Sermon Text: Luke 13:22-30
Date: August 24, 2025
Event: Proper 16, Year C
Luke 13:22-30 (EHV)
He went on his way from one town and village to another, teaching, and making his way to Jerusalem. 23Someone said to him, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?”
He said to them, 24“Strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25Once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open for us!’ He will tell you in reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ 26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27And he will say, ‘I don’t know where you come from. Depart from me, all you evildoers.’ 28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown outside. 29People will come from east and west, from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. 30And note this: Some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
Strive to Enter Through the Narrow Door
If you’re going to take a flight either for fun or otherwise, you don’t even have to tell me what your favorite part of that experience is; I already know. Above all else, you cherish the line and the TSA security checkpoint scan. Who doesn’t love putting all of their stuff on a conveyor belt and then walking through a narrow metal detector or standing in that claustrophobic scanning machine so they can see what joints inside you are now metal replacement parts? And if you’re lucky, you get to spend a few intimate moments with a TSA agent where you both get to know each other a little too well.
Of course, I’m being facetious. That whole process is annoying, and many would argue that it has questionable value to overall safety for air travel. But whether it’s a flight or entering a sporting event, concert, or some other event with a big group gathered, we’re all familiar with the concept of temporarily discarding everything we have and pushing our way through a little doorway.
Now, I don’t want to compare our entry into heaven with passing through a security checkpoint, but there are many parallels between that airport experience and how Jesus describes our spiritual journey in this life: “Strive to enter through the narrow door!” What does he want us to take away from that encouragement? And what will that mean for our day-to-day lives as we look forward to eternity?
In our Gospel, we meet up with Jesus on the “home stretch” of his earthly ministry. He went on his way from one town and village to another, teaching, and making his way to Jerusalem. This “making his way to Jerusalem” will be the last time Jesus goes to Jerusalem, because this is going to be the time that will end in his crucifixion. He doesn’t have much time left in his earthly ministry, and so we start to sense some extra urgency in Jesus’ teaching.
And so it’s probably in that context that we get a little bit disjointed reply from Jesus to the question he was asked, “Lord, are only a few going to be saved?” Jesus really doesn’t answer the man’s question. There’s no discourse on total numbers in heaven or hell; there’s no doctrinal discussion on the difference between those his death has forgiven (everyone!) and the smaller number of those who will benefit from his work through faith. Instead of conversing about the masses, Jesus immediately makes it very personal, “Don’t worry about the number of people; be concerned about yourself. Strive to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able.”
Now, at first blush, this could seem like Jesus is pointing to our work as necessary to enter eternal life, to be saved. That is, entering through the narrow door is something we fight to do, that we’re somehow earning passage into the secret entrance of heaven or providing the secret password to get into the back door. That’s not really Jesus’ point, as we’ll get to in a moment. What is clear is how terrible it will be to not enter through the narrow door. Once the master of the house gets up and shuts the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open for us!’ He will tell you in reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Not entering through the narrow door is to be barred from eternal life. Not entering through the narrow door is to not be known by God.
The people in Jesus’ brief parable come up with reasons why this treatment is unjust. They have all sorts of reasons why they should be let in, even after the door has been closed. ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ They are pointing to their close relationship with the master, or at least that they thought they had a close relationship with him. But notice how it is just a connection by association rather than a real one. “We ate in the same places where you ate; you taught near the places where we live.” That doesn’t speak to their actual relationship with the master of the house, but rather what they felt they were owed because of their proximity to him.
And the connection in Jesus’ immediate context is straightforward. Many of the Jewish people thought their lineage—their physical connection to Abraham—made them good with God. John the Baptist had addressed that misconception a long time before this, noting that such a physical connection was meaningless since, if he wanted to, God could turn the rocks into physical descendants of Abraham. This is one of the reasons that Jesus notes that those outside would see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in eternal life, while they were left out. The patriarchs and prophets would be in eternal life not because of who they were or who they were associated with, but because they had trust in God’s promises; they entered through the narrow door.
Now, perhaps we don’t struggle with this exact thing, especially those of us who are Gentiles through and through without a drop of Jewish blood in our veins. But where could we find a similar, misguided comfort in our association with God? Might we point to the fact that we were perhaps baptized, confirmed, married, or had any other significant life events in the Lutheran church? Might we point to the fact that we’ve maintained a constant church membership our entire life—or at least since we started taking these spiritual things seriously? Might we point to our church attendance being nearly flawless, or at least we’re in church more often than not, or we are at least more regular than most people we know? Might we stand on the fact that we always strive to be connected with a church and thus a group of Christians who value the truth and purity of God’s Word?
Do you see how all those things, while undoubtedly positive and worth celebrating, are still just this loose association with God? Taking comfort in church membership or attendance puts the focus entirely in the wrong place. It’s focusing on you, not on Jesus.
And this is Jesus’ point when he tells us to keep striving to enter through the narrow door. To strive to enter through the narrow door means not taking our eyes off that door, which is Jesus himself. The striving is fighting against apathy toward his promises or squashing pride about our contributions. Striving to enter through the narrow door means leaning completely on your Savior, casting all of the things that seemed so important in this life onto some conveyor belt never to be seen again, but instead getting into eternal life solely by God’s grace given in Jesus’ sacrifice for us.
Jesus is not the bouncer at this door, looking to keep the riffraff out; Jesus is the door. Entering eternal life through the narrow door—the only door—is to enter through Jesus. And as we keep our eyes focused on him, we know that we have the certain gift of eternal life waiting for us. Why? Because the master of the house knows you. Why does the master know you? Because he has forgiven your sins, he has given you this eternal life.
But how can you know that? Outside of God coming to you directly to say, “Yes, I know you. Welcome home,” can we ever be confident about our relationship, about our status with God? Absolutely. He’s given you a record of his love for you right here in his Word. You and I only need to walk to Jesus’ cross to understand fully his love for us. At that cross he suffered the horrors of hell for you and me, because he loves you and he loves me.
The walls of sin border eternal life, and they are impenetrable. A moat of self-righteousness sits around that sin wall; wading into those waters only means disaster. But there is a little way through, a little doorway that stands as entry into God’s house. That door is Jesus. Depend on him entirely for your salvation and eternal life, and in that you are striving to enter through that narrow door. By God’s grace, you will pass through it and be welcomed into eternal life by the God who knows and loves you so deeply.
Thanks be to God! Amen.
