By Ed Foley, August 20, 2025
One of the most effective literary devices
for developing a storyline
is the secret, narrow, or hidden passageway.
Think back on the famous door
in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
that opened into a wondrous kingdom;
or the tiny passageway in Wonderland that required
Alice to consume magical cake and liquid in order to enter;
and then of course there was Tolkien’s secret entrance
to the mines of Mória.
These fictional passageways are metaphors
for the choices that confront us
and the daunting opportunities that tempt us.
The point of these mystical passageways is precisely to choose.
Few writers understood that better than C.S. Lewis
who, before he wrote his celebrated Chronicles of Narnia, noted:
The hall is a place in which to wait, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live…. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless … it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting not as camping.[1]
Most of us have not had direct experiences
with enchanted doors that require us to shrink
or magical wardrobes that open up into fantastic kingdoms,
though we have all had our share of standing in line
to get into a sports arena or theatrical event.
More anxiety packed for me
is waiting to get through TSA to board a plane.
In a contemporary twist on the “narrow gate” from today’s gospel, one writer has suggested that this pivotal metaphor
might best be reimaged as a modern turnstile.
While this might seem a little banal if not irreverent,
I think the analogy holds a lot of promise.
This multi-billion dollar industry is rapidly evolving
from speed gates to full height doors;
from traditional tripod designs to high tech optical portals.
Whatever their configuration,
they provide multiple and distinct benefits:
enhanced security,
increased efficiency for entrances and exits,
enforcing required entry fees,
and providing efficient analysis of attendance.
Turnstiles take each individual seriously,
count each soul as significant,
and ensure that no one’s presence is overlooked or ignored.
As in any spiritual endeavor,
entering a turnstile also involves certain risks,
an experience of at least momentary vulnerability
with the looming possibility of getting stuck or embarrassed,
of sustaining personal injury,
and even the remote possibility of death: it has happened.
Turnstiles are an invitation to be counted, even exposed.
These silent gatekeepers demand
that we pare ourselves down to essentials
no distractions, no clutter.
In the brief pause before entry, we stand alone,
preparing to step through,
reminded that every crossing is personal.
So, what might seem a mundane mechanism for control
morphs into a silent test of readiness,
a moment that mirrors our inner journey
toward belonging, authenticity, and acceptance.
Of course, engaging in such metaphorical musing
could have the unfortunate result
of conjuring golden turnstiles at the pearly gates
controlling entry into the heavenly courts …
Multiple cartoonists have gone in that direction
And there are even several musical compositions
such as Marcus Gilvear’s “Turnstiles to Heaven”
that can provide the appropriate soundtracks.
But this modern metaphor is not intended
to summon images of physical barriers to God,
or spur visions of heavenly turnstiles
even if they are wrought from the purest of gold.
No, for the narrow gate in the gospels is not a thing:
it is a person.
Jesus is the true narrow gate through which we must pass.
Now of course that could sound quite daunting.
I mean, who could get through a Jesus turnstile
given his human perfection and unparalleled holiness?
But the irony is that the God of Jesus Christ makes this
a very generous passageway,
as made perfectly clear in today’s readings.
Thus. that shocking passage from Isaiah,
in which the God who originally deemed the Israelites
as the only chosen people,
now extends the covenant to every known nation,
even announcing that some of them
will be chosen as priests and Levites
giving them access to the very inner sanctum of God.
Similarly, in today’s gospel, Jesus looks beyond his inner circle
when envisioning the vastness of God’s beloved
so those who thought they could rely
upon their longtime chumminess with Jesus –
after all they frequently shared a beer & a burger
with the Only Begotten –
would still not make it through his divine scanner
while hordes of others would be invited to dine with him.
While that might sound unfair,
legions of outsiders crashing the Jesus banquet, while
old tavern buddies never make it past the sacred turnstile,
Luke’s vocabulary here solves this riddle,
for he has Jesus rejecting those whom he calls “evildoers”:
purveyors of iniquity,
workers of unrighteousness,
peddlers of injustice.
It is only those who uphold the justice of God—
no matter what their religious affiliation
or spiritual alliances—
will pass through the Jesus gate.
A baptismal certificate buried somewhere in a scrapbook
won’t do it.
The holy irony in this revelation
is that the narrow gate
is not only the person of Jesus
but more broadly the justice enacted in his name.
So when we overlook injury,
ignore those suffering prejudice,
forget the oppressed in Gaza and Sudan,
the children of Afghanistan, the homeless of Chicago,
the narrow gate closes,
the turnstile locks, the door is sealed.
In Flannery O’Connor’s short-story, “Revelation,”
a plump, respectable Christian lady named Ruby Turpin
encounters an acne-scarred college girl named Mary Grace.
There was nothing wicked about Ruby Turpin:
she was a virtuous woman, conscious of her weaknesses
but grateful for the good things life had given her.
As she sat in the doctor’s office, Mrs. Turpin couldn’t help sharing her gratitude with anyone who would listen.
She chattered agreeably about many things, but above all testified to her gratitude, sometimes feeling like shouting
“Thank you Jesus for making everything the way it is.”
All the while Ruby was chattering,
Mary Grace was turning purple with rage.
Finding Ruby’s testimony about gratitude too much to bear,
she leapt to her feet and began clawing
at Ruby’s rather considerable bulk of flesh.
Caught entirely off guard, Mrs. Turpin
was wounded and stunned
especially as the girl whispered to her,
“Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.”
As she left the doctor’s office, Ruby found herself
unable to forget the girl’s twisted accusation.
She had been singled out for the message,
though there was trash in the room
to whom it might justly have been applied.
Yet, the message had been given to her,
a respectable, hardworking, church-going woman.
Why had she been singled out for the message?
How was she a wart hog?
As she turned these questions over in her mind, Mrs. Turpin’s anger rose until, gazing toward the setting sun, she shouted to God, “If you like trash better, go get yourself some. . . . I could quit working and take it easy and be filthy . . . I could be nasty . . . who do you think you are?”
It was at this moment of roaring anger against God’s “injustice” to her that Ruby Turpin had her moment of revelation. For a brief minute the sky seemed to shudder and open, while she witnessed a “vast horde of souls rumbling toward heaven . . . There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and . . . battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs.
And, bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized as once as those . . . like herself . . . . Yet, she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.
The narrow gate of Jesus’ justice invites the burning away
of any veneer of virtue, of empty believing,
and invites us into the often unopened door
of right acting and, even more, of deep caring
What some call orthokardia …
Listening with the ear in the chest
and responding with a heart which beats in time
With the very heart of God …
The Sacred Heart of Christ.
It is only a truly sacred heart
that swings wide the Jesus door, the justice door,
but not so that we can rush in
to be first in line for the Jesus banquet,
But rather so we can open it wide for others
and usher them into safety
away from the heat of oppression
the storms of war and violence
the tempests of prejudice
that too frequently crush the most innocent
the most vulnerable.
So we steel ourselves for the banquet before us
Not a meal of comfort
But a nourishment for battle
Against the evildoers in our own day
The purveyors of iniquity
The workers of unrighteousness,
The war mongers and hate peddlers
In which we learn again to take on the heart of Christ
To personify what we believe
To embody the word we hear
And ultimately to become what we prepare to eat
So that things will be different.
We will be different.
Through Christ our Lord.
[1] Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996), pp. 11-12.