3rd. Sunday
of Lent (C)
(Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9)
In reality, however, for many so-called believers, those are somewhat empty words; for they consider His goodness to be such that even though, as they say, "we are not fanatical enough to make it our purpose to recognize and correct what may need to be corrected in our life-style, He won’t punish us for such sins --'weaknesses' or 'mistakes' really -- if we occasionally use the word ‘sorry’ or give a little more to the Sunday collection or a local charity. Above all, they like to recall that God is our Father; meaning that -- as with many modern parents -- He dotes on us His children and wants us above all to be happy, more or less practising, Catholics, and occasionally confessing Christians.
Although
some may think I am exaggerating rather unpleasantly, that is the attitude of
mind -- largely unconscious I admit -- in which too many Catholics today live out
their relationship with God: He is rather like a memory from childhood days,
floating around our minds, occasionally coming into focus for our notice but who/which is
really almost totally irrelevant to our experience of and response to the
reality of living today. And yet, on the
other hand, they still regard themselves as passable Catholics and, indeed,
somewhat special people, because -- after all -- the majority of people today
in this country and in Europe, do not believe in God at all. Even those who have completely given up
practicing their Catholic and Christian faith for the most part say that they
still like Jesus as a man; but they do not believe in Him as God since ’God is
redundant’, which they explain with words such as: ‘scientists say they can
explain the world without Him, and He certainly does not seem to intervene in
any way in our affairs … look at all the scandals on high, and the corruption,
crime, and suffering going on around us, and yet He does nothing!’
However,
we who do believe, we who are serious Catholics in our desire to know, love, and
serve God in Jesus, by the Spirit, find a truer appreciation of God when we
look at today’s readings, beginning with our first reading where Moses was
drawn by curiosity to approach a blazing bush in the desert:
I must go
over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.
God
called to him, apparently from the middle of the bush:
Come no
nearer! Remove the sandals from your
feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
And, what
is more, He said it in such a tone that:
Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Curiosity
and holiness are incompatible it would seem, for not even Moses was allowed to
draw close to God out of mere curiosity.
Fear however – reverential fear, that is, not the native, instinctive type
of self-centred fear – is much more appropriate, allowing Moses to draw close
to the Lord and to hear His word! And
this is in accord with the teaching we heard in the psalm:
For as
the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is (the Lord’s) kindness
toward those who fear Him.
Surely
this shows quite clearly that God is not the soft touch many so
fondly imagine.
Such an
appreciation is confirmed when we turn our attention to our second reading
taken from St. Paul’s letter to his converts at Corinth. There, he recalls how God had led Israel
through the desert with miracles such as the stupendous crossing of the Red
Sea, and other blessings of protection, food and drink, in times of great need. And yet he says:
God was
not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.
Then he
goes on to draw a lesson for us from this rejection by God of the majority of
those living apparently ordinary and acceptable lives as members of the Chosen
People:
Now these
things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things as
they did.
What were
these evil things? They worshipped their
stomachs, delighted in sexual revels; they tried to put God to the test in
their lives, adopting an ”if He doesn’t give some sign, we won’t believe” sort
of attitude; and then, of course, they were great grumblers. Paul quite deliberately repeated his warning, expressly including us this time:
These
things happened to them as an example and they have been written down as a
warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come.
How true
it is that God, the true God, is no soft touch, no sugar Daddy!! He is not One who will allow us to remain
like spoilt children at the level of infantile pleasures or fantasies, for He
intends to raise us up to maturity in the likeness of Jesus as His adopted
children: Heaven, most certainly, is not
for adults who like to pretend they are just care-free little children
enjoying themselves in Daddy’s wonderful world.
However,
some might still be thinking that those are only readings from the Old
Testament and from the writings of St. Paul, whereas Jesus Himself was
different. Let us now, therefore, turn
to Jesus as we heard Him speaking in our Gospel reading.
The Jews
had tried to stir up hatred of the Romans and trouble for Jesus by asking Him
about the fate of some Galileans killed by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate,
as they were offering sacrifices to God.
Jesus, however, was not to be deflected from His main purpose, and He
replied:
Do you
think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater
sinners than all other Galileans?
He then
immediately went on to recall a very unfortunate and tragic accident that had
only recently occurred. Now with us, it
is customary to refer to victims of such-like accidents as though they were now most certainly at peace and happy in heaven, after having
been so unfortunate on earth. That was not the way Jews of ancient times
reacted, for they tended to think that there must have been some secret sin in
the lives of those tragic sufferers which would account for their untimely
deaths. As for Jesus, His own attitude
was in contrast both to the attitude of His Jewish contemporaries and to our
modern expectancies, for He neither judged the dead nor did He pour out
any banalities such as our modern,
politically-correct, expressions of sympathy and condolence, for He simply went
on to say:
Those
eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them, do you
think that they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in
Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent you will
all perish as they did!
From such
a vignette you can begin to appreciate how alien so much human fellowship-and-feeling of a ‘holiness-without-God’ origin, and so much irreligious clap-trap
about ‘God’s goodness’, from the authors and promoters of emotional outpourings
without any commitment of faith or discipline of teaching, must be both to
Jesus and to God Himself!
Now, I am
not denying that God is good. Far from
it! He is good, indeed, He is ultimate
and infinite Goodness Itself, but He is not good in the way our sinful world
imagines or proclaims Him to be. God is
good to those, who, as Jesus said, repent; that is, God’s goodness is
geared first of all towards our repentance and then, further, towards our
sanctification; it is not the goodness of indulgence, imbecility, or
indifference.
Jesus’
first call on beginning His public ministry was:
This is
the time of fulfilment. The kingdom of
God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel. (Mark
1:14-15)
That word
“repent” was and is absolutely essential.
Only human beings can repent: thanks to our unique likeness to God we
can recognize sin and learn to hate it.
No one who refuses or fails to repent for sin can be acceptable to God,
as St. John in his first letter (1:5-10) tells us:
God is
light and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say we have fellowship with Him while we continue to walk in
darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have
fellowship with one another, and the blood of His Son Jesus cleanses us from
all sin. If we say we are without sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and
just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say
we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
Jesus had
been sent to plead for and to save those who were -- as sinners -- worthy of
God’s punishment, just as the fruitless tree in the Gospel parable deserved to
be cut down. Jesus’ plea to His Father,
however, was:
Leave it
for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize
it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.
That is,
Jesus, of set purpose, would pour out His blood in the agony of His crucifixion
to fertilize our lives, giving us another -- and this time final -- opportunity
to learn to repent and bring forth fruit for God, fruit acceptable to Him.
Towards
those who do repent, God is quite
unimaginably good; for, having purified them through the blood of His very own
Son, He then goes on, as St. Paul expressly assures us, to bestow upon them
blessings unlimited:
He Who
did not spare His own Son, but handed Him over for us all, how will He not also
give us everything else along with Him? (Romans 8:32)
And it is
at this point that Paul himself proceeds to sing one of the most beautiful
songs to God’s great goodness that could ever be conceived, a song of such
beauty that it makes all modern sugar-daddy imaginations seem, as indeed they
most truly are, sick and utterly unworthy (Romans 8:34-9:1):
It is
Christ Who died, rather, was raised, Who also is at the right hand of God, Who
intercedes for us. What will separate us
from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As
it is written: "For Your sake we are being slain all the day; we are
looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things, we conquer overwhelmingly through Him Who loved
us. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future
things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
People of
God, may that love of Christ pierce us through and through and be reflected in us both as true and humble
repentance for our sins, and as loving zeal for God’s glory and the well-being
of Mother Church. For the love of Jesus
is being offered us still today, and His Precious Blood -- poured out for many
on Calvary -- continues to be sprinkled on us and on all our efforts at
Christian living through the Church’s sacraments, so that we may bring forth
fruit ever more expressive of our own sincere repentance, and grateful love
ever more befitting God’s great goodness and deep, deep, mercy.
On the
other hand, without such repentance, He will be found no soft touch, for He is
a Holy God Who, in the words of Jesus’ saving plea, has already warned the
unrepentant:
If it
does not bear fruit you can cut it down.
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