The Third Sunday in Lent (Fr. Robinson)

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?