In my time, when you got to 9th grade you studied Algebra. In elementary school you studied arithmetic but now that we were in high school we were going to study (cue the ominous music) MATH. It was intimidating. I can remember how happy I was when we were given our algebra text books. The answers were in the back of the book! Whew, I thought. Algebra will be easy since I know all the answers. Never was a thought more wrong. Of course, having the right answer was not the point. It was finding the right answer that mattered. Because of that, my career in Math was short lived. This memory came to me in looking at the gospel for today. As happened often in the gospels, when people asked Jesus a question he deflected it. He told a story, used an illustration, re-focused the issue – anything but a direct response. Who is my neighbor? “A man on the way to Jericho was attacked by robbers.” Should we pay the Roman tax or not? “Show me the coin of tribute. Whose head is it?” Are you the one we are waiting for or should we look for another? “Go and report: the blind see, the lame walk, the poor have good news preached to them.” Jesus teaching style was not to give the answer but to help people to figure things out for themselves. So when they asked Jesus “Lord, will only a few people be saved” he doesn’t give a direct answer. Instead he said, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” Jesus wanted the crowds to understand it’s not how many but how that they should focus on.
Okay, let’s see what we can figure out. “Strive to enter,” Jesus says. The word “strive” is the word that, in Greek the language of the New Testament, would have been used at the Olympics or any athletic contest. It carries the weight of an are-you-doing-all-you-can-to-win mentality. Have you done the proper training, performed the right exercises, eaten the right nutrition to succeed? “… through the narrow gate.” Going through the narrow gate reminds me of going through the turnstiles on the Blue Line on the way up to O’Hare. You’ve got this bulky piece of luggage you’re pushing along with you and it’s a challenge to get both you and the luggage through the gate. Bringing luggage makes getting through the narrow gate a challenge.
A story. Once upon a time a Greek patriot died and presented himself before the pearly gates. St. Peter looked at his record and saw he was a good person and told him he could enter. However, as he tried to go through the gates the alarms all went off. St. Peter saw that the patriot has his hand closed in a fist. “You have to open your fist,” said St. Peter. “Everyone enters into glory with open hands, receiving every good gift from God.” “You don’t understand,” said the patriot. “My whole life I’ve fought and worried and worked to keep Greece free and prosperous. I hold in my hand the soil of my homeland and I can’t let it go.” St. Peter faced a dilemma. The patriot was worthy of heaven but was unwilling to do what was necessary to get there. Finally, he had an idea. He brought a child out to play before the gates of heaven. The patriot was delighted to see the child at play. At one point, though, the child tripped and was about to fall and hurt herself so the patriot had to reach out and open both hands to catch the child. So holding the child in his arms, both child and patriot passed through the pearly gates together.
In order to enter through the narrow gate we have to get rid of our baggage, to let go of what we are holding onto. When we hear that word “strive” we can imagine that it means saying more prayers or doing more good deeds or keeping the commandments better. Actually, our striving is not about doing more of anything. We must instead strive to eliminate from our lives all that weighs us down and burdens us. The medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart, put it this way: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.” We’ve accumulated a lot of baggage over the years that might keep us from entering the narrow gate. Toss it away. Some of these are obvious. We must subtract resentment and grudges. They don’t do us any good and they don’t help relationships grow. Toss them. We must subtract greed. Wanting more and more does not open us up to receive divine gifts. Toss it. We must subtract anger. Anger gets our knickers in a twist and prevents finding serenity and peace. Toss it.
But besides these obvious vices that we must subtract there are some subtler pieces of baggage we carry around that must be eliminated as well to get through the narrow gate. First, we must subtract shame from our life. Now obviously there are somethings we are guilty of, that we must repent of. That’s why we have confession. But shame is not the same as guilt for it changes “I did something bad” to “I am bad.” No one is bad. Every one of us is a child of God, made in God’s image and likeness. Nothing we have done can change our infinite value and worth. Toss shame. We must subtract fear from our lives as well. As Jesus put it, “Fear is useless. What is needed is trust” (Mark 5:36). We can’t control anything outside of ourselves anyway so fear really only diminishes us. Toss it. We must also subtract the need to control. Because we feel shame and fear we try to control how others look at us and how they treat us. That won’t help us to get through the narrow gate since the only way to get to heaven is as our authentic selves. So toss control as well. Doubtless there are other pieces of baggage you could add to the list of things that need to get eliminated. The challenge of Jesus: strive to subtract all that excess luggage in order to create an empty space so that God can fill us with grace and joy. That’s how we get through the narrow gate.
