I suppose if you are determined, no space is too narrow. Except one. Jesus says in our lesson for today, "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able...."
THE DOOR THAT LEADS TO LIFE IS A NARROW ONE.
The other triangle is like a V. The point at the bottom represents the narrow gate. Once we enter that gate, we discover that life opens up for us more and more, until finally we reach the "end" and find it is eternity in the freedom and grace of God! (1) One of the great truths of life is expressed here. The door to life is a narrow one.
FOR EXAMPLE, EDUCATION IS A NARROW DOOR.
"Ralph Nader is a baseball player. Charles Darwin invented gravity. Christ was born in the 16th century. J. Edgar Hoover was a 19th-century president...The Great Gatsby was a magician in the 1930's. Franz Joseph Haydn was a songwriter who lived during the same decade. Sid Caesar was an early Roman emperor. Mark Twain invented the cotton gin...Jefferson Davis played guitar for the Jefferson Airplane. Benito Mussolini was a Russian leader of the 18th century; Dwight D. Eisenhower came earlier, serving as a president during the 17th century...Socrates (was an) American Indian chieftan...."
The professor goes on, "My students were equally creative in their understanding of geography. They knew, for instance, that Managua is the capital of Vietnam, that Cape Town is in the United States, and that Beirut is in Germany... Camp David is in Israel, and Stratford-on-Avon is in Grenada. Gdansk is in Ireland...Belfast was variously located in Egypt, Germany, Belgium and Italy. Leningrad was transported to Jamaica; Montreal to Spain."
Many schools are in crisis. I like what comedian Joe Hickman said, "At first I wanted to be a cop, but you have to be 6'1", know karate, and carry a gun. Then I thought I'd be a schoolteacher, but you have to be 6'1", know karate, and carry a gun." Maybe it's not that bad yet most places, but we do have problems in our schools. Each of us has a stake in education. In today's world we need all the educated leaders we can develop.
Education is one of those narrow doors that lead to limitless horizons. The more education you have, the greater your options. It is one of those crucial paradoxes of life. A young man quits school because he wants to be free. At first it's great! No studies. Sleep late. Earn money. As time passes, however, he is consigned to that increasingly narrow band of jobs reserved for the unskilled. He has entered the inverted teepee that gets narrower all the time.
If he had stayed with his studies just a little bit longer--if he had made it through the narrow door of education--he would have had a world of opportunity. If he still wanted to work at a low-paying unskilled job, he could. However, now he would have the freedom to choose. Education is a narrow door that leads to almost limitless horizons.
PHYSICAL FITNESS IS ALSO A NARROW DOOR.
We become like one poor fellow who always wanted to look like a Greek god. As time went on, however, he looked more like a Greek restaurant.
One doctor came up with what he called a miracle diet pill. He explained to an overweight patient, "These pills are not to be swallowed at all. You just spill them on the floor twice a day, then you pick them up and put them back on the shelf one at a time."
We laugh because it hurts so much. Meanwhile our physical world grows ever more narrow. We get winded when we climb one flight of stairs. We become spectators rather than participants. Physical fitness is a narrow door with an almost limitless horizon.
THERE ARE MANY NARROW DOORS.
In business there are numerous narrow doors. Honesty. Dependability. Hard work. We know that eventually there is a pay-off behind each one.
Narrow doors--limitless horizons. Jesus said, "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."
Jesus was talking about a very specific door, of course--the door of the Kingdom. There are two things we need to see this morning about that important door.
FIRST OF ALL, IT IS WIDE ENOUGH FOR ALL WHO WOULD TO ENTER.
There is a story about a little girl who had a large collection of dolls, of every description. It was obvious that her dolls brought her much pleasure. A visitor asked her which of her dolls was her favorite. "Just a moment," she said as she rushed into another room. In a moment she was back with a doll that would have been rejected by Goodwill. One of the eyes was off, the cloth hair was hanging by a single thread, the dress was worn and dirty, one shoe was missing. The visitor was surprised. "Why do you love this doll so much?" she asked. The little girl answered shyly, "Because if I didn't nobody else would."
The love of God is something like that. It is available to everyone. There is no snob appeal to the Gospel. The Kingdom is big enough for everybody.
HOWEVER, THE DOOR TO THE KINGDOM IS A NARROW ONE.
Whether you are an Anglican or a Methodist is not a matter perhaps of eternal significance. But the decision to follow Christ is. There is a cross to shoulder and there is the burden of sin to be left behind. There is hatred and animosity to be shed and love and acceptance to be taken up. Meaninglessness and despair are to be no more. They are replaced with direction and positive faith.
Van Varner, editor of bGUIDEPOSTS, tells of a summer drive he and his godson David were taking in the Rocky Mountains. When they came to a sign that read "Continental Divide," David commented, "This is the great watershed. From here the waters flow either toward the Atlantic or the Pacific." The decision to follow Christ is that kind of decision. It is either/or--not both/and.
Walter Anderson, editor of PARADE magazine interviewed John Ehrlichman for a job as a writer immediately after Ehrlichman's involvement in the Watergate scandal and his subsequent stay in prison. Anderson decided to throw caution to the wind and ask Ehrlichman a very pointed question.
"There's not a city you can enter," he said, "not a cab, a hotel, a school, a theater, a store you can visit in which someone might not hold you in contempt. Your very name can inspire revulsion in almost every nook and cranny from coast to coast. How can you live with this? Why have you not taken your life?" Anderson wanted to understand how any person could survive such terrible public shame. John Ehrlichman, after all, had been a trusted aide to the President of the United States. His fall--going from the White House, where he wielded enormous power, to the prison in which he served his time--had been steep, complete and humiliating. What kept him alive?
"I thought about dying," Ehrlichman said. "Actually, I thought about it a lot...I had to decide for myself whether to live or to die. That was the choice. No one else could pull me out of self-pity. If I couldn't live with the truth that many people will never accept me as a person, If I have to depend on others for my self-esteem, then I must choose death. If I wanted to live, I had to quit my depression. I had to say my life had value, and I had to mean it. I chose life."
John Ehrlichman's voice had been soft until his last sentence: "I chose life." Anderson said he would never forget those words or the voice in which he spoke them. It sounds like this time, perhaps, John Ehrlichman has chosen wisely.
The decision to follow Christ is a decision to choose life. "Strive to enter by the narrow door..." The door to life is a narrow door. There are many of these doors. Education, physical fitness, marriage. We encounter these doors in our work and in our leisure. But the most important door of all is the narrow door of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is big enough for all to enter. But some choices have to be made. But, like the other narrow doors, the horizons are limitless, eternal. Why not choose the narrow door? Choose life.
