Daily Reflection Thursday after Ash Wednesday

You don't have to be a poetry aficionado to recognize the familiar opening lines of one of Robert Frost's beloved offerings: "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." Perhaps a high school English teacher assigning an essay this spring might end up receiving (now via ChatBot AI!!) a Frost and Moses mashup, for our first reading from the Lectionary on this day two in Lent echoes the life-defining import of that same choice. Moses, in his final exhortation to the Israelites encamped at the banks of the Jordan and now ready to pass the leadership baton to Joshua, sets out the crossroad implications of the diverging paths. One road: a destination of life and prosperity, growth and flourishing and blessing, fruits of faithful obedience to the God who has loved them. The other: doom and death, a cursed and withering existence that will be the repercussion of a willful refusal to be attached to the Source of all abundance.
 
Fast forward. Sadly, contemporary public examples of the poor choices made at the crossroads come to mind all too easily. Netflix's smash hit documentary on Bernie Madoff; Harvey Weinstein in prison; athletes as role models but with feet of clay; scandals in Church leadership; politicians who seek office only for power, with nary a care for the common good; building contractors in Turkey now on the lam for the corruption that led to the death of thousands. How quick we are to name the greed and ego at work here. How appropriate to become outraged at these deep violations of trust. What were they thinking? Were the compromises and cut corners and brief moments of pleasure worth it? Have they no shame?
 
But smugness has little place in the spiritual journey. Jesus too is on the road in our Gospel passage, and the cross is already casting a shadow on the path to Jerusalem that he has chosen. We hear today the first of the predictions he will make of his Passion, coming directly after Peter's confession that he is the Messiah. Suffering must be reckoned with in the course of mission and service. Far from the latest Breaking News, we too are called by Jesus to make the discipleship choice -- each day, in Luke's telling of the teaching -- of what we will stand for, what we are willing to die for, what we will leave as our legacy, what we will be known for.  Jesus is asking us, "Are you willing to forfeit or lose yourself, picking up the cross of love and sacrifice, taking off the crosses of hatred and injustice that burden so many of our fellow travelers, to live a life of abundance and blessing?" Lent offers us the sacred space to figure out our answer, giving us both the courage to cross the Jordan and the grace of renewal each day when we have made the foolish, sinful choice.
 
Isn't it moving to see the praying crowds of people gathering in vigil outside Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter's modest home in Plains, Georgia, some traveling hundreds of miles almost immediately after it was announced that the former President had come home to die. He who has held the title of the most powerful leadership position in the world is being remembered for that, yes, but even more for his life of unassailable integrity where his true authority was expressed in humble service and a lifelong commitment to peace, human rights, and social justice. We continue to hold him and all those near death close to our hearts this day. He has taken the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.