Reading of eating and drinking in today’s Gospel, my mind wandered back to childhood family gatherings, Christmas, anniversaries, birthdays. Those occasions when the table was set with an old-fashioned buffet… sandwiches, sausage rolls, trifles, cakes. And there was always an unspoken rule, the family held back. Guests went first. It wasn’t simply manners, it was generosity, hospitality, and a way of making sure that everyone felt welcome.

That memory brought to mind something very British too… queueing. Especially during wartime rationing, or on busy weekends outside the post office or the shops. People queued not just because they had to, but because it felt right. Fair play, patience, and respect for others shaped the way we waited our turn. These small disciplines of life carried with them a sense of care for the neighbour.

Yet in today’s Gospel Jesus gently unsettles many of our instincts. Someone asks him, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ Instead of giving a number, he speaks of the ‘narrow door.’ This is not about heaven being rationed, as though there were only a few places, but about how we enter. The Kingdom of God is not reached through entitlement or privilege, but through humility, openness of heart, and readiness to receive grace.

The image of a narrow door is a vivid one. Think of visiting an ancient priory, a castle, or a medieval church. The doors are often small, the passageways tight. To go through them you must slow down and pay attention. They invite a change of posture. Even the narrow windows in thick stone towers were not made for show, but for safety. They filtered light, kept out danger, and required a different kind of looking… careful, deliberate, focused.

Perhaps Jesus’ narrow door is like that. It is not a sign of restriction or harshness, but of a passage that reshapes us as we enter. It calls us to lay aside baggage and ego, to surrender pride and entitlement, and to pass through in simplicity and trust. It is the way of humility that leads to freedom.

Luke places this moment of teaching ‘on the way to Jerusalem.’ That phrase is more than geography… it is theology. The whole Gospel is moving towards the cross. For Luke’s first readers, many of them Gentiles, the question of who truly belonged was pressing. Jesus’ vision here, of people coming from east and west, north and south, to feast with Abraham and the prophets, was a radical reassurance. The Kingdom was open to all who responded in faith.

But the challenge is also real. Some protest, ‘We ate and drank with you; you taught in our streets.’ Yet Jesus replies, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ It is possible to be close to the Church, close even to the words of Christ, and yet far from the heart of the Gospel. What matters is not outward proximity but inward transformation.

Our other readings today echo the same insight. Isaiah foresees the great gathering of nations, God’s welcome widening to embrace all peoples. Hebrews reminds us that discipline and trial are not signs of distance but of love… the way a parent forms a child. All are being drawn into God’s household, shaped to walk through that door of grace.

St Cyril of Alexandria reflects that those who rely on pride or entitlement risk being left outside, while those who come in humility are gathered in by Christ. The Kingdom is not entered through achievement or entitlement, but through humility. And that humility is not learned in grand gestures, but in the daily disciplines of love… in small acts of kindness, in patient endurance, in trust that perseveres even in suffering. Holiness is not about outward show and recognition but about lives quietly shaped by God.

And we do see it, don’t we? Think of the parent who cares day by day for a child with a life-changing illness or the spouse who sits faithfully at a hospital bedside. There is no fanfare, no glory, only the steady choice to love. Or think of something smaller still… the stranger who steps aside in a queue to let another go ahead, not because they are in a hurry, but because kindness matters. These are narrow door choices, humble thresholds. Little windows of grace that change the way we see and the way we live.

And today, in a very simple way, our parish fair is another glimpse of this. It is not about grandeur, but welcome. As we share time, conversation, and fellowship, we do so not to raise ourselves up but to open wide the doors of hospitality. What we celebrate in miniature today is a sign of the Kingdom… generosity offered, neighbours & community gathered, joy shared.The Eucharist makes this visible in its fullest sense. At the altar there are no first or last. We kneel together, side by side, our hands empty, leaving behind status and achievement. And into those empty hands is placed the same gift… bread broken, wine out poured, the love of Christ shared, Christ himself is our host.

So, as we step into the week ahead… with its queues, its family duties, its frustrations, its hidden opportunities… the narrow door is never far. It is near to us in how we speak, how we wait, how we love. It is not a barrier, but an invitation to holiness, to see differently.

And like those ancient small doorways that lead into beautiful churches, the way of humility leads to a place of wonder and welcome. Amen.