2 Lent Year C

“LORD, WILL THOSE WHO ARE SAVED BE FEW?”
A sermon by: Fr. Gene Tucker
Given at: Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, February 28, 2010
Genesis 15: 1 – 12, 17 – 18; Psalm 27: 10 – 18; Philippians 3: 17 – 4: 1; Luke 13: 22 – 35

“Lord, will those who are saved be few?”

This is the question that catches our attention in today’s gospel passage.

Have you ever found yourself wondering, “What about that person? Are they going to be among God’s chosen ones?” Put another way, we could frame the question this way: “Are they – those people over there – are they in, or out?”

It’s natural for us to wonder about this question from time-to-time. Truth be told, we clergy wonder about it quite often, as we make our way mentally through the roster of our congregation’s members, trying to ascertain each individual person’s status with God. (Yes, I know: no pressure!) As clergy, we are charged with building up each individual person’s relationship with God, charged with seeing to it that each person has the opportunity to come into a personal and intimate relationship with God the Father through God the Son, with the support and guidance of God the Holy Spirit.

So, it’s natural we priests would be concerned with this question.

As your Rector, I am deeply concerned about this question, about each one of you and your relationship with God. (Yes, I know, I’ve said it before, “No pressure!”)

People in Jesus’ day were also concerned about it. We can see this concern in the question that is posed to Jesus as He made His way toward Jerusalem. In effect, the question posed asks not only the question “Who’s in and who’s out?” but it also asks the question, “What’s the ‘big picture’, Lord?”

But notice that Jesus redirects the question away from the “big picture”, from the great, big plan, from knowing who’s in and who’s out, to the personal, the specific, the individual.

In so doing, Jesus puts the burden squarely on the shoulders of those who heard this question, on the shoulders of the unnamed person who asked it, and squarely on each of our shoulders, as well.

This gospel is very difficult to hear. It is also difficult to understand completely. (As a warning, I will say that next week’s gospel text is equally difficult to hear, for it comes from the first part of chapter thirteen of Luke.)

But this is Lent, that season that forces us to look at the “difficult, hard stuff” of Jesus’ teachings. Lent, like our cycle of Scripture readings, forces our noses and our eyes right into the things we’d just as soon avoid.

Thank God for Lent, and for the lectionary. Thank you, Lord, for making us look at the tough stuff

In order to take away as much meaning away from today’s gospel passage, we would do well to check into the context in which this question and the Lord’s answer falls. That will tell us a lot about its meaning and its applicability.

For an understanding of the context, we must back up to the very beginning of chapter twelve of Luke’s gospel.

There, in verse one, we see that Jesus is addressing His disciples, who are standing among the large crowd that had begun to follow Jesus toward Jerusalem. He then tells the disciples, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy….”

Ah, now we can understand what group was the target (or, in truth, the immediate target) of Jesus’ remarks. It was the Pharisees, that lay group who sought to uphold the minutest details of the Law of Moses, the Torah. These Pharisees were the keepers of legality, along with their allies, the priests and the scribes. Indeed, if we look at Luke 14: 1 – 6, we see that it is a leader of the Pharisees who criticizes Jesus for healing a man who had dropsy for 18 years on the Sabbath. Jesus sums up their attitude by reminding the Pharisees and their allies that the “Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Obviously, the Pharisees and their ilk had gotten their priorities mixed up.

It seems clear that the Pharisees – and anyone else who might try to claim a close relationship with God on the basis of their own efforts – thought they were “in”. They thought their privileged status resulted from their strenuous and diligent efforts to observe strict and legalistic applications of the wisdom that sprang from the mosaic covenant. But, in the process, they managed to kill off the spirit of the law which had come through God’s revelation to Moses. Theirs was a good-looking structure on the outside, but it was dead and corrupt on the inside. That’s the classic definition of a hypocrite: a person whose outside doesn’t match their inside.

But, lest we think that we are off the hook in terms of the harshness and directness of the Lord’s teachings, let’s remind ourselves that, in chapter twelve, verse one, that Jesus is also addressing His disciples, and also the crowd. Notice how He moves the focus of the discussion from the general to the personal: He is asked, “Lord, will those who are save be few?” Put another way, this question focuses on “them”, on “those people over there”. But Jesus’ response moves the question away from others to us. He says “(You) strive to enter through the narrow door.” His response is direct, it is personal.

Dear friends, we are the Lord’s disciples today. (Or perhaps, we are just members of the crowd, looking on.). And so, Jesus’ words fall on our ears today, and they are intended to make their way straight to our hearts.

If we are honest in assessing the impact of Jesus’ teaching, we can see that the objects of Jesus’ teaching are principally the disciples and the crowd, not the Pharisees. Peruse at your leisure the overall scope of chapters twelve and thirteen, and you’ll see what I mean. There, Jesus addresses the issues of discipleship, of following Him to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem, out to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, as we go forth as the Lord’s disciples and as His apostles. There, He tells them that being a disciple means foregoing family relationships (Luke 12: 49 – 53). It means persecution (Luke 12: 4 – 12), it means not getting hung up with material possessions (Luke 12: 13 – 21), it means being watchful to know the signs and the seasons of God’s acting (Luke 12: 35 – 48 & 12: 54 - 59).

Being the true target of Jesus’ teaching, we have to face the reality that it is us that Jesus is talking to. Just as this troubling and penetrating teaching has come to generation after generation of the Lord’s people who have earnestly sought after God and God’s truth, now, today, that word comes and bores its way into our hearts, our minds, our souls.

So what would be the essential message as we try to figure out how to “enter by the narrow door”?

In answer, may I offer the following as beginning points for our consideration:

Learn from the example of the Pharisees: We begin by considering the group that Jesus mentions first as He begins to address the twelve disciples and the crowd that had gathered around. They are “hypocrites”, Jesus says. Their insides don’t match their outsides. Here, Jesus is calling us into a wholeness of life, in which what we say and do outwardly has to be supported by a careful and close scrutiny, so that our motivations for what we profess are solidly connected to a deep and lasting thirst for God’s truth.

Don’t rely on our own efforts: Here, we come to the crux of the Pharisees’ problem: they thought that they could lift themselves up into God’s acceptance by their own bootstraps, by their own efforts. “Look at us,” they seem to be saying, “See how scrupulously we keep the Law of Moses. Aren’t we so good!?” The early Church would face just this sort of an attitude in the fourth and fifth century heresy which became known as Pelagianism. Named for its founder, the priest Pelagius (lived from c. 360 – 422 AD), this movement within the Church essentially maintained that we could improve ourselves spiritually by our own efforts.

Contact with God doesn’t equate to being in God’s grace: “We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets,” Jesus says. This might mean that those who claim to be part of God’s family are doing so on the basis of a casual relationship. But such a casual relationship cannot substitute for a close and personal walk, the walk that the disciple is called to undertake.

Go to the source of truth: “Strive to enter by the narrow door,” Jesus says. Perhaps another way to consider the truth of this statement is that we are called to seek out the way forward. Jesus is the way forward. His teaching, His truth, is the way forward. Here, I am reminded of another comment that Jesus made, namely, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14: 6)

The time is urgent!: At some point, the door will be shut, Jesus says. Put another way, we might characterize this part of Jesus’ teaching in this way: “Don’t put off the walk of true discipleship. The time to begin walking is now!”

Work!: We have our part to do. “Strive,” Jesus says. It’s an active verb, and it is an imperative one. It commands us to do our part in seeking God.

AMEN.