Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City
August 26, 2007
The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Reverend Andrew G. Kadel
Isaiah 28:14-22
Psalm 46
Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-29
Luke 13:22-30
 

     The Bible comes from such a different time and place, that we can’t possibly understand it.  There are no real points of connection to our lives.  For instance, the prophet Isaiah speaks to the leaders of his nation seven hundred years before Christ.  He describes the ‘scoffers who rule this people’ as those who boast of making a covenant with death—so that when the scourge of war, economic hardship or desolation comes through, they will be spared.  They say “With Sheol we have an agreement, when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter.”

     In our time, or at least in our democratic country, leaders don’t take refuge in falsehood.  What leader has made a covenant with death, to ensure his own safety and prosperity?  Back then, the prophet spoke the word of God, and it could be terrifying and wrathful.  “Your covenant with death will be annulled…morning by morning the scourge will pass through; …and it will be sheer terror to understand the message. For the bed is too short to stretch oneself out and the blanket too narrow to wrap oneself in.”

     It’s all very frightening and dark.  Today, we are much too humane and refined to speak the truth in such a harsh way.  Perhaps if we look at the New Testament, we will find something more to our liking: The Epistle to the Hebrews: “…a blazing fire, and darkness and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken…”     Well, maybe we should go to the Gospel and see what ‘Good News’ Jesus has for us.

     ‘Lord, will only a few be saved? Jesus said “Strive to enter by the narrow door…”

     Not such a gentle or easy image either.  Jesus told stories…  It appears that in this lesson from the Gospel of Luke, the ‘narrow door’ probably refers more to a door through which a lot of people are trying to pass at the same time.  In the parable, a man, who I believe should NOT be equated with either God or Jesus, has gone into his house for the night.    Security was a big issue in those days, and it wasn’t as simple a matter as turning the dead-bolt.  Making sure the door wouldn’t open when pushed by a robber required some physical effort.

     After all that effort, some of these clowns who have finished closing the night clubs or something start yelling at the man, demanding to be let in!  They are hours past the time when a visitor might hope to ask for hospitality and they are telling this man they are entitled to it, entitled to make this man undo all his security precautions and let them in, in the middle of the night.  They plead, they manipulate and the man answers: ‘I do not know where you come from.’  They couldn’t come in through his narrow door because they hadn’t attended to their opportunity to enter.  In this metaphorical story, it was the proper time that they ignored, figuring that they were entitled at any time.

     In Isaiah, the rulers figured that they were entitled to avoid truth, justice and their responsibilities to the people.  Entering by the narrow door, that is to say entering the Kingdom of God, is not a matter of when, or exactly what one does, but of attending to the will of God—of having humility to know that we are living in God’s gift, not in an entitlement.

     “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out.  Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.”  All those people, eating with the prophets and patriarchs are the outsiders—the people who make no claim to entitlement.  The ones gnashing their teeth are the ones who were certain they were entitled, by birth, position, power, wealth, pious observance, or what-have-you.  Christ’s kingdom is not available for manipulation, and no one should presume that God is obligated to be nice and allow such behavior.  The truth holds all of us to account—not least those who presume to make a covenant with death.