The Narrow Door (Luke 13:24)

 

Thursday, March 20, 2025

Psalm 48

Genesis 44:18-34

Luke 13:22-35

Observance: Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, bishop and missionary (d. 687)

The Narrow Door (Luke 13:24)

If we could make a list of the top books every person should read, we wouldn’t be alone. There are many who have thrown their opinions out onto the internet; often in these sorts of lists we find the Classics, like Homer or Seneca or Tsunemoto. Others might let their personal preferences lead them in a more obvious way, favouring the Medieval Scholastics or Puritan Divines. When it comes to Christian lists of “must reads”, the best ones encourage us to read accounts of the early church.

Because when we do, something jumps out very strongly about the first generations of Christians, such as the missionaries that came out of the Mediterranean into the barbarian north. That is, theirs was a very masculine Christianity. It was a faith with hairy knuckles and a stoic approach to the comforts of the flesh. But this masculine faith was tempered with a gentleness that we could almost call feminine. There was a refreshing settlement of the soul, where the extremes of masculinity, such as violence and domination, was fended off with humility and service. The mistake we have made in our era is to water down masculinity and femininity, not one with the other, but with effeminacy.

God does not have a gender; we only call him “he” because he is a person, not a thing (as well as being the biblical terminology). But that is not to say we reduce any aspects of gender in the nature of God; rather, he has them in completion. Consider Jesus in his response to those Pharisees who warned him of Herod’s violent rage; first, he is a man’s man, showing bravery and disregard for his own safety for the sake of his mission. But then he turns around and compares himself to a mother hen! Bravery, boldness, disregard for personal safety, utmost regard for those under his care. They come in both masculine and feminine forms; our task is not to water them down, but to embrace those of which God has given us and, by his grace, bringing them to completion.

It is not an easy task; it is like striving to enter through a narrow door. There is no picking and choosing; there is only taking what God has given us, and striving to bring them to completion in him. We do not reduce whatever makes us a man or woman; we lean into it, allowing Holy Spirit to baptise who we are and making us Christian in all that we are and do. It is not enough to preach in Jesus’ name, and to eat in his presence; we must come under his wing and grow into the new man or woman he would make us to be. Are you a man? Then tell those foxes that we must finish our course. Are you a woman? Then gather your brood under your wings. Women, finish your course; men, gather your brood. In Christ we are made complete; strive through that narrow door, that we may come into the completion of our humanity.

Lord Jesus, our brave and gentle leader: teach us how to be men and women of God, that we might glorify your holy name in all that we are and do; and, by your mercy, have the strength to strive through the narrow door and be welcomed into your kingdom.