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Saturday, November 8, 2014

Ordinary 22 Proper 22 Matthew 7:13-14 The Two Paths Roads

This passage is a short saying that people could easily remember. Jesus often used these. He speaks in opposites, in a parallel way. The text may be aligned in the following way.
NIV
Enter through the narrow gate
For                                                                              But
wide is the gate                                                        small is the gate
and broad is the road                                               and narrow is the road
 that leads                                                                  that leads
 to destruction,                                                          to life
 and may enter                                                          and only a few
 through it                                                                  find it
NRSV
For                                                                              For
the gate is wide                                                         gate is narrow
that leads                                                                   that leads
to destruction                                                            to life

road is easy                                                                road is hard
So much advice about life has to do with choosing one's path or road or way.  
How do we know which is the right or best way? Often we choose based upon the way that most people are going. Have you ever arrived at an appointment or event and did not know exactly where to go? You followed the crowd and hopefully arrived at the right place. However, this is not the direction that Jesus gives. The right way is the narrow gate, the one not easily found; most people do not even bother to look. It is rough, the road is hard. 
“For it is one thing to see the Land of Peace from a wooded ridge, and yet another to walk the road that leads to it.”  Augustine of Hippo

The Road Not Taken

BY Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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