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The Gospel of Luke 13:(22-30) 31-35

When we find Jesus this morning, he’s been very busy talking about the kingdom of God. He’s been demonstrating how surprising and unpredictable it is, but mostly he’s been showing how expansive and generous the kingdom is. He heals, and he breaks the rules, doing it on the Sabbath, which really ticks off the leader of the synagogue. He tells the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the yeast, which talk about how the kingdom of God blows in to unexpected places and grows and grows, and how the kingdom makes things rise up in unpredictable ways. Ah!, it’s a heady day for people like me who love the idea of the kingdom of God getting into everything and growing and surprising, being everywhere; ah, it’s great fun.

And then, as he’s making his way to Jerusalem (which we know means he’s on his way to die), someone asks him, "Lord, will only a few be saved." And the heady mood, the fun talk, the easy talk about the kingdom of God, that mood is shattered. He won’t answer whether only a few will be saved, but the mood becomes somber, solemn. And he says, "Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. People will be outside knocking and saying ‘Let us in,’ and the owner will say, ‘I don’t know where you come from.’ And they’ll start saying, ‘Aw, come one, you know us, ol’ buddy, we’re your old pals. We ate and drank with you and hung around when you taught.’ And he’ll say, ‘Partying with me and hanging around doesn’t get it. I don’t know where you come from. Beat it.’"

Wow, what a party pooper! Way to rain on the parade, Jesus! It was great fun talking about the kingdom of God being like seed blowing all over the place, and breaking the rules to heal people, and being like yeast making the dough rise. We can fall in love with images like that. They’re comforting, and they’re exciting, and they’re fun, and they’re easy. Easy.

When I was in high school, I used to play poker with my best friends, Mark Dietrichs, Mark Peterson, Tony Almeida, and an invited guest (to make the fifth). We would stay up late at somebody’s house or sometimes in the back room of the Baskin-Robbins where Tony worked. The point of our games was clearly a male bonding thing (lots of scratching, belching, and lying). Those games are some of my fondest memories of being with my friends. We didn’t really care about the money; we literally played for nickels and dimes. If you ended the evening five or ten dollars down, you were really a terrible poker player. It was very clear to all of us that the game was about the friendships, not about the money.

But it was also clear to all of us that we had to play for money. If you play poker for no money, it’s no fun. You have to know that there are consequences to the decisions you make. For the game to be meaningful, you have to know that at the end of the day, there will be an accounting.

Now, I know that it’s kind of silly to compare my high school poker games with Jesus saying that we have to enter through the narrow door, but here’s where they are similar. It’s easy and fun to practice a kind of faith that gets really excited about how expansive and generous God’s love is. We can just ride that wave of euphoria, march in that parade. It’s about healing; it’s about breaking out of the "religious" rules; it’s about mustard seeds and yeast and "Kum Ba Yah," and God, it feels good. And easy. You just let it flow over you, like a wonderful evening with your friends.

But at the end of that evening, there is an accounting. At the end of our day of faith, there will be an accounting. Now, lots of good Christian folk get all worked up about this, and I think they often miss the point. Lots of them say that the accounting will be of how many times you have professed Jesus Christ to be your personal Lord and savior, or how many times you have had a truly emotional experience in worship, or how many times you talked somebody else into saying that they profess Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior.

Well, I’ve got nothing against all that, except that I think it misses the point. You see, the door is not narrow because God wants to keep people out; the door is narrow because (and I’m guessing you all know this already) loving human beings is a very painful enterprise. If you love somebody, they will hurt you, and you will hurt then. And God, most of all, knows how much suffering is involved in loving people.

So the door is not narrow because God wants to keep people out. The door is narrow because the only way to really love is to be willing to suffer and sacrifice. And that’s just a pretty narrow path, and it’s a door that not everybody is willing to go through.

As we make our Lenten pilgrimages, we need to ask ourselves, "Is that the path I’m on? Is that the door I’m going through?" Because the reason Jesus is a party pooper and kind of rains on the parade of all the fun, easy talk about the kingdom of God is that Jesus knows that it is not easy. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.

And then, after he tells them all that hard stuff about the narrow door and people begging to get in and all, he gets all excited about the generosity, the expansiveness of the kingdom again, and he says, "By the way, people are going to come to the kingdom from all over, places you’d never expect, and you know what?, you really can’t tell who’ll get in; the last will be first and the first will be last."

You know why he says that, why he gets back into the swing of being excited about how generous and surprising the kingdom of God is, why he starts the parade back up again, even though it’s taking him to Jerusalem?

Because, he can’t help it.