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In The Lady And The Tiger, Frank Stockton sets before the reader the dilemma of a gladiator who faces his fate in the arena standing before two doors. He must choose which of them to open. Behind one door waits a hungry tiger. Behind the other, a lovely maiden.

Jesus presents us with a similar dilemma in this parable. Behind one door to the kingdom waits the tiger of divine wrath. Behind the other door stands the fair maiden of grace. The parable is offered in response to the worried question, near to the heart of every believer, "Is it true, that only a few will be saved?" Jesus admits that many want to enter the kingdom and be saved. He envisions a crowd, clamoring at the entrance to get in. But the door will be closed and locked to them. Grace will not be granted to the multitudes battering the gates of heaven. Nevertheless, Jesus offers a hint for those who want to avoid the rush. What is not available to the masses of seeking pilgrims can be obtained, one person at a time, if they will strive to enter by way of the narrow door. Though many are seeking salvation, the door that seems so obviously the entrance to the kingdom of God is closed and locked. Its appearance is deceiving. Its promise of salvation is false.

But what is this counterfeit way to the throne of grace sought by so many? And what does it mean to enter through the narrow door?

Many believers think the Christian faith can be summed up in the "golden rule." Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. Christians have interpreted the narrow door to be that of living a good life. For some it means living by the creed, "I don't smoke and I don't chew, and I don't go with girls that do!" Thus Jesus is heard to say, "Strive to behave yourselves. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me through the narrow door into the kingdom of God." The crowd, it is assumed, are the sinners who have been indulging themselves with this world's pleasures, and who at the last minute, try to barge in at the main entrance only to find it closed in judgment. Those, on the other hand, who have bit the bullet of disciplined obedience are able to slip safely through the side door. Sound familiar?

The problem with this interpretation is that it ignores the fact that everyone in the parable is sincerely seeking entrance to the kingdom. Those who get in are no less sinful than those left on the steps. Indeed, those at the front door can boast impressive religious pedigrees. They are the sons and daughters of Abraham. No doubt their credentials include letters of moral recommendation. The difference is not in the taint of their lives but in their choice of doors.

The great masses of those concerned with heavenly issues believe that human nature is prone to sin and disobedience, which in turn, requires large doses of contrition and confession to counteract the condition and allow penitent believers to pass customs at the borders of the kingdom. Righteousness and repentance are what pleases God. Righteousness means living a morally superior life while repentance means being sorry for our sinful nature and bending our evil wills away from their natural inclinations in order to make them conform to God's will. Obedience to the divine will is seen as the narrow doorway that leads to heaven and it swings on the rusty hinges of "shoulds" and "oughts." "You should do this" "You ought not to do that."

Alas, this approach is also the way of pharisaical religion and doesn't allow for much flexibility, forgiveness or fun. Garrison Keillor speaks of puritans as those believers who suspect that somewhere out there people are enjoying themselves. But fun aside! Pharisaical religion is characterized by selfrighteousness; the sure knowledge of the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and heresy, those inside the circle of grace and those on the outside. Righteous living - that is, obedience to the law - was the major concern of pharisaical religion at the time of Jesus, and it is significant that he was at such odds with them over it.

A religion of requirements demands a piety of self-denial to be obedient to God's greater will. "What would Jesus do?" is a popularized way of putting the ethical question. Never mind that we have no idea what Jesus would do in the complex interrelationships of today's technological society. Never mind that the question is simplistic. The problem with the attempt to be like Jesus is that it does away with our individuality. The fact of the matter is, Jesus never required his disciples to become like him. He loved and honored their uniqueness. He cherished their diversity. He did not try to iron out their idiosyncrasies; he saw them as gifts.

Peter, for example, had a spitfire temper and the impetuosity of a school boy. A psychiatrist would have said, "That's going to be a problem for a church leader. Better get some counseling or not enter the ministry." But Jesus looked at his neurosis and said, "That's the rock-like quality on which I can build a church (cf. Matthew 16:18)."

In 1933 Carl Jung observed in his book, Modern Man In Search Of A Soul, that it is no easy matter to live a life modeled on Christ, but it is unspeakably more difficult to live one's own life as truly as Christ lived his. The question for Christians living today is not, "What would Jesus do?" for he has not left us here to live his life as a clone, but to live our own. No one can do my living for me, or dying either, for that matter. God has not given my life to you, nor your life to someone else. No one but you will be held accountable for it.

It is written of Zusya - the old Rabbi of Annitol - that shortly before his death he gathered his disciples around him and said, "When I die and stand before my heavenly Judge, God will not say to me, 'Zusya, why weren't you Moses?' No! God will say to me, 'Zusya, you could at least have been Zusya ... so why weren't you?'

Jesus summarized the total of our obligations before God with just two requirements: Love God, and your neighbor as yourself. In the mad scramble of religious people to enter the kingdom, the self is often trampled by the crowd. In church circles we sometimes call this self-denial "humility," or worse, "obedience." Yet, only by loving ourselves and discovering the amazing miracle of our own being, can we love and be amazed at the miracle of another person's life. There are no two of us alike. Therefore, denying ourselves and becoming selfless is blasphemous to the Creator God who went to a lot of trouble creating an infinite variety of human beings, each with its own unique identity. What is needed, is not a reaffirmation of the self-denying piety which suffocates our individuality and leads nowhere, but a new piety of self-affirmation; a narrow door to Life through which we must come individually, one at a time.

Jesus offers us a glimpse of this narrow door which leads to the banquet table of God in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-24). There, Jesus speaks of an adventurous lad who demanded his share of the family fortune and then squandered it with loose living in a "far country." The lost lad eventually "came to himself" and returned home where he was sumptuously fed by dad. Apparently, the reason the father handed over his son's share of the inheritance in the first place - knowing that he was headstrong and would most likely lose it - was because he knew there was no short cut to his son's finding himself. If he had insisted on the boy's staying at home and toeing the mark as the elder brother did, the lad would have remained undefiled but hopelessly lost. In the parable it is clear that defilement and sin are useless categories for understanding what Jesus means by salvation. To be saved is to discover who we are and feel at home with ourselves. We are saved when we come to ourselves, whether that be by staying at home or journeying to the far country. Such an understanding of salvation lifts our discussion out of the realm of moralist thinking and allows us room to grow in the fullness of our personhood.

The parable of the prodigal gives us another way of understanding the salvation wrought by Jesus. Rather than the One who forgives us when we are disobedient, Jesus tells a story of someone who came to himself and returned home, a little older and undoubtedly wiser. But notice! The young man does not return home with a faith focused on Christ's atoning sacrifice. The young man has, to be sure, composed and rehearsed a confession of shortcomings worthy of many printed prayers used in churches today. In fact, he tries to deliver his prepared statement in the presence of his father. But the father interrupts him. He has no interest in his son's confession of sin. Disobedience and defilement do not even enter the conversation. They are not issues so far as the father is concerned. Instead, he wants to party with the son who was lost and is found, dead and is now alive.

The view of the kingdom that Jesus gives us in this story is radically different from that held by the crowd: parents, teachers, employers, clergy. Their assumption is that we need to "shape up or ship out." The stories they tell us are based on conditional love. "If you obey me then I will love you and let you come into my house."

Jesus, by contrast, portrays GOd as a parent who accepts us as we are. Accepted, that is! Not simply forgiven. There is no reason to assume that just because the prodigal came home he lost his appetite for good food and fine wine, nor his appreciation for beautiful women. He was not forgiven. He was accepted for who he was, a lad who had to go into the far country to find himself.

For this kind of salvation, the wide door of living by righteous prescriptions will not do. We come home, not with the clamoring crowds trying to impress God with our credentials of goodness, but one person at a time, through the narrow door of self-discovery.

Carl Jung regards the second half of life as having unique significance for the individual's self understanding. He believes we spend the formative years taking our identity cues from the world around us. Significant others define our values, roles, and self-image. Our identities depend upon measuring up to the expectations of family, school, the work place, church and society. We want to take our place responsibly within their ranks.

But, claims Jung, the major task of the maturing individual is to get in touch with the inner self and especially that unconscious portion of the psyche that holds the key to our true identity. The person that we have consciously become is largely the product of the crowd's wishes and our reaction to them. The unconscious, however, is not concerned about the wishes of the world, nor the external authorities that prescribe beliefs and behavior for us. The unconscious only cares about the real self that has been lying dormant like a seed waiting for springtime. It is during this second half of life that the seedling of identity begins to sprout and push itself into consciousness.

It takes courage to affirm this identity because it frequently goes against the grain of public expectations and the crowd's convenience. To take responsibility for our lives and the choices by which we determine them is always risky and, therefore, frightening. Some are never able to do it. Unfortunately, churches are crowded with people desiring the kingdom but who do not know themselves. They are busy knocking at the wide door while it is the narrow door that holds the promise. They have stopped listening to their inner voice and listen only to the authority figures who tell them what to do, how they ought to behave, and what values they should be living by. What Jesus calls his followers to risk requires courage. It means entering through the narrow door alone!

In the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, a vision of the holy grail comes to Sir Gawain. He vows to set off in search of it the very next day. All the other knights of the Round Table vow that they, too, will go in search of the sacred chalice. But they will not journey together. As dawn breaks the following morning, each of the knights enters the forest alone, where he perceives it to be the darkest and the thickest. None of the knights follow a pathway. To do so would be to go where someone else had already searched.

To find ourselves, like the search for the holy grail, is not something we can do by walking someone else's path. No one can show us the way. It is, rather, a search we carry on by ourselves. It is the internal search for the possibility of our own becoming.

My high school band director was frequently greeted with silence when he gave the downbeat. No sound at all! As fledgling musicials, we were unsure of ourselves, each of us hesitating, waiting for someone else to risk the first note. In exasperation the director threw down his baton - like a gauntlet thrown down in challenge, I suppose - and demanded, "I'd rather have a good big loud mistake than no sound at all." His word of permission moved us to oblige him with multitudes of mistakes, but in between, there was some recognizable music. In the case of our band, it seemed to be a case of not being able to have the one without the other.

So with life. Of course, mistakes will be made by such daring. Of course, others may be hurt. Of course, some things will be left undone. Of course, some sins will be committed. But there is no alternative if we are to live.

Lowell Streiker portrays both the agony and ecstasy of our dilemma.

"Maturity or self-realization requires that I become aware of the unique, irreplaceable potentialities of my existence as a person and that I accept the responsibility for actualizing them. Self-realization is a painful, gradual process marked by many reversals, defeats and disappointments. Since what I was meant to be is different from what anyone else was meant to be, no formula, maxim, generalization, or dogma can distinguish for me between the real and the apparently real. Life is exposure to contradiction, error, guilt and regret. Its deepest lessons are taught the worst of all possible ways. Man is the only creature with potential, but this potential is found only in, through, and despite the bumbling, awkwardness of human development. (We) become men and women by risking regret, accepting guilt, and learning from failure."5

They know, even if we do not, that sin is a fact of human existence, as is the color of our eyes or the set of our jaws. The only possible ethical imperative, therefore, is - as Luther would remind us - to sin to the glory of God. The alternative is to curl up in some womb-like corner and choose not to risk living at all.

To be saved means that each of us, in our own way, can risk living, which in turn, means we can risk sinning. When we recognize that to live is to sin, we relax and sin to the glory of God. You might not say that to just anybody, but you would say it to those who are serious about entering the kingdom of God. For only as we are given permission to sin to the glory of God can we risk coming to ourselves through the narrow door and celebrating at the table of the Lord the miracle of our being.