“Enter through the narrow gate; for this gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
This was the preaching text used at the church Linda and I attended this past Sunday. The preacher, as a corollary, also quoted the closing lines from Robert Frost’s famous poem The Road Not Taken: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.” An audible gasp of appreciation could be heard from a woman in the congregation.
That’s because the idea of going our own way, as opposed to following the crowd, is as natural to us contemporary Americans as breathing, particularly if we’re from the educated class. Such a sentiment applauds our individuality, creativity, and uniqueness.
This was confirmed when the preacher invited the congregation to comment on what Jesus’ words actually meant. One woman raised her hand gamely and said (and I paraphrase), “It means that we shouldn’t follow the crowd but go our own way.”
The pastor quickly jumped in to counter her sentiment (and again I paraphrase), “We don’t follow our own way but…”
The woman, immediately catching herself, interrupted and finished his sentence, “In Christ’s way!” she exclaimed, seeking to redeem herself.
The funny thing is, her first statement is far more the norm today. It’s what’s expected. Declaring oneself an individual, as opposed to a conformist, these days, is not particularly courageous or unusual. It’s what the crowd does! It’s utterly conformist!
This is largely because we modern types no longer think there is objective truth. Increasingly, there are no perceived laws or natural limitations to life. And that’s because we’re heirs of at least 150 years of philosophical reorientation. We view life differently than our ancestors.
The Greeks, for instance, thought the purpose of education (and philosophy) was to pursue and obtain the “good life.” This involved set parameters, along with hard and fast laws and rules. The job of the soul was to grow up to properly conform to these timeless truths in order to actualize the potential with which we are born. The biblical account agrees. Soul-making is the task, set against the backdrop of an unyielding reality.
But today (I know, I know, I sound like a broken record), largely as the result of the German Idealism of the 19th century, history is now perceived as a continuous process of change. Things no longer are; they are becoming. There exist no constants or fixed realities to which humans must conform (including God’s will).
This means there are no timeless truths or morals. To rely on these is to rely on outdated norms. Because everything is now in constant motion, each individual is required to figure it all out, both truths and morals, for him or herself.
An important aspect of this is that since everything is in flux, constantly evolving, no one person could possibly define reality. All we can do is offer our own best guess at any given moment of time.
As such, who is to judge? Since no one knows what life will look like in the future, or how it will be reconfigured, today’s “truth,” by necessity, won’t be the same as tomorrow’s.
Of course, the more intellectually “creative” and astute we are, the better prepared we are to wend our way through the altogether demanding vagaries and complexities of life, to capture the hidden meanings the crowd is congenitally incapable of understanding. That’s why this view of life is so tempting. It’s flattering to think that our unique and clever insights are superior to “the crowd’s.”
Which brings us to choice, where similar principles apply. Allan Bloom spoke of the difference between a “herd” and a “hive.” To be a member of the hive implies natural obligations and restrictions. Each member of the hive has a job to do and a role to play. There are responsibilities one has to the rest of the community.
As a member of the hive, choice therefore involves a whole matrix of relationships, communal standards, and unyielding, inborn limitations. Choices made there necessarily involve great import, for they affect not just the individual but the entire community.
Within the radical individualism of today, choices are free-floating, involving little or no such obligation. They don’t impact anyone or anything. There are no implied consequences. And since nothing is fixed, no laws, no limitations, no set ideas or truths, all is up for grabs. Our choices are both individualistic and shallow, lacking the sobering impact of genuine moral decision (which often involves risk).
In the end, the irony is that modern individualism is less akin to Jesus’ argument for making hard choices than to famed malapropist Yogi Berra’s clever witticism. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
So what should talk about the “narrow gate’ look like today? It seems the harder road involves humbly accepting not the easy path of flattery and “self-exploration” (that of the crowd and its multiplicity of paths – indeed there can be no one path!) but the harder and narrower road God has prepared for us, a prescribed path that is simply not ours to choose.