Narrow Gate

 

Dominique Hernandez

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, pairs of images are linked: two gates, two ways, two trees and, right at the end of the sermon, two houses. It is then about recognising and choosing between two, in particular the broad gate or the narrow gate.

Matthew 7: 13-14

Translation Canon Tony Dickinson

 

Nevertheless common experience is that choices are not always obvious, because they do not always appear to be between two but between five or six, and because we do not always distinguish where each choice leads exactly, on the side of life or not. However anxiety itself provides the momentum for starting a journey by thinking, by perception and understanding. So that anxiety does not fade into anguish, these words are always before each person, offered at each reading, each day, to help and not to condemn, to question and not to crush, for they bear a promise of life for the one who puts them into practice.

 

The end of the sermon is the moment where Jesus places his listeners in front of their freedom and in front of their responsibility: now, it is up to them to respond, not in words but in their existence. This existential response can only be given by the person concerned, that person alone. This response can only be singular and that is why the gate is narrow.

 

The gate is the image of choice, of deliberate involvement, ahead of the way, which speaks of duration. The gate is the response which is intimate and shared, secret and public to a summons which exposes one’s being to risk in the world. The gate is an “I’m here” an “I’m coming”, shouted or muttered, it is acquiescence in the yes of God to oneself, whether one is good or wicked, just or unjust.

 

The gate that leads to life is narrow because we can only pass through it one at a time; the gate is narrow because the transition is made only in the singular.

 

The narrow gate is adjusted to one person, to the person who presents themselves, marked out and recognised. It is the transition of a desire to live rooted in the depths of being, a desire which one can neither take from nor give to another. The narrow gate is the gate tailored to one single name at a time, that of the living being who crosses it in their own name.

 

The gate is so narrow that one can only go through it stripped of all protection, of all thickness of defence, deprived of everything external. One goes through it only as one is, without making oneself greater, broader or stronger. So choosing to respond to the call of Christ in going through the narrow gate is deciding to abandon pretence and illusion. It is choosing to relinquish the shelter and protection of the esteem of others and the consolations of religion. The narrow gate is one which allows a being to go though alive, naked, in the humility of the dust of which it is made, with only the Breath which gives life to the dust.

 

The broad gate, the one which does not lead towards life, can be gone through in a group, in a mass, in a flock which is submissive, terror-stricken, lost, ultimately unaware of what is playing with responsibility and freedom. It can also be gone through by people swollen with pride, self-righteousness, a clear conscience or indifference.

 

The simplicity of the image of the two gates serves the aim of the text: the awakening of a consciousness and of a person to trust in the Father who is in Heaven. It also shows that recognition and choice between the two gates are always possible, and that, however broad the gate leading to perdition may be, it is enough to take one step to the side in order to find oneself again in front of the narrow gate. It is to this side-step that the person who hears the sermon is always exhorted, a step in self-abandonment, in relinquishment, in renunciation.

 

There is no inevitability and no curse on the part of God, the Father who is in Heaven. There is no forgotten covenant, nor any promise abandoned by God. There is a call to life, to being and becoming, a call to put into practice what one believes, to harmonize actions with faith, in a song of creation which will have nothing to envy in that of the angels.

 

The gate is narrow, and always open.

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