13 `To go in, take the narrow gate, because wide [is] the gate, and broad the road that leads to loss, and many are those who go in through that;
14 how tight [is] the gate, and how narrow is the road that leads to life, and there are few that find it.
15 `Be on your guard against false prophets, who come unto you in sheep's clothing, and inwardly are ravening wolves.
16 From their fruits you will know them; does one gather grapes from thorns? or figs from thistles?
17 so every good tree yields lovely fruit, but the rotten tree yields bad fruit.
18 A good tree is not able to yield bad fruit, nor a rotten tree to yield good fruit.
19 Every tree not yielding good fruit is cut down and thrown into fire:
20 So, remember: from their fruits will you know them.
21 `Not every one who says to me “Lord, lord” will come into the kingdom of the heavens; but he who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and cast out demons in your name? and done many mighty things in your name?
23 and then I will confess to them, “I have not ever known you. Go away from me, you who work lawlessness.”
24 `Therefore, every one who hears these my words, and does them, will be compared to a wise man who built his house upon the rock;
25 and the rain came down, and the rivers rose, and the winds blew, and they beat on that house, and it fell not, for it had been founded on the rock.
26 `And every one who hears these my words, and does not do them, will be compared to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand;
27 and the rain came down, and the rivers rose, and the winds blew, and they beat on that house, and it fell, and its calamity was great.'
Here, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, there are three texts: related, but not just one passage. The first one is a warning. To “go in” (no place is mentioned, but we may assume the basileia en tois ouranois, the Kingdom of heaven(s) is intended), take the narrow, uncomfortable gate, because the wide one that is full of people leads to perdition (literally: loss). The gate and the road (beyond or leading up to it) that lead to “life” (zoè) are both narrow.
This is curious, when one thinks how wide and inclusive Yeshua’s call and invitation have been. Nowhere in the Gospels is he seen to refuse anyone. True, a number of people are seen to be disqualifying themselves from the presence of the Father; but so far we have not heard that the way to that presence is narrow and hard. Might this, I wonder, reflect Yeshua’s thinking ahead to what might befall not only him but people who follow him? (And which of course proved amply true in the next couple of centuries.) Or is he thinking how few people there are who correspond to the Beatitudes? Either way, the conclusion we need to draw for ourselves, 2000 years later, is not to go and look for narrowness and difficulty but to listen to and follow His new, completed Torah, which is the “narrow gate”.
The following passages deals with the false prophets, who claim to offer salvation but instead are ravening wolves. And a little later on we see that those referred to are the ones who come in His name, which is unnerving. How are we to know? Well, says Yeshua, by their fruits. Not, we understand, the size of their profits, or even the size of their congregations. This passage is about Discernment, that quality indispensable to faith. We are to look, for their fruits, at their followers, and judge whether these people are closer to God; whether they are exhibiting the characteristics described in the Beatitudes; whether they have increased in love for God and for their neighbour. If not, they have been duped. If, in His name, they are angry, rancorous, self-satisfied, self-righteous, they have been duped. And those who duped them will find that the Lord whose Name they abused never knew them.
What I find interesting here is that He accuses them of working lawlessness. Why lawlessness? I think it’s because what He preaches is the completed Torah, hence the new Law, and that is precisely what they trample underfoot.
Finally, there is the famous image of the houses, one built on solid rock, the other on shifting sands. We should accord this the importance of its position at the very end of the Sermon. It is, not a summing-up of Yeshua’s teaching, but a coda that states the consequences of our, his hearers’, possible reactions to it.
If we ignore it; if we go on our way thinking, Yes, sure, but hey, life goes on; if we react like the Athenians to St Paul, saying, Mmmmm, yes, interesting perhaps, but not now, come back another time; if we think, Come on now, let’s get real, I have my career to think of; then, says Yeshua, we will not be punished by God: life’s vicissitudes and disasters will do that. Because we will have nothing solid to face them with, they will destroy us, with burn-out, with depression, with bankruptcy, with sickness, with political oppression, with drugs, with crime and violence, with any or all of the things the world can throw at us.
Whereas if we follow Him; if we recognise that He is Himself the narrow gate; if we do the things he has described and prescribed for us; if we become the kind of people he has shown to be fortunate or blessed; if our souls learn to live in Him as in our Father’s house; then our soul’s house is built upon rock, and whatever the world throws at us may hurt and harm us, but not definitively, not terminally: the house may be battered, but it will stand.
In my next post I will try to sum up the Sermon on the Mount, and the new and completed Torah, as far as my very limited and un-theological understanding can grasp it.
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