Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Luke 13:22-30, MSG
He went on teaching from town to village, village to town, but keeping on a steady course toward Jerusalem.
A bystander said, “Master, will only a few be saved?”
He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.’
“You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known you all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with his abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about me.’
“That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.”
Reflection - Pastor Caroline Bashore, First United Church of Christ, Royersford and Linfield United Church of Christ
Picture the club scene from any famous movie: a velvet rope, a long line of people, and a bouncer at the door checking names.
In the scripture, we have a similar scene but instead of outside a club, we are outside the gates to heaven. Those waiting in line buzz with confidence. “I know the owner,” someone boasts. Another flashes their VIP badge—years of church attendance, mission trips, generous tithing. Surely, they’re on the list.
But then comes the shock. The bouncer—Jesus—looks up and says, “I don’t know you.”
Wait. What? They sang in the choir. They led Bible studies. How could their name not be there?
Jesus’ words remind us that knowing about Him isn’t the same as knowing Him. Proximity to holiness isn’t the same as transformation. We can spend years around faith and never let it change us.
The door is narrow, not because Jesus wants to exclude, but because it takes intention to walk through. Following Jesus isn’t about credentials—it’s about relationship. It’s about letting His love shape how we forgive, how we serve, how we put others before ourselves. Nothing we ‘do’ earns us a place in eternal life.
The world teaches us to network our way in, to rely on status, to assume we’re entitled to a seat at the table. But as always, Jesus flips the script. The last go first. The first go last. The door is open—but only for those willing to surrender their pride and truly follow.
So, will we keep trying to impress our way in? Or will we actually step inside, not as VIPs, but as disciples?
Prayer: Jesus, you see beyond our accomplishments, our titles, and our appearances. I don’t want to just know about you—I want to truly know you. Shape me into a disciple who not only hears your words but lives them out. Amen.
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