Last Sunday I said that Saint Luke’s account of Christ’s Temptations in the Wilderness reminds us that we are children of a covenant.  We are children of a baptismal covenant in which we have renounced our grip upon the world, and our grip upon own flesh, and the devil’s grip upon us; . . . we are children of a covenant in which we have given ourselves completely to God, . . . following Jesus as our Lord and Saviour in Whom we put our entire trust and love.  We have an identity, . . . we have a history, . . . and we have a home.  Our history began in disobedience, but Jesus has made obedience possible.  Our identity was one of shame and blame, but Jesus has given us the means by which to act honorably toward God and one another.  Our home was the grave -- the only option Adam’s disobedience gave us was to return to the dust from which we came -- . . . but Jesus has made it possible for us to be sons and daughters of God.  . . . We have a unique identity, . . . we have a sacred history; . . . we have a home.  And it is Jesus!

    And now, today, we hear Jesus say something very important about home.  He has been asked by someone if “those who are saved [will] be few?”  . . . Some despairing soul has come up to Jesus to ask if God is going to continue to withhold His mercy and justice; . . . if the Lord God Almighty will allow the wicked to continue to grind down the poor until only a very few are left?  . . . And Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t wait passively for God to act, but you strive to enter The Kingdom of God now . . . you strive to enter Heaven today; . . . but not as a VIP who expects God’s welcome and so stands outside the wide, polished, pearly gates, waiting to be noticed . . . but strive to enter God’s Kingdom as a servant who is there to work, and so, comes in by the little, narrow servants’ entrance ‘round back.”

    Jesus tells us not to even concern ourselves with who will be saved . . . or when . . . or how.  He says, rather, that if you desire God’s mercy and justice . . . if you desire Heaven, then strive to enter now.  Get your life and your heart and your mind and your soul in order, Jesus says, so that today you can convince the angel who has charge of Heaven’s little servant’s door . . . that you are a servant there and that you desire Heaven in order to work -- that you desire to be God’s servant right now . . . and for all eternity.  If Jesus is your identity and Heaven is your home, then, like the Prodigal Son had planned, strive to enter by the servant’s door with no expectation to enter with all the dignity of a son . . . with all the privileges of a daughter, . . . strive only to be admitted as a mere servant, . . . a servant to wait upon your Father’s banquet table and not to sit at it; . . . to carry and to fetch; to bring in the trays laden with heavenly bread and great flasks of celestial wine . . . with no thought of consuming any of it.  Because, you see, . . . Jesus says . . . there are a great many folk who think that Heaven is their home and so, idle about the front door waiting to knock for admittance as soon as this earthly life is no longer tenable and threatens to drop out from under them.  They are at the front door because they consider themselves to be guests of God, . . . because they have received Bread from His Table and drunk Wine from His Cup; . . . because they think that all the exhortations they got from fellows like me constitute an invitation.  So they idle about . . . waiting for God’s mercy and justice to become evident; . . . waiting for all the benefits of Heaven to come to them . . . so that they can profit from it.

    It reminds me of those horrible funerals I have to do every now and then for “good ‘ole Uncle Joe”, who was a “lifelong Episcopalian”, everyone assures me, and a member of the Parish.  Which often means that “good ‘ole Uncle Joe” lived in town all his life and the Episcopal Church is the one he never went to . . . all his life (with certain notable exceptions).  And, you see, everyone knows I’m going to be hard pressed to say something comforting at Uncle Joe’s funeral; so at his wake they all tell me what a great guy he was.  They tell me that he was “always doing something for someone; give you the shirt off his back, Father; not much of a Churchman, I know, and he had his faults, like everyone” [although to the best of my knowledge good ‘ole Uncle Joe never confessed them], “but still,” they say, “he had reverence for God.” Or, worse yet, someone will tell me that Joe “believed in his own way” (giving me a knowing nod), which usually means that “good ‘ole Uncle Joe” was too lazy to believe as God requires, and so believed as was convenient or pleasing to Joe.  “But, after all, Father,” I am told, “God is love.”  . . . Well, Jesus was more inclined to say that God is less like a sentiment and more like a child, . . . and children don’t talk to strangers.  So, when the Master ups and locks the doors to Heaven with a great “ka-thunk”, and everyone standing outside begins shouting, “Hey, what gives?  You’ve forgotten us.  We’re your admirers:  the people who have reverence for you!”  . . . The Lord God will say, Jesus says; . . . the Lord God will say, “I don’t know you.”

    That’s the kind of irony and surprise which pervades the precincts of God’s Kingdom.  So, . . . Jesus says, if you come to your heavenly Father as a servant now . . . you might well wind up being treated as a son or daughter in the end.  But if you think yourself quite deserving of Heaven -- a person whom God could not bear to be without, . . . most likely you’ll end up exactly so:  without.

    Now, at this point in his narrative . . . Saint Luke links this saying of Jesus about entering by the narrow door; . . . Saint Luke links this saying of Jesus with Holy Week.  . . . Saint Luke reports that some local Pharisees respond to Christ’s saying by telling Him that His grand ideas will come to nothing if Herod gets hold of Him like he got hold of John the Baptizer.  . . . To which Jesus replies that no one is more powerful than God . . . not even Herod.  And He goes on to say that it is God’s purpose, for the moment, that Jesus should heal and cast out demons, … but that it is to Jerusalem that He is sent; . . . that it is in Jerusalem that the words of Jesus shall be accomplished.  . . . And then Luke reports that Jesus says,

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!  Behold, your house is forsaken.  And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Speaking as a prophet on God’s behalf, Jesus declares to God’s People, . . . Jesus declares to the People of the Davidic Covenant, of which Jerusalem is the symbol; Jesus declares to the People for whom Jerusalem represents the foundation upon which their ultimate peace is built (for, that is the literal meaning of the name “Jerusalem,” . . . foundation of peace); . . . God declares to His People for whom Jerusalem represents the dwelling place of His Holy Name and the Presence of His Glory, as a hen is present to her chicks to gather them under her wings at the first sign of danger; . . . God declares to His People by the mouth of Jesus that they have continuously and conspicuously failed to love the God Who honored and treasured them.  Therefore, God says, . . . all promises are void:  Jerusalem is a city just like any other city -- “your house is forsaken”, God says.  There is no peace; Jerusalem shall be judged as all other cities shall be judged, and God’s People shall be as strangers.  The Glory of the Lord God Almighty will not be present to Jerusalem, Jesus says, . . . God will not be present to His People . . . until He comes to them to establish a New Covenant.  . . . The house of David is forsaken . . . until the Son of David comes to them and they cry out “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” . . . until the Son of David comes to them humble and riding on an ass to show them the narrow way, . . . the Way of the Cross.

    A chilling prophesy to hear from the lips of Jesus, . . . that God should forsake anyone.  But remember it as you journey through these days of Lent; . . . remember what Jesus has told you:  that there are no guarantees; that we must strive to enter Heaven now by the narrow, little servants’ door ‘round back.  Forget your needs and and the things you want God to do for you, . . . and spend the rest of your days doing God’s business, as a proper servant must . . . who hopes to live by the grace of their Master.