The Narrow
Door
"Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to
enter and will not be able." Luke 13:24
"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy,
that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the
gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who
find it are few." Matthew 7:13-14.
Jesus
compares life to a path that we walk. Everyone is walking some road to
some destination, even if you seem to be sitting still. You may not be
moving in space, but you are nonetheless moving in time, and you will one
day reach an inevitable destination, the grave. The only question in that
case is whether you will arrive with anything to show for it: any slides
or photos, any souvenirs worth keeping, any experiences or encounters
worth remembering.
But how do we choose the
path we are going to walk? In The Wizard of Oz, the pilgrims Dorothy and
the Scarecrow come to a fork where the Yellow Brick Road splits into two
roads, each identical with the other except that they lead off in two
directions. Dorothy and the Scarecrow have a destination in mind. They're
off to see the wizard, after all. So which path will take them there? In
the end they choose by playing Eenie-meenie-miney-mo, dancing this way and
that, starting down this path, then that, until the song ends and chance
has decided them. Luckily they made it, though you have to wonder if both
paths wouldn't eventually have rejoined on the way to the Emerald City.
Often the weightiest
factor in our deciding which path to take is whether we will be alone on
the trip. We would rather go with the flow of the crowd, even if it is a
crowd of lemmings headed for the ledge. In this saying Jesus warns against
that error.
The feeling is a familiar
one. We arrive at some office or event, not quite sure what to do next,
where to line up. So we nervously glance about to see if anyone else seems
to know what to do. If we see a crowd of people waiting here or there,
chances are we will join them. Just to be sure, we may ask them, "Excuse
me, but does this train stop at Union Square?" And then we will feel
secure. Maybe the person we ask will say, "I sure hope so!" And we will
take even that as sufficient reassurance. As if a chain is going to be
strengthened by having two weak links instead of one. As if, by standing
on this platform hoping it's the right one, you were both praying to the
train god to let this be your train. Add more uncertain people who come up
and ask both of you, and the sense of ignorant solidarity you feel quiets
your worries, even though all of you may well be wrong. But you'll only
find that out once you all arrive at the wrong destination! And who will
there be to blame?
Again, Jesus implies that
most people are like vacationers taking the scenic route. They think the
journey is just for sight-seeing, so it doesn't much matter where they may
ultimately be headed. The trouble is, they're like naive visitors to
totalitarian countries. The authorities show them around, wine and dine
them, but never let them see the real country. All you are allowed to see
is the carefully groomed display-model people on the immaculately swept
streets, with never a glimpse of the poor and the dissidents who have been
shipped off in advance of your arrival. You are seeing the window
dressing. What's behind it is a very different matter. And, Jesus is
saying, you are going to find out one day, and then it will be too late.
In many ways, it is true
to say that life's journey has no destination except for the journey
itself. The play's the thing. But presumably Jesus and most of his hearers
were thinking of some type of salvation or doom awaiting us at the end of
earthly life. In that case, we had better be pretty clear as to where our
choices and actions are leading us. You and I may or may not be so
confident of an afterlife, whether or pain or of joy. But for the sake of
the saying it hardly matters. Notice that Jesus does not actually specify
eternal life or life after death. He may just as well be referring to
"abundant life," as the Gospel of John interprets it.
Epicurus, another ancient
sage, made it clear that he believed death was the end. But he, too, knew
it matters very much what destination you choose and what path you plot
out to get there. In the short run, there are many things we strive for,
many happy moments of fulfillment we hope very much to reach. They don't
have to last forever. Epicurus said we ought to strive for pleasure,
happiness. And we ought to have enough foresight to realize that often
only a pretty rocky road will get us there. Often we will have to take a
long trip with few provisions. We may have to face dangers, but if we
really want to get there badly enough, we will take it all in stride. The
true epicure, the seeker of a pleasant life, will endure much hardship in
the here and now as a trade-off for the future. Any dieter knows that
well. The fulfillment of life is the goal, and the way to it is straight,
not much to look at, and few rest stops.
Why does it have to be
this way? Why can't we have an easy, picturesque journey and coast all the
way to the grand destination of success and happiness? There are various
possible answers to this question. It might be that since life is a hard
row for many people to hoe, the prospect of something much better in the
future is a hopeful light at the end of a dark tunnel. So it's a hard
journey here, but worth it once we get to the other side. But that doesn't
seem to be what Jesus has in mind. If that's all he meant, there would be
little point in his telling you, advising you to choose the hard road, as
if you had choice in the matter. But a choice is usually what the sorely
oppressed do not have. So he must have had something different in mind.
Could he have meant that
God is a spoil sport who relishes the spectacle of poor mortals living a
miserable life? And once you're done with the ordeal God says, "Okay,
you've suffered enough. Here's your reward. Good dog." We often get this
impression from our religious upbringing, whether deservedly or not. But
this, too, is far from the intent of Jesus.
It is a simple fact that
nothing worth achieving can be gained without hard work and discipline. No
athlete can even think of getting to the Olympics without long years of
training, because the needed skills are just not going to appear by magic.
No matter how much natural talent you may have, you can forget about
becoming a musician or an artist if you don't plan to put in a lot of
hours developing and refining those talents into skills. No matter how
much potential you have, potential is all it's going to be unless you take
the considerable pains to actualize that potential. Otherwise it will be
like a bank full of money that you never spend.
The straight and narrow
path is the path of single-minded discipline. It is not a burden another
has laid upon you. It is the burden of your own greatness and giftedness
that you may sometimes feel like shirking. And that always remains an
option. You can always slough off your destiny and join the mediocre crowd
heedlessly careening down the path of least resistance. There needn't be
anything particularly apocalyptic about it, nothing in technicolor. The
truth of Jesus' saying is made all too clear at high school reunions when,
not surprisingly, it turns out that the nerd who applied himself and
studied all those hours is making a big salary as an engineer or a
computer wizard while you and your fellow gas pump jockeys are reminiscing
about all your wild nights in the good old days.
Perhaps the best
commentary on this saying of Jesus comes from Robert Frost.
The Road Not
Taken
Two roads diverged in a
yellow wood.
And sorry I could not
travel both
And be one traveler,
long I stood
And looked down one as
far as I could
To where it bent in the
undergrowth;
Then took the other,
just as fair,
And having perhaps the
better claim,
Because it was grassy
and wanted wear;
Though as for that the
passing there
Had worn them really
about the same,
And both that morning
equally lay
In leaves no step had
trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first
for another day!
Yet knowing how way
leads on to way,
I doubted if I should
ever come back.
I shall be telling this
with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages
hence:
Two roads diverged in a
wood and I-
I took the one less
travelled by,
And that has made all
the difference.
This familiar poem says
that the choice of your life's direction will in all likelihood be made
only once. Even though it may seem like you have all the time in the world
to change direction, as indeed you may, the way things go, it will become
much too difficult to disentangle yourself from all the associations and
commitments you will accumulate along the way you have chosen. You just
can't realistically go back and start over, much less walk both paths at
the same time. There's not enough of you to go around. You have to choose
one path to be able to go on any path at all.
You surely have more
potential than you will have opportunity to actualize, and to choose one
option is to sacrifice another. So, as Jesus urges, consider well. In
Frost's poem, the narrator chooses the less-travelled path on something of
a hunch, as if sensing that it might lead to sights and experiences that
the multitude would not find to their taste. Jesus, too, recommends the
road less travelled, but for moral or at least prudential reasons. He
assumes you are able to see the disastrous outcomes of some choices, and
that you should have the common sense to delay gratification till you get
to the end of a hard road.
Yet, as Robert Frost's
verse suggests, "way leads on to way," and if you cannot retrace your
steps and go back to the fork, it may yet be that you will come to other
forks and make a mid-course correction. This is certainly what Jesus
presupposes. After all, he addresses himself to people who have been
pursuing some way for some years. He is not talking to people who are at
square one, because there are no such people. Birth in a particular
family, culture, or tradition has already set your direction. Do you need
to change it? Jesus assumes it is always possible to exit the broad and
winding way to doom, to find a narrow door, and to join the straight and
narrow path already in progress. Otherwise, what would be the point of
this saying in the first place? Just to tell people how bad off they
are?
Copyright©2009 by Robert
M Price
Spirit of
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