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Ever get the feeling that things are going to Hades in a handbasket? (I cleaned it up a bit for prime time).
Surprisingly, another phrase that means the same thing is “going to heaven in a wheelbarrow.” In 1628 the English preacher Thomas Adams referred to “going to heaven in a wheelbarrow’ in God’s Bounty on Proverbs: “Oh, this oppressor [the oppressor was one who was wealthy but gave little to the church] must needs go to heaven! What shall hinder him? But it will be, as the byword is, in a wheelbarrow: the fiends, and not the angels, will take hold on him.” Images from medieval times in stained glass windows depict devils carting people off to hell in wheelbarrows. These are tumultuous times. No matter what political side you’re on, things are getting shaken up. You may have done some wailing and wringing of hands yourself. You might be tempted to think things are going to heaven in a wheelbarrow. I’m reminded of something Winston Churchill said whenever I get too negative about our government: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Sometimes I think things are going to hades in a hand basket ( I googled the origin of the saying; it said clues to the origin of such sayings are as scarce as hens’ teeth, but the saying means that things are deteriorating quickly and easily, because a hand basket is light and easy to carry). I’m not suggesting we don’t have serious problems, but put them in perspective. Do you have countless blessings for which to be thankful? In what other country would you rather live? What other time period would you prefer? Take Palestine as a Jew in the 1st century A.D. Or worse still, as a Christian when Nero was the emperor? Rome had a sophisticated legal system, but if you got on the wrong side of the law, you could find yourself suffering the same fate as the fatted calf in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Some Galileans were executed by Pilate in the Temple. A common attitude in that day among the Jews was that people who suffered like that were greater sinners than others. Jesus said that wasn’t so. A tower in Siloam, which was in Jerusalem, fell and killed 18 people. Jesus said these persons didn’t die because they were greater sinners than anyone else. Yet, in comparison with both instances, Jesus said his hearers would perish if they didn’t repent. Jesus didn’t mean that Pilate would execute them or a tower would fall on them. He used physical events to teach a spiritual reality. These people were probably basically happy. They had complaints, of course. They hated the Roman government. They hated paying taxes. They had the usual problems making ends meet, controlling their children. Some were in marriages that had gone sour. But basically life was all right. They knew they were far from perfect, but most of them didn’t feel like they were terrible sinners who deserved the wrath of God. Now Jesus tells them that unless they drastically change the way they’re living they’ll perish. There’s a story about a captain during naval maneuvers who receives a difficult message. During the maneuvers, the ensign races to the bridge. “Captain, there’s a message for you from the admiral.” Well, read it!” says the captain. The ensign reads, “Of all the blundering, bone-headed nincompoops, you take the cake!” The bumbling captain looks puzzled for a moment, then orders: “Have that decoded at once!” It’s hard to accept difficult truths about ourselves — harder, still, to change in the face of such truth. Let’s look more closely at what Jesus is saying and to whom he is saying it. Earlier St. Luke referred to Jesus’ audience as a multitude numbering in the thousands. He doesn’t say to this large gathering, “Some of you are on the right track and others of you need to repent.” He says to all, “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” By the law of averages, there had to have been some people there who were more spiritually alive than others. There had to have been some pretty saintly people, who worshipped daily, were generous to a fault, never spoke unkindly about another person, along with people who had no thought about God, didn’t share what they had with others less fortunate, and didn’t understand the spiritual side of life. Jesus lumped them all together: they all would perish if they didn’t repent. What this suggests is that repentance must be a part of everyone’s life, no matter where we are in our spiritual journey, and that there are dangers all along the way, no matter how far we have progressed in our walk with Christ. I was in high school when Apollo 8 was launched in 1968. It was the first manned spacecraft to reach the moon, orbit it, and return to Earth. Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders were the astronauts. They were the first humans to travel beyond the low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, and the first directly to see the far side of the moon. It’s a little known fact that Apollo 8 had to make two midcourse corrections in order for it to reach the moon, orbit it, and return to Earth. If either of those midcourse corrections hadn’t been made, the mission wouldn’t have been successful and could have ended in disaster. Apollo 8 is a good metaphor for successful living. Wherever we are in our lives, the danger of getting off the right track, focusing on the wrong things, requires that we stop and make midcourse corrections along the way. That’s what repentance is—looking back to see where we made a wrong turn, looking ahead to make sure we’re back on track, keeping God as our final destination, making sure we’re not going to heaven in a wheelbarrow. God wants us to have life that’s as full as it can be, and he wants us to live with him forever. What midcourse corrections do you and I need to make today, by the grace of God?
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What makes for a successful life?
An old farmer was interviewed by a newspaper reporter whose question was, “To what do you attribute your great success in farming?” “Well,” drawled the farmer, with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s 50% weather, 50% good luck, and the rest is brains.” Woody Allen once said, “Success is about 80% just showing up.” Here’s one we’ve all heard, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” Benjamin Disraeli defined it this way, “The secret to success is constancy of purpose.” Sunita Williams and “Butch” Wilmore, the astronauts whose mission aboard the International Space Station is about to end this week, would probably say that success for them at this point in their lives is having spent nine months on the space station and then just getting back to earth. A nationwide survey undertaken by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University in 2020 found some interesting things concerning how people define success in life:
The next four answers were the greatest percentages.
I conducted a rather unscientific survey of several of our parishioners. Here are some of the answers:
How would you answer that question? Our Lord answered the question in many ways. The Beatitudes, which we’ve been studying in the Adult Forum is one definition of success: Blessed are the poor in spirit, the merciful, those who mourn, and so on. Isn’t to be blessed the same thing as to be successful? His Summary of the Law: love God with all of one’s heart, soul, and mind, and love one’s neighbor as oneself. Today’s Gospel gives another: Success for Jesus was to finish his course in going toward Jerusalem, fulfilling the Father’s will in going to the cross. I’ll give you yet another definition. The key to successful living is Jesus, Jesus who saves us from our sins; Jesus who is our example. The first part of the formula is simply acceptance of Jesus as our Savior. That’s what we did, or was done in our name, at our baptism. It’s what we are going to do, whether we consciously realize it or not, when we approach this altar to receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The second part of the formula for success consists of following Jesus to the cross. What that means is living our lives in sacrificial love, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves. How can I be successful with my family, my job, my parish, my other relationships? By putting myself out of the center of life, and allowing God to be at the center, and by loving others with the same selfless, sacrificial love with which Jesus loves us. Such a goal takes a lifetime and more to accomplish. Would you consider Jesus a successful person? In the eyes of the world, he certainly was not. While he had a large following at times, he ended up dying the death of a criminal. Furthermore, it was to that death that he said his whole life was pointed. When the Pharisees came to him and warned him that Herod wanted to kill him, he referred to his work thus far, saying that he had cast out demons and cured people of their diseases, but then he focused on his death and resurrection, “for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” As Christians, our calling one way or another is, by the grace of God, to follow Jesus to the cross by living sacrificially loving lives. There are many examples of people who’ve done that. I’m reminded of an Englishman by the name of William Wilberforce who lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. A member of Parliament, Wilberforce made his money through slave trading. He was converted to Christ, and through his conversion was convinced that he could no longer deal in the slave trade if Christ was going to be the center of his life. In fact, he felt that because of his conversion, he should leave Parliament and become an Anglican priest. He sought the counsel of John Newton, who once had been a slave trader himself, was converted, gave up the slave trade, and became a priest. By the way, Newton was the author of the hymn, Amazing Grace. Newton’s counsel to Wilberforce was not to enter the priesthood, but instead to stay in Parliament and exercise his faith in Christ in that venue. Wilberforce followed Newton’s advice, stayed in Parliament and fought tirelessly against the slave trade. He was derided and laughed at, yet he fought for 17 years and finally, in 1806, England ended the slave trade. But that wasn’t the end for Wilberforce. He continued to fight against the entire institution of slavery. After 27 more years of laboring against that institution, Parliament passed a law against slavery in all of the British territories. It simply would not have happened, had it not been for this man. He lived according to his faith and God granted him success. But William Wilberforce would have led a successful life even if he hadn’t reached his goal, for he lived according to what he perceived was God’s will for his life. How do you define success? We all enjoy the comforts that this world has to offer; we want healthy, productive, and safe lives; good, wholesome families. But if we focus on these things as ends in themselves, as good as they are, and rely on them for our fulfillment, we’re focusing on a dead end, whose end is despair. The only way to ultimate success in life is to follow the example of Jesus, our Savior and Lord, taking up our cross daily and following him. What does it mean this day for you to take up your cross? During the service in a church where the choir was seated in the balcony, one of the ladies singing in the choir leaned over the balcony rail to see who came in late. She leaned too far and would have toppled to the floor had her foot not caught on the railing. There she hung with her skirts around her head.
The preacher saw the spectacle and shouted, “Whoever looks back will be struck blind!" After a moment one fellow whispered to the guy beside him, “I’m going to risk one eye.” On this first Sunday in Lent the subject of the Gospel is temptation—specifically the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness. This account not only gives us insight into Jesus’ earthly life, but also into the nature of temptation itself, and how we might best deal with temptation as it comes our way. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus was “in every way tempted as we are yet did not sin.” Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, said that the “only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." We’re all very familiar with that way of dealing with temptation. But Jesus was tempted and did not yield. When we say in the Creed that Jesus is God and Man, part of what it meant for him to take up our humanity was to experience what we all experience in being tempted. Thus, he knows from personal experience what we have to face. We’re told by both St. Matthew and St. Luke what at least three of those temptations were. They occurred just as he was preparing to begin his earthly ministry. It makes sense that Satan would be especially active at this critical time in Jesus’ life. An important decision had to be made. What path would he take? Would he be a social reformer, devoted to stamping out hunger, making life better for the disadvantaged? He had great compassion for those who suffer in any way. Wouldn’t it be good to devote his time, talent, and power to alleviate suffering? Yet, his purpose was much higher than that. God the Father had sent him to redeem the world. So he answered Satan with the words of scripture: “One does not live by bread alone." The devil didn’t tempt Jesus to do something morally wrong. He tempted him to do something good, but less than his calling. The tempter often doesn’t tempt us to do something that’s obviously evil. Instead, he would divert us from our primary task by calling us away to some other worthy cause. The tempter might say, “You really are too busy with important things to take any time for prayer. Yes, of course prayer might make you more aware of God’s will for your life, but you just can’t fit it in. Whatever the choice might be, the tempter is working to lure us to choose a path that will make us be less than we can be, and do for others less than we can do. The second temptation, according to St. Luke, was for raw power. The devil showed Jesus all of the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. They could all be his if he would worship him. Here the devil has clearly shown himself and revealed his purpose. He wants to be worshipped. His goal is to be in God’s place. There have been people in every age, and there certainly are in our own day, who literally worship the devil. They use religious rites; make animal, and sometimes human, sacrifices; and they promote evil of all varieties. Yet, these aren’t the only devil worshippers. There are devil worshippers who don’t even know it, who have sold their souls to him by the way they live their lives. They’re in every walk of life, at every level of society. They’ll do anything it takes to have whatever they want, be it in politics, religion, medicine, art, science. Perhaps they started on their path innocently enough, with small deceptions, small thefts, little manipulations, but eventually it became a way of life. Finally, Jesus was tempted to throw himself down from the temple, to prove that the Father would protect him and to show everyone without a doubt who he was. During his earthly ministry Jesus would perform some amazing miracles, including calming a storm and walking on water. But here he was being tempted to put God the Father to the test and he chose not to do that, again through the words of scripture: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” To have thrown himself down from the temple would have been an effort to manipulate the Father. We’re tempted sometimes to do the same thing. We can use prayer that way, bargaining with God to get what we want. “If I get that raise, God, I’ll give a tenth to the Church, and I’ll even start going to church!" But God will not be manipulated, and in our prayer we should strive always to pray according to that principle which Jesus taught us in his prayer: “Thy will be done.” The temptations of Christ are instructive because they capture how the tempter seeks to influence the life of every person. They show how subtle the devil can be. He even quotes scripture. And often, as was the case with Jesus’ first temptation, the devil never shows himself. He’s most effective when we’re not aware of his presence and he’s never happier than when someone doesn’t even believe he exists, which is the prevailing attitude in our day. His temptations are most effective when we don’t even realize we’re being tempted. These temptations happen to have come after Jesus had spent 40 days and 40 nights fasting and praying in the wilderness. He was spiritually prepared for that attack through prayer. He also was obviously well-schooled in the scriptures. He knew what the scriptures said and could quote scripture appropriately in response to temptation. We need to be spiritually prepared for temptation by regular prayer, frequent reception of the Sacrament, and daily reading and study of the Holy Scriptures. How can we begin to know what God wants of us unless we put ourselves regularly and frequently in his presence? Yes, we fall from time to time, but Jesus has given us a model to follow that, through his grace, will enable us to withstand in times of trial. “As thou with Satan didst contend, and didst the victory win, O give us strength in thee to fight, in thee to conquer sin.” |
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