I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that this reading is particularly resonant, containing two phrases that echo daily: “Strive to enter through the narrow door…” and “…some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

These words are so instructive, so rich in suggestion, showing us the way.

We can visualize the narrow door, and feel how hard it might be to squeeze through it, carrying the baggage of our actions and our assumptions. The use of the word “narrow” here is so good because it is a word that often has a negative or treacherous connotation-as in, narrow-minded or narrowly avoided. Jesus now uses it as something positive, calling us to draw upon our experience and our discernment to understand what is truly necessary to achieve salvation and enter the expanse of eternal life.

“Some of the last who will be first, and some of the first who will be last” asks us to upend the way that we sloppily order the world into winners and losers and those who have and those who don’t. Our assumptions are flawed and our vision is restricted. God sees things that we do not, in ways that we do not, and calls us to imagine the world as God sees it. And to make it even more interesting, the descriptor is not comprehensive; “some” is the qualifier added to both groups, suggesting that our work to discern what Jesus wants of us requires an additional layer of nuance, an additional focus on our actions and attitudes, our ways of being in all circumstances.

To be among Jesus is not enough; we must strive to know Jesus, to shed what we assume, to discern what he asks of us, so that we may gain entry through the narrow door to salvation.