Wednesday, September 23, 2026

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” (Matthew 7: 13 -14, New Living Translation)

               It had been such a good day in Mississauga on Saturday. Our whole family along with Susan’s two sisters and Sharon’s two adult children had gathered at her father’s home to remember her sister Jennifer who died earlier this year. We shared laugher and tears and stories. It was a grand day.

                But exhausting as well. So, when we left in the early evening, I was very tired. But it was only an hour’s drive to get home.  As I drove, I sort of put my mind on automatic pilot. Therefore, I missed my usual turn to get onto Hwy 427 to take me up to the 407, something I have done dozens and dozens of times.  But no big deal – I’d simply take the Gardner Expressway to the Don Valley Parkway and then the 401, heading for home in Whitby. It would take a little longer – but not much. But before long, the expressway did indeed become a parkway – no express, and a lot of park. I had hit the mother of all road jams.  Stop and not much go. A road sign alerted me that it was going to take an hour to get to the 401. (There had been a traffic accident on the DVP that closed two of the three lanes.)

                Now, I took this unfortunate turn of events with my usual calm, good-natured, look-on-the-bright-side demeanor.  Yeah, right! Not a chance!  I railed, fumed, ranted, sputtered for twenty minutes or so over my absolute stupidity and bad fortune. Poor Susan. I had no one to blame but myself and I let myself have it, full bore, although God might have had an earful or two about letting this happen. I can’t even say that I felt any better after the rant was over. It certainly didn’t make the traffic move any faster.  A one-hour drive became a two-hour drive. Serve’s me right for my inattention and wool-gathering.

                That’s a long preamble to get to our text today.  We use the expression to be on the straight and narrow sometimes. It comes from this text. One definition is “living an honest, moral, and disciplined life, avoiding wrongdoing and staying on a virtuous path.”  But Jesus points out that this can be very challenging. It is not automatic. You’ve got to pay attention to your “driving”. You have to be intentional, observant, aware, vigilant.  Otherwise, we find ourselves in circumstances, challenges and difficulties that slow us down and bring us to a standstill. Or worse, we find ourselves in a self-destructive state  of being, “the highway to hell.”

                It is easy to choose the wrong way, thinking that it really doesn’t matter. One way is as good as another. We might even prefer the easy way until it becomes a roadblock. We may let things slip and slide, putting off those things that help make our lives more fruitful. We make poor and maybe even bad choices. Our intentions may be good but we get side-tracked. We become distracted. We take the wrong road. We fail to read the signs.  And we end up where we don’t want to be.

                Taking the right way, the Jesus way, the Gospel way, is difficult. It goes against the grain of our society and culture. It was amazing how many of us got caught in that same traffic jam on Saturday. We were all following the same road and all of us got stuck. We were all like sheep without a shepherd. If I had been smarter, I would have gotten off that highway and gone back to where I wanted to go in the first place. But I didn’t, probably because I kept thinking that it was going to get moving any moment. Except it didn’t. I was stuck as the rest of the cars. This is what happens when you conform to the world as Paul wrote. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” (Romans 12: 1 -2, The Message Bible)

                Sometimes, we have to learn the hard way. But as long as we learn…

 Prayer

Our loving Creator, forgive us as we weave in and out of the way of Jesus Christ. We confess that there are times that we have taken the wrong road at the wrong times. Yet you always reveal to us the right way, the road perhaps less travelled, but the road that leads us to you Grace and Love. Help us to read and appreciate the signs that mark the way for us. Help us to hear the voice of Jesus and follow him. In his name, we pray, amen.