The Right Fork

One way to look at life is as a series of choices... Every day we choose, some have small consequences, some large. But each one means an opportunity not taken, a chance missed, a road not taken. Robert Frost”s famous poem talks of the consequences

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference..

Jesus also spoke of the most important decision of our life as being a choice between two roads. But unlike Robert Frost, Jesus makes it clear that the road most people choose is actually more attractive, more inviting, than the other one. People avoid it because there are rocks, and ruts, and sharp turns, and steep hills.

Enter through the narrow gate; for the 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. [Mt 7:13-14]

That choice includes how we respond when it comes to our own personal suffering. (1) We can rail against God and say, “If you are such a great and powerful and loving God, why did you let this happen to me?” Or, (2) we can acknowledge that we are sinners and don’t deserve any good thing, and cry out for mercy and help in our time of desperation.

The world is full of people who rail against God in their self righteousness and presume that the creator of the universe is obliged to make their life smooth. But there are only a few who own up to the fact that God owes us nothing, and that any good to come our way will be due to his mercy, not our merit. Few of us are criminals facing the bar of justice, but each of us can identify with one or the other of the two thieves who were crucified beside Jesus in terms of how we respond to suffering.

They had both been picked up by the Romans’ latest sweep up the road from Jericho, trying to clear the road of bandits for the benefit of the pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. Abner and Dismas hadn’t met before; there may have been honor among thieves but there sure wasn’t much cooperation. The pickings on the Jericho road were too slim.

It was a lousy life, anyway, Dismas thought, might as well get it over with. He just wished he’d fought a little harder, so that the soldiers would have had to kill him. Crucifixion was such a horrible death! You could always count on a Gentile - especially the Romans - to raise killing into an art form, he thought to himself. He might not be much of a Jew, but at least he only killed by accident, and he only stole to eat. Dismas found himself drifting off into a sort of nightmare, a jumble of memories. He never expected to grow up to be a bandit. But what else could he have done? His family had barely been able to scratch a living out of their stony ground even before the taxes went up that last time. Well, he supposed he could have enlisted in the Roman army, or Herod’s auxiliaries, but there were some things even he wouldn’t stoop to, and that was one of them. He was a Jew. Although what good that did, when YHWH had clearly abandoned his people.

A sudden, new pain stabbed through his shoulder as the twisted muscles cramped. A sharp hiss of agony escaped his lips and then he became suddenly aware of a buzz of new activity going on below him. A third cross was being added. A crowd had gathered, there were dozens of people - maybe as many of a hundred, he couldn’t tell - clustered around the bare ground where the soldiers were nailing the victim to the crossbar. What were they shouting? And why were the temple priests there?

The soldiers finished their grisly task and started pushing the cross upright into place. Dismas gasped again, this time not from pain but from surprise. It was that Gallilean rabbi! That one that people were saying might be the Messiah! He had gone once, to hear him, but the crowds were so big he couldn’t hear, and who believed in a Mes-siah any more anyway.

A bystander picked up a clod of dirt and hurled it at the new figure. One of the soldiers pushed him back with the butt of his spear. The crowd began to shout taunts. “King of the Jews, hah!” they shouted. “You’re no king of ours!” “Imposter!” “Traitor!” were some of the epithets he heard. On the other side of the rabbi, Dismas’ fellow bandit Abner opened his eyes and his mouth and joined in. “Aren’t you the Messiah? What kind of a Messiah are you, anyway? Show us your stuff! Do a miracle! Save yourself and us!”