First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
May 17, 1998
Scripture: Matthew 7:13-20
One of the things that surprised me, upon moving to Birmingham, was that my backyard was enclosed by a fence. We didn’t have one in Farmington Hills. Neither did we have one in Livonia. I felt like I was reverting to my childhood. When I was a kid, everybody had a fence. In fact, we had three fences. One fence separated us from the neighbor on the left. Another fence separated us from the neighbor on the right. But the most important fence separated us from the alley. Alleys were something else I gave up years ago. I wonder where today’s kids go to play “kick the can” now? Maybe nobody plays it anymore. Tragic!
As I remember, every alley fence had a gate. Gates were for swinging on. Gates were also for passing through….if you wanted to go from block to block the easy way, by cutting through backyards. People who didn’t want us cutting through their yards locked their gates. Which was dumb. Because if the gates were locked, we simply climbed the fences.
I don’t know why I am telling you this, except that when I began to think about this “narrow gate” admonition from the Sermon on the Mount, I realized that many of us have little first-hand knowledge of gates. Gates usually come attached to fences. It is the function of fences to keep people in or out of something. But it is the function of gates to let people through. Unless, of course, somebody locks them. Or unless they are tended by gatekeepers. Gatekeepers check passes or tickets, deciding who can enter. And who can’t.
“Enter by the narrow gate,” says Jesus. I read that. And I react. My antenna goes up. I find myself feeling defensive. But my reaction surprises me. What am I reacting to? What is it about this verse that bothers me? Obviously, it’s the word “narrow.” I don’t like the word. It sounds judgmental. It sounds restrictive. Immediately, my mind pages backward. I am in the upper deck bleachers at Tiger Stadium and thousands of people are up there with me. Suddenly the game ends. All of us try to leave at once. We funnel through fifteen portals. We flow into two descending ramps. Then we mass into one moderate receiving area and squeeze onto Trumbull Avenue through one narrow gate. The closer we get to where we are going, the slower we move. All because of the narrow gate through which we have to pass.
I hope that isn’t what Jesus is talking about. I hope the passageway to the Christian life….or to the heavenly life….isn’t like that. Narrow gates restrict the flow. Narrow gates slow people down. Narrow gates provide for credentials checks. Is this what Jesus means? Is this text inherently judgmental? Is it purposefully restrictive? Having become familiar with the phrase “trickle down economics,” is this text suggesting a “trickle in” salvation?
I think not. I doubt that the phrase “narrow gate” is meant to describe a God who desires to slow some down and shut others out. The God of Jesus Christ is not primarily into the hurdle-erecting business. Neither is the path to salvation like a couple’s club road rally, designed by a capricious and whimsical deity who literally drools over the prospect of creating maps and clues that are impossible to follow.
From time to time, I have gone on road rallies. Never have I won. And never have I finished without cheating. Finally the rally ends at some restaurant, wherein sits the couple who drew up the clues. The later the rest of us get there, and the more frustrated we look, the better they seem to like it. “Wow, you drove 207 miles….wore out two flashlights….lost your wife’s shoe in somebody’s swimming pool….and nobody in the car is speaking to each other….wonderful. Glad you had such a good time. Have a piece of pizza.” I don’t think God feels that way. “Narrow gates” must mean something other than a divine attempt to make things difficult.
The late Henry Hitt Crane helps me with this business of “the narrow gate.” Dr. Crane writes, “In every realm of life there is one primary set of conditions, which are most perfectly adapted to success in that particular realm. These conditions are generally quite precise and exacting. They must be closely followed. Ignorance as to what they are is no excuse. But the ability to discern and carry them out virtually insures success….genuine achievement….and fullness of life.” These conditions are not arbitrarily imposed (says Dr. Crane) by some whimsical deity, but are in the very nature of things….the very laws of life itself. If you will bear with me, I think I can illustrate this convincingly.
Several years ago, I began to play a bit of tennis. I needed to sweat, and grunt and smack the ball a little. But I also needed to look good doing it. It’s not so much that I wanted to win. It’s just that I didn’t want to lose ugly. So I had George Russell help me. George was a member of my church (at the time) and a tennis pro, which meant that he had the one prerequisite necessary for dealing with the likes of me….neither skill nor knowledge, but patience. That and the ability to keep a straight face.
And he did help me. I played better. I hit harder, longer and more often. And the additional burden George faced was to keep me from getting overly content with every accomplishment, so that I arrested my progress. From time to time he tried pounding a little theory into my head. He had me convinced that to hit a tennis ball properly one had to have a physics major, a math minor, dancing feet, 20/20 vision and a solid understanding of the laws of aerodynamics. When he sensed that all of that technical stuff befuddled me, he just said: “OK, just hit it on the sweet spot.” Strangely enough, I knew where that was. It was that spot on the racquet where hitting the ball both sounded good and felt good. But that’s not quite true. The sweet spot was not only on the racquet, it was also in my hands, arms, feet and head. I had to dance to the right place, swing with the right motion, face in the right direction, hit every ball knee high, and follow through. The margin for error in all of this was unbelievably small. How did Crane say it? “In every realm of life there is one set of primary conditions which are most perfectly adapted to success in that particular realm”….the law of the narrow gate.
Crane, himself, told the same story in the realm of music. About age twelve, he decided he wanted to play the piano….a decision which not only entailed finding a teacher, but purchasing a piano. He wrote:
I shall never forget my first lesson. My teacher was a nice young lady, but somewhat lacking in understanding. For instead of showing me how to burst forth with some beautiful melody, she began by insisting that I learn the scales, using only one hand no less. “But I want to play the piano, not just tinkle or pick at it.” But she insisted. Therefore it was to scales that we returned, until fate saved me via a whistle from the front porch. It was Chuck McDonald’s whistle. I’d know it anywhere. It being nearly the end of my lesson, I asked my teacher if I might be excused. Upon reaching the front door, Chuck reminded me (with some exasperation) that we had a ball game and that I was supposed to pitch. I’ll always remember that game. Great game. We won. Wonderful score. 168-97.
That evening, however, I had to deal with my father. He told me I had better decide whether I did or did not want music lessons. When the dear teacher returned for the second lesson, it was exactly as I feared. She hadn’t learned a thing. Back to the scales we went. This time I had the whistle planted. Chuck came. I pitched. And that was the last piano lesson I ever had. I resisted the narrow way of disciplined instruction and missed, forever, the broad land of musical expression.
Narrow is the gate and hard is the way that leads to life, but broad are the avenues that go no place. Therefore, if narrowness is a principle of life (and a set of optimum conditions to be met), then the narrow gate is also a warning against mediocrity and beckoning to brilliance, from one who has done his best for us and now expects us to do our best for Him. Far too many of us assume that any old effort will do, trusting that there is a great spiritual “fudge factor” that will cover up our mistakes of action and inaction in response to the Gospel. When we settle for so much less, that’s about what we get. Less. Not more. Not enough. Less.
The other night I was channel surfing and came across that old teenage flesh flick, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Such films, aimed at the teen market (loosely known as the Animal House genre), had a lot in common….energized music….one spaced out kid who did crazy things….a couple of teachers who looked like throwbacks to the Neanderthal age….and a torrid romance. They were long on flesh and short on sex….and what sex there was left people feeling short-changed and cheated. Such was the case here. A girl made love with a boy she didn’t love and found herself both pregnant and dropped. An abortion clinic fixed the first problem but nobody, that I could see, did anything about the second. Near the end of the movie, she said to her girlfriend: “I’m not into sex anymore. Anyone can have sex. I want a relationship.” The implication being that relationships may be harder to pull off, but promise more in the long run. “Enter at the narrow gate,” says Jesus, because wide enough to drive a truck through are the gates that lead to destruction.
I suppose that in every realm of life (athletics, music, career, friendship, marriage and especially the realm of the Spirit), finding the narrow gate involves discovering and obeying the primary conditions applicable to your pursuit. It means making choices that are hard and distinctions that are critical. It means taking on tough disciplines and dropping off old baggage. It means realizing that all gratifications do not come instantly, and that there is an essential connection between today’s scales and tomorrow’s melody. It means bearing the short-term frustration that comes from setting a goal far enough in front of oneself, so as to make stretching-and-not-quite-reaching a worthwhile enterprise. It means careful choices about who can best serve as models and mentors for, as Bill Coffin says: “There are too many sentimental slobs in the religious community who suffer from the ‘Little Red Riding Hood syndrome,’ meaning that they can’t tell the wolf from their grandmother.” Some wolves, said Jesus, even dress like sheep.
But the key word about the “narrow gate” is the first word. We are called to “enter” by the narrow gate. Jesus wants us to go through it. The first issue is not the location of the gate. The first issue is not the size of the gate. The first issue is the entry. We put the focus in the wrong place when we say: “Look how small it is. Look how few go through it. Look how hard Jesus is making it. What if we fail?”
What if we fail? I think we know the answer to that one. From time to time I play one other game. You play it with a box that sits on a table. It’s called “Labyrinth.” Sometimes it’s called “Big Maze.” The box has a movable floor that sits on an axis connected by two knobs located in the sides of the box. This movable floor has about 50 holes in it and a path outlined between the holes. Using the knobs to move the floor, the object is to propel a little steel ball between the holes. You must maneuver the steel ball between the holes which are numbered from 1-50. If you go too fast, the ball races out of control and drops through a hole. If you go too slow, the ball doesn’t move at all. I’m no expert, but I have observed that if you live in fear of the holes, you never make it very far through the maze.
Narrow gate people know a similar secret. Life is full of holes. Most people fall in some. Life is full of narrow gates. A lot of people miss them and smash into the fence. But, my friends, the Gospel says that we are permitted to try again. We are encouraged to try again. We are expected to try again.
Think of all the old jokes that raise the specter of “pearly gates” and the ever-vigilant presence of St. Peter. There must be hundreds of them. I’m not asking you to recall them. But I do have a question concerning them. Every time somebody begins a story by making reference to St. Peter and “the gate,” do you picture that gate as being open or closed? How you answer that question makes a world of difference.
