Text: Luke 13:22-30
I like the word cloud. Grace makes things topsy-turvy. It scrambles our hard won pieties. But thankfully, the narrow door is one opened by grace. A door made of anything else and nobody would be thin enough.
The text is interesting to me because of who it appears to be addressed to. The questioner calls Jesus Lord. That usually implies a follower, disciple or believer. The parable that follows puts this fellow outside of the narrow door. And the replies of those in the parable are of shock. They can’t believe they are outside. It is not a large problem today – those who are religious, but not very spiritually attuned. But that is the problem addressed. The core of the gospel, what brings people from the east and the west, the north and the south, is grace. A grace that puts the first last and the last first. A grace that doesn’t pay us what we deserve, but pays us all the same regardless of when we entered the field. A grace that big enough to let in the uncountable multitude through a narrow door.