus does not mean that we can earn our own way into heaven if we just work hard enough to be good. Jesus is not talking about our trying as hard as we can to be morally righteous, so that somehow we can make ourselves morally lean enough that we can just squeeze through the narrow door by the skin of our moral biceps, along with some others who are as morally tough as we are. If that's what Jesus means, then he would be saying that some of us can save ourselves if we just have enough moral grit. That, of course, would be bad news indeed! If, as Paul insists over and over again, we are saved by faith through the grace of God, Jesus simply cannot mean that.

So what's the good news here? What is the Gospel? The good news is that there are two doors in this parable, not just one. One door is closed, but the other is open.

The door in verse 25 is closed. One cannot enter the kingdom of God by one's own works, any more than a camel can stroll through the eye of a sewing needle. The door of tradition, the door of physical descendance from Abraham and Jacob, the door of circumcision and church attendance, the door of shaking hands with Jesus one day at the market in Jerusalem or in Acacia Park or at the Chapel of Our Saviour, the door of salvation by success, the door of all the ways in life that we try so hard to justify ourselves -- whether it's through our wealth, or through the accumulation of all the things we have, or through power, or through good grades, or through doing works of kindness or charity -- the door of entering the kingdom of God that way is closed, for the very good reason that it was never really open in the first place, and certainly not since we killed our brother Abel and were sent packing to the land of Nod, east of Eden.

But there is a door that is open. It is the door of grace, the narrow door of trust in God, the door of the Cross, the door toward which Jesus is traveling. And multitudes will enter this door. The question is: will you and I be among them?

Why is the door of grace narrow? And why does Jesus say that we must agonize to enter it? If it's free, it must be wide indeed!

The door of grace is narrow, not because it isn't wide enough to receive everyone who wants to enter. It is narrow because we make it narrow! The door of grace is wide enough to be open to all, but we find it very narrow indeed because we find it hard to believe.

The door of grace is wide open, but to enter it, you've got to walk through it, in faith. It's the only door that's open to us, but it's a pretty narrow door for those of us who still think we can save ourselves. It's a door that is made narrow by those who won't walk through it. Agonize, says Jesus, to accept the fact of grace.

But why agonize to accept the way of grace? It is agony because it is a spiritual struggle, perhaps the most agonizing of all struggles. The way of grace is narrow because it offends our sense of what life is all about. It is narrow because it offends our sense of fairness and justice. What kind of kingdom is it, after all, if God is just going to let all those others in, too, all those who aren't good, and all those who didn't grow up in Nazareth and who haven't been circumcised and who aren't life-long Episcopalians and who didn't go to church with Jesus?

The door of grace is the door Jesus himself is walking toward as he makes his way to Jerusalem, aware that he is on his way to death, aware that he is on his way to Calvary, to Gethsemane and the Cross. There in Gethsemane we find Jesus himself struggling, agonizing. There Luke uses the same word, agonia, agony, from agonizomai, the same word that Jesus used when he was teaching his disciples on the way. Jesus was in agony, Luke says. "He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond his disciples, and he knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done."

He was in so much agony, Luke says, that an angel from heaven appeared to him to strengthen him. "'How can this be, Father, that you promise life, but here I am about to die?' And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." How can it be, Father, that I am about to die, and there is nothing I can do to save myself?

We agonize to accept the way of grace because, until we realistically face our deaths as Jesus was facing his, both our physical deaths and the other deaths that must occur in our lives, until we realistically face the fact that we are powerless ultimately to save ourselves, or even, ultimately, to give meaning to our own lives, until then we continue to think we're in charge. The way of grace is so different from the way of our ordinary, straight-line lives that we have to agonize to accept it because of all that we have to let go of. We have to agonize to accept the way of grace because, while our very lives themselves are free gifts from God, we don't really believe it, or act like it, or take up our own crosses. Even many of us who say "Lord, Lord" to Jesus.

So we have to agonize over this, because it is a way of pain. It is a way of pain, because, to accept it, we have to let go of our fond illusions of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.

The only door that leads to resurrection is a door we fear, the door of death. That's what Jesus was agonizing over on his way to Jerusalem, and at Gethsemane, and on the Cross. And Jesus' agony is our own. The only people God can raise from the dead are dead people. And that's agony for us human beings. Even for Jesus.

"The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold" sings the psalmist. The psalmist calls us to die to ourselves and to all the other gods we would trust, and to throw ourselves on the mercy and grace of the God of Jacob. This is the narrow door Jesus is talking about, the narrow door he is agonizing over at Gethsemane.

Let's close with a story. It's another true story, like the story of Gethsemane. You will remember that several years ago Father Lawrence Jenco was one of those held hostage in Lebanon. On the day of his abduction, Father Jenco was blindfolded, beaten, and taken away to an unknown place. His captors then stripped him of everything he had, right down to his shorts.

As his clothing was being ripped off, Father Jenco managed to hang on to a small button from his coat. He kept it clenched in his hand. If his captors had known he had it, they would have taken it from him as well.

He was thrown into a vacant cell that smelled of dust and sewage. He was chained to the wall. And this is how Father Jenco spent his captivity, in solitary confinement, sometimes not seeing his captors for days and not knowing whether he would live or die. The button he held in his hand was the only link he had with the outside world, his only connection with life as he had always known it, his only security.

Father Jenco prayed constantly for his freedom. But the hours turned into days, and the days into weeks, and the weeks into months, and, despite his prayers, he remained a captive. With each unanswered prayer, God seemed farther away than the outside world, and Father Jenco began to think that God wasn't going to keep his promise to see him through this ugly nightmare. And there was nothing he could do.

That's when he finally hit bottom. And one day, while still chained to the wall, Father Jenco threw the button across the room and raged at God, "Take that, God! You've already taken everything else!"

As soon as he had said it, Father Jenco had a flash of inspiration: without the button, he had absolutely nothing to hang on to! He realized that he had been relying on a button as a source of hope, as a sacramental link to life and to the world he had always known. Without it, he was absolutely dependent upon God, and upon God alone, to see him through. At his lowest moment, he had given up his feeble crutch, his button, and he had experienced the power and presence of God, who was the only one who could see him through his captivity.

It was only then that Father Jenco knew, with power, the words of the psalmist: "The Lord of hosts is with me." I don't need my button, he finally realized. The God of Jacob, the God of Jesus on the Cross, is our stronghold. It had been an agony, but he finally believed it.

We are, all of us, Father Jenco. We all have our feeble, powerless buttons. But life comes through trust in God, and in God alone. Agonize to see it, and to trust him.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.