Third Sunday of Lent

Lectionary: 30

Tiller, with shadowed photographer

All ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink,
for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them,
and the rock was the Christ.
Yet God was not pleased with most of them,
for they were struck down in the desert.

Despite all the feel-good promises of a congenitally optimistic nation, some people suffer punishment when they cross the invisible line between consumers and criminals. The shoplifter is no longer the cute teenager indulging in sport; she's a thief. Other mischievous types discover to their surprise that the penal system doesn’t care who they are or where they come from. Their darling behavior is no longer cute; it’s criminal. Their criminal records will hound them to their graves.They lose their rights to freedom and privacy; and will never be fully rehabilitated.

A similar invisible line lies somewhere within our bodies. When does the social drinker become an alcoholic? When does the smoker develop COPD, and the couch potato become diabetic? 

There are invisible lines all around us: legal, medical, social, financial. And when, one day, you cross one you cannot turn back. Your friends desert you; your family quits calling; and your doctor writes another prescription but offers neither advice nor sympathy. You get phone calls only from creditors. Our decisions -- both sinful and foolish, the Bible makes little distinction between them -- have consequences.

I am not of the party that thinks God should or must sweep everyone willy-nilly into heaven. If there are consequences of sin in this world; I suppose sin must have consequences in the next. If not, then human life with all its urgent tragedy and silly comedy is truly sterile and pointless. It might be only a idle game created by gods who had nothing better to do with their time than watch human folly.

In this Sunday's Gospel Jesus urges us to ponder the penalties. Twice he says, 

...I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!

Because we live in a real world and God has promised to remain with us, grace can mitigate the consequences of foolish and sinful behavior. Incarceration, emphysema, isolation, diabetes, COPD, bankruptcy or any other of life's penalties can become one’s cross and a path to salvation.

In fact, we often find that the punishments we foolishly invited, are precisely the gateways to salvation. The recovering alcoholic is grateful for his alcoholism. The bankrupt swears it's the best thing that ever happen to her. The convict meets Jesus in prison and realizes the Lord sent him to that dark, forbidding place as his missionary. 

And, yes Virginia, God does have a sense of humor, even as we share his laughter.