In upper Manhattan there is a turn of the last century neighborhood of brownstone houses called St. Nicholas Park. It was designed to be an enclave for the elite. It is in Harlem and as the Great Migration filled the area with African-Americans the elite turned out to be black. Today no one remembers it at St. Nicholas Park but as Strivers Row. Those who moved into those lovely Georgian revival homes were striving to make a mark on American society. Some of the movers and shakers of the Harlem Renaissance lived on Strivers Row: Eubie Blake, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Bojangles Robinson. The idea of striving, of trying to get somewhere, is not just in society but is woven into the gospel as well. Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” He answered them, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” 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. 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 focus not on how many but on how.
The word translated as “strive” in Luke 13 has as its root in Greek “agon” from which derives the English word agony. It suggests a great effort, a mighty contest, a struggle to reach a goal. Associated ideas would include the training that an athlete goes through, the time studying a student must put in, the military-style “discipline” referred to in the epistle. Striving in these various ways serve as a reminder not to presume. I’m here at the Olympics. I’m an elite athlete. Yeah, but if you don’t work at your training you’ll be out of the running. I’m an engineer at a prestigious school. I’m destined for greatness. Yeah, if you don’t study you’ll be home before you know it. This business of striving, of keeping at it, is important in the spiritual life as well. Jesus warns his listeners not to presume
Let’s think about what it would take to get through the narrow gate. First, you’ve got to shed your excess baggage. If you have ever gone through the turnstiles on the Blue Line on the way up to O’Hare to catch a flight you get the image. 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. In the spiritual life we have to shed our baggage as well. Maybe it’s an old hurt, a grudge, a resentment. We want payback for the wounds we have received. We’ve been carrying it around for years and it weighs us down. Got to get rid of that to pass through the gate. Maybe our excess baggage is selfishness. That’s got to go to get through the narrow gate. Another piece of excess baggage: shame. 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. Thinking of getting rid of excess baggage reminds me of the medieval mystic, Meister Eckhart who put it this way: “God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.”
To get through the narrow gate requires making ourselves available for facial recognition. When you get to the airport gate the TSA wants to know who you are. In a similar way we should make sure that God will recognize when we come to the gate because God has seen us before. We have said our prayers, we have come to church, we have read the Bible. God is familiar with us, knows us, recognizes us as one of his own. We don’t want to show up at the narrow gate without the REAL ID that only believers possess. Did you notice the chilling warning in the gospel text: Then you will you stand outside knocking and saying, ‘Lord, open the door for us.’ He will say to you in reply, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ We need to make sure that arriving at the narrow gate is not the first time God has seen us.
Finally, sometimes it helps when you get to the narrow gate to have someone to vouch for you. Yeah, I know him. He’s my brother. It’s even better to have someone in authority vouch for us. Jesus told us how to get him to vouch for us at the narrow gate. “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.” When the poor, the hungry, the needy, the hurting, the depressed, the lonely, the stranger, the shut-in can testify on our behalf, that they know who we are, that we have connected with them as brothers and sisters in Christ then we will be able to get through the gate. Ironically, although the gate is narrow the more of those who can vouch for us there are, the easier it will be to pass through. The bottom line: when we make getting through that narrow gate our top priority pretty soon we’ll be up, up and away.
