Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
THE
NARROW GATE—“FORCED MATURITY”
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In religious circles, one of the questions that often comes up
is the question of a possible follower of Jesus in the Gospel:
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” that is, “How
many people will get to heaven?”
-Jesus
did not answer the person because it was the wrong question
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it is not necessary to know how
many
are saved
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it is necessary to know how
a person is saved
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and so, Jesus teaches:
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in order to be saved, a person must enter eternal life by
going through a narrow
gate
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which is the same idea as the letter to the Hebrews
today—people must learn to develop discipline in their lives
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There are a couple of Jesus’ doctrines that I don’t like
to think about because they seem to be much too strong, too
restrictive, too demanding for me—this is one of them
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the image of the narrow gate, the idea of discipline means
that a
person must work in order to gain eternal life
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and it is not easy work
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in his story Jesus says in effect:
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just
because you spend time with me or think about me—which we
are trying to do right now, by the way—is not enough
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what we must do is make an effort to learn from him and put it
into practice
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only then will we have the Kingdom that Jesus wants to give to
us
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Involved here is a basic question concerning Christian
maturity for Christian people in our world today—you and me
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are we entering through the narrow gate, that is, learning
this discipline, this self-discipline process so that life and
love can happen?
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the fact is that we may not be controlling ourselves enough
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one of the ways to determine how people are thinking is to
study what we use to entertain ourselves—TV, the movies,
music
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and often our media points to a lack of control
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in fact, there is one song out right now that tells us to lose
control: Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop”
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she sings: “It’s our party; we can do what we want.”
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that is what we want to hear: losing control is easy;
controlling ourselves means that we have to hold back from
something
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What happens when we don’t have that control?
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on the psychological level, psychologists say that if we don’t
have control, we won’t have any kind of a better life here
on earth
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on the spiritual level,
Jesus says that if we don’t have control, we won’t enjoy a
better life hereafter either
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Practically, what does this idea of control and discipline and
entering by the narrow gate involve?
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the media gives examples both ways of course—not only
advocating losing control as Miley Cyrus’ song, but also the
necessity to control as well
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the most important movies connected with the Harry Potter saga
are the final two
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and in part 1, the three teenagers Harry and his two friends
realize that they must do something about the
evil—Voldemort—in their lives
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and it will mean sacrifice, controlling some things in their
lives
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in
the opening sequence of the movie, we see all three quite
deliberately make the preparations to face the crisis
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they give up everything in order to search for the evil that
must be destroyed
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control differs with every individual, of course
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but it might mean things like:
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buying less material goods and giving the money to the poor
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deliberately setting up a time to pray and read the Gospels
every day
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in general, making a place for God in our own individual
worlds as we live our lives
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fundamentally, it means controlling selfishness which is the
principal destroyer of the spiritual life
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and it will mean applying some restraints to our life—“forced
maturity” is a way of saying it
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The narrow gate is pretty small and it is the only way to earn
salvation, Jesus says
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it means in effect: we all have some work to do.
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