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“The Narrow Door
Luke 13:24

 

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost—August 21, 2016

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is today’s Gospel Reading, in which Jesus declares: “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”

A bishop in the Netherlands recently proposed that, in order to have better relations with Muslims, Christians should start referring to God by the name “Allah.”  Not surprisingly, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations thought that having Christians call God “Allah” is a great idea.  He said, “It reinforces the fact that Muslims, Christians, and Jews all worship the same God.” 

We hear that assertion a lot these days.  The conventional wisdom of the world is that we really all worship the same God.  It doesn’t matter what faith you have or what God you worship, as long as you’re sincere.

But, in our text, Jesus is telling us the EXACT opposite.  “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” According to Jesus, it DOES matter what faith you have and what God you worship, for the way into heaven is a “NARROW door.”

This seems to have been an important teaching for Jesus, for he said something very similar on another occasion, in the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

The Book of Acts records that at Iconium, Paul preached to the worshippers of Zeus, “We are bringing you Good News, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God.” A few chapters later, Paul is in ancient Athens, and we are told, “He was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols,” and he began his sermon there, standing in the midst of those idols, by saying, “I see that in every way you are very religious.”

If all religions are just different paths to the same God, why was Paul so “distressed” at their idols?  Paul admits they were very religious and sincere, so why did urge them “to turn from these worthless things to the living God?”

Contrary to the accepted wisdom of the world, according to the Bible being sincere doesn’t score you any points with God if you are sincerely WRONG.  Paul puts it this way in Galatians, “It is a fine thing to be zealous, provided the purpose is good.”

“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”  With the words “try to enter” Jesus sums up all the efforts of humans to get into heaven some other way than the “narrow door.”  “Try to enter” means they are sincere, they really are trying their best to enter heaven.  But, Jesus says that apart from the “narrow door” they “will not be able to.”

The second little parable in today’s Gospel Reading, about the owner of the house refusing entry, is symbolic of the final judgment.  “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!”  That is what we all deserve.  Because of our sins, none of us qualifies for entrance into heaven.

In our liturgy, just before Communion on the Sundays after Pentecost the Pastor says in the Proper Preface: “[He] overcame death and the grave and by his glorious resurrection opened to us the way of everlasting life.”  We don’t deserve entry into heaven, but Jesus is the “narrow door,” he has opened the way to everlasting life for all who trust in him. 

On the way back from the Youth Gathering this summer, driving in the mountains down south we passed through several tunnels, blasted with dynamite through the solid rock of the mountain. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the spiritual dynamite that blasted away your sins and opened for you the way to everlasting life.  When Jesus says, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door,” he is calling you to faith in him, expressing with this symbolism what he said at the Last Supper: “Trust in God; trust also in me. . .  I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Finally, what does Jesus mean when he says “make every effort” to enter through the narrow door?  He doesn’t mean that we earn or contribute to our salvation.  For, he is speaking to his disciples, who trust in him for his gift of salvation.

The Greek word which translated “make every effort” means “to engage in a struggle.”  In a crazy world in which bishops declare that Allah is the true God, Jesus is urging YOU, not to give in to the world, like that unfaithful bishop, but to struggle against the world—to “make every effort” and “engage in a struggle” to remain faithful to him.

Paul puts it this way in 1st and 2nd Timothy: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth . . .  But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of the faith.”  Through his Word and Sacraments, and worship and prayer, Jesus gives you power to fight the good fight of the faith.

“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”  Despite what that bishop in the Netherlands says, despite the conventional wisdom of the world, there is only one “narrow door” into heaven.  As the Lord declares in today’s Old Testament Reading, “I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.”   And as Jesus declares in the Gospel of John: “I am the Door.  Whoever enters through ME will be saved.”

Amen.

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