Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Recently I have seen people using this passage to serve as a type of justification to exclude others, and also infer that our God does the same. I will quickly go on record saying that any interpretation of scripture which arrives at the conclusion that God excludes any part of his creation in the Kingdom is faulty. We have only but to look at creation itself, which God designed, to know this is true. If we simply take a look we can see that no part of creation can survive in an exclusive format. You might choose to isolate yourself from other humans but you will not survive without some type of interaction with some part of creation. Creation is not inherently exclusive, and it is but a reflection of the nature of the one who created it. So where is the passage sending us? Without much doubt it is certainly indicating that there is a choice which lies before all of us, and one path is good and the other not so good. It also indicates that the majority of us will take the “not so good” route. While there are most assuredly different aspects to the “narrow gate”, I would like to focus on this idea that the passage reflects an exclusive nature of God, and therefore requires the same of us.
Picture dear friends, that person who personifies evil or sinfulness to you. Soak in this image, experience those feelings of disgust and distaste and then know this, they are your brother and sister in Christ. If that wasn’t hard enough you must also know that God holds them “sinless”(always and forever loved), and that for you to be at peace, for you to bring the kingdom to this moment of now, for you to be a purveyor of miracles, for you to heal and be healed you must see them the same. Look closely, there my friends, standing right before you is the eye of needle, that narrow gate.
You see, the narrow way is not hard because we have to exclude others, it’s hard because we have to include everyone, and we may have to change much about ourselves to do that. It is certainly a sad state of affairs when our culture, our governments, and yes even our churches find it acceptable and easy to exclude others. But if we are truly accepting of the message Jesus taught we would find it no sacrifice and we would find ourselves on the other side of that narrow gate amazed at the all-encompassing vast new landscape we now stand upon. Now, as we turn around and look at that “narrow” gate we just passed through a smile comes over our face, as we see just how “broad” it always was.