There is a poignant moment in the 1999 movie ‘the matrix’
where the protagonist Neo meets the shadowy figure of Morpheus and is invited
to choose:To choose between two realities… It is one of the most loved scenes
in modern film history. It’s become almost a clique, used by countless
preachers… but I could not think about Jesus ending his Manifesto of the
Kingdom of God with four challenges to make a decision without thinking of that
scene. Let’s have a look…
‘come and follow
me’… sound familiar. It where we stepped into the Jesus story in Matthew’s
gospel. He had called his disciples to come and follow him and then we’ve spent most of the year working through Jesus
outlining for his disciples of what it
meant to follow him, in all areas of life in the sermon on the mount.
It started with the beatitudes this amazing revolution of
grace. That to come into the Kingdom of heaven people needed to know their
spiritual poverty, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, It wasn’t the
spiritual elite but those who knew their need for something more.
Then Jesus had gone on to talk of what it meant to respond
to that gracious offer that those who follow Jesus are celled to be the salt ofthe earth and light of the world. That it wasn’t about keeping a set of rules
but about heart attitude… to live a transformed life… that reflected the very
one whose grace they had been offered… to show that grace and love in all we
say and do… even to love our enemies.
Jesus moved on to say
that to live in response to this revolution of grace was to change our
understanding of our devotional life. That instead of the external performanceto gain God’s favour or to show we were god’s favourite, it was anintimate relationship with God, Knowing God as Father and living in humble trust: to put the your first. Hallowed be your name,your kingdom come, your will be done and
to trust God for the ‘ours’ our daily bread our sins forgiven our future inGod’s hands.
Now Jesus turns to his disciples and brings it all together
in a matrix moment. It’s been a great journey but you’ve got to choose. There
are two ways two gates says Jesus the narrow gate and the wide gate. You
choose. I shared a devotion with the parish council on Wednesday Night which
summed up that moment like this ‘the main character in the movie has to decide
whether to pledge allegiance to the world that was familiar and safe-a
digitally simulated dream world called the matrix-or a scary, non-illusionary
real world that could only be met with courage and saving love.” It’s the same
choice Jesus gives us. The fact that GATE AND Way seem to follow on from each
other in mean it’s just not an event, a moment in time but of trajectory
through life.
When I was searching for a picture for the service today of
the narrow way I found many pictures and images of lovely lonely mountain
paths, contrast with paved highways. But Jesus first hearers would have known
that Jesus was talking about city gates. That there was a crowded main thoroughfare,
filled with the hustle and bustle of commerce and trade, maybe even the great
pilgrims ways in Jerusalem with the crowd flocking to religious festivals, as
opposed to the small gateways for travellers on foot, the poor and lest
important might take.
If you’ve ever been in a
big crowd like at a rugby test match at Eden Park or the U2 concert at Mt Smart
stadium it’s very easy to get swept along by the crowd. The last big match we
went to as a family we travelled by train.
Kris and I got separated and I had Bethany with me and we got herded
with the bulk of the crowd into a tunnel under the railway track. There was
even a man with a bull horn telling us to go that way. But Kris and Naomi and
Isaac went against the crowd and over the rail bridge. They got the first train
out of the station we had to wait for a couple of trains after that. They went
the way lest travelled. Jesus is not adverse to say in that the wide road of
simply going your own way, taking the blue pill and waking up and choosing what
you want to believe is the road to destruction.
We may wonder what the narrow way and the narrow gate means.
Does it mean that we have to be narrow minded sheltered and cut off from the
world? Does it mean adherence to one set of fundamentals or one way of doing
things? I don’t think it does, remember Jesus is always contradicting his
Kingdom from the scribes and Pharisees who thought that way. Although when I
read Jesus teaching I can’t help but think that we the church often find
ourselves shuffling our feet and wondering why it sounds like we are standing
with the Pharisees when Jesus speaks.
the key here is that it is the narrow way because it focuses on one
person and one person only… Jesus in John 10:9 in one for those amazing I am
statements that are such a rich motif in John’s Gospel Jesus says I am the gate
anyone who enters through me will be saved. The gate is Jesus and the matrix moment is
choosing in all we do to follow Jesus who offers us new and abundant life as we
follow him. The way as we see all through this last section of Jesus Sermon on
the Mount is putting Jesus words into action in our lives. It’s not salvation
by works, but letting that relationship with Jesus permeate the whole of our
life.
To choose the narrow way is a very active thing. It means
choosing to walk a different path and live a different way. I was challenged
this week by re reading an article by Tom Sine. I found it so challenging that
it forms the basis of my From the Minister in this month’s church newsletter,
so you’ve got a chance to chew it over.
It has to do with roads. It has to do with the relatively new
environment we live called suburbia. Where we live and where we work and where
we shop can be so separated and is only made possible by cars and cheap (ha ha)
petrol. Sine quotes architectural historian N J
Northumbria who says ‘Suburbs far from
being values-free, embody the values of individualism, privacy, conformity and
exclusion.” Then sine goes on to comment…
“While I know any number of faithful Christians
living in the suburbs who maintain vital faith, moral integrity and regular
church attendance, I find very few who succeed in embodying values that are
significantly different from the cultural values of the suburban communities in
which they live…
many of our churches have become little more than
chaplains to the dominant culture”
Neil Cole puts it another way he says we are good at doing
church, putting on this performance on a Sunday but how good are we at making
disciples… people who follow Jesus. To
go against the flow and follow the narrow way. I’m only sharing this today because I sense
the challenge of Jesus words in my own life.
Jesus goes on to look
then at two other challenges we face in choosing the narrow way. The first is
the reality that there are false prophets, false teachers will try and lead us
away from the narrow way. We need to realise that Matthews gospel was written
in a certain context to address certain issues happening in the church
community that Matthew was part of and one of those issues may have been false
teachers who were pointing people to a different way. That’s helpful for us
because I think we always confront those kinds of things and choices in our
lives. You know there are lots of people who point the way to life, inside and
outside the church that we need to be aware of that while they may sound great
do not point us to the narrow gate. Jesus tells us that we will know them by
their fruit. By their actions, that the heart of a tree is revealed in its
fruit. Don’t get confused says Jesus by flashy presentations and great speeches
look beyond and see what it at the heart. Of course Jesus here is the ultimate
example, we see his love and compassion for the sick and the poor, his
willingness to give up his life.
Likewise says Jesus, when you make your choice don’t go for
the acts of power and miracles. Don’t get caught up by the razzle dazzle. There
are people says Jesus who will do those things but in reality they do not know
Jesus. People were drawn to Jesus because of the miracles he performed, but
when he started talking about the fact that the son of man would suffer and die
that the narrow way was the way of self-sacrificing love it tells us in John’s
gospel that many people deserted him. I’ve watched some people with real
powerful ministries simply self-explode and focus on themselves and It ends up a
mess. I don’t judge them and I look at my own life and ask the question am I
following Jesus am I on the Narrow way.
In the end and we are going to look at that more fully next
week, says Jesus, the foundation for life is not simply hearing what Jesus says
but its knowing God’s grace in Christ, and putting into effect in our lives.
Simply hearing and obeying.
All the way through this long series we’ve had the words of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer …
“The restoration of the church will surely come from a
new kind of community,
which will have nothing in common with the old but a life of uncompromising
adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. I believe the time
has come to rally people together for this.”
… And I believe we are at a
juncture in our churches life. We are going to have to make some hard decisions
some hard choices. As a parish council we are looking at events and thing we
want to run next year. But that is not at the core of what we need. It’s the
challenge of choosing together to follow Jesus.
You see in the clip we saw in the matrix , Morpheus said the matrix was
even there when you went to church. I
love and I hate the challenging words of author Garrison Keillor but I’m going
to finish with them… the call is ‘to give up our Good Christian life and follow
Jesus.’
I don’t know if Jesus challenge at the end of the Sermon on the Mount was what the builders of St Peter's had in mind when you put in these doors to the church lounge. But I’ve often thought of this passage I’ve gone through those doors both using the narrow door and the wide door. Maybe it’s designed to challenge us about that choice in our lives every time we go through there… and if it was just pure pragmatism.. Guess what it will now.
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