3rd Sunday of Lent 2022

 

3^rd. Sunday of Lent (C)

(Exodus 3:1-8,13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9)

 

 

In this country many in Mother Church still – despite the fact that persecution shows signs of bearing its claws again -- have a very comfortable understanding of God and their relationship with Him: He is good, merciful, forgiving, and, above all, our Father.

In reality, however, for many such believers, those are empty words, for they consider His goodness to be such they can make requests regardless of whether they are for the spiritual good of themselves or those they love or want to help; and they imagine that the fact that He is merciful and forgiving, means that He won’t punish us for our sins if we just occasionally use the word ‘sorry’.  For after all, He is our Father, and therefore He – along with today’s publicly admired ‘good parents’ – must indulge His children.

Although some may think I am exaggerating somewhat unpleasantly, that is the attitude in which, I believe, many Catholics today live out their relationship with God: they treat Him as One almost irrelevant as regards the determining of their life-style and personal character.  And yet, they regard themselves as acceptable Catholics and, indeed, as somewhat special people, because they are still attending Church, whereas very many people today in our proud and pleasure-seeking West do not believe in God and never enter a church. 

Those who have given up practicing their Catholic and Christian faith still ‘like’ Jesus as a man for the most part, but they do not believe in Him to be God since ’God is redundant’ they say: ‘we can explain all things without Him; He does not interfere in any way in our world, look at all the suffering going on around us, and what He does He do?’

However, we who do believe, we who are serious in our desire to know and love God in Jesus, and serve Him by the Spirit of Jesus, find a truer appreciation of God when we look at our first reading today 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. 

Obviously, Moses knew what ‘holy’ meant, and he was ready to learn more.  Curiosity and holiness are, it would seem, incompatible; for not even Moses was allowed to draw close to God out of mere curiosity.   That Moses was ‘afraid’ to look at God, however, being much more appropriate to the situation, did win God’s approval and He allowed Moses to draw closer to hear His word, because reverential ‘fear’ is an essential component of ‘love of God’!  And this is the teaching we heard in the psalm reading:

For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is (the Lord’s) kindness toward those who fear Him.

All that shows quite clearly that our God is not a soft and easy touch as many so fondly imagine.   

That appreciation is confirmed when we turn our attention to the 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 -- above all the stupendous crossing of the Red Sea -- and many other subsequent blessings of protection, food and drink, in times of great need.  And yet, despite all that, Paul concludes:

God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert.

He then goes on to draw a lesson for us from this rejection by God of many members of the Chosen People:

Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we should not crave after evil things as they also craved.

What were these evil things that Paul says so angered God: they worshipped their stomachs, delighted in sexual revels, they tried to put God to the test in their lives with a defiant: ”if He doesn’t give some sign, I won’t believe” sort of attitude; and then, of course, they were great grumblers.  Paul insisted once again for the benefit of his converts in luxurious Corinth and for us today:

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. 

The true God, is no soft touch!  He is not One Who will allow us, like spoilt children, to remain at the level of infantile pleasures, for He intends to raise us up to maturity in the likeness of Jesus, as His own true children. Heaven, most certainly, is not for spoilt brats who like to pretend they can be just care-free little dears 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 occupying Roman forces 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, would not be so easily deflected from His main purpose which was the sanctifying His people’s relationship with the God of their Fathers, not leading, or sharing in, a political confrontation with Pontius Pilate and the Roman power; and therefore, 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 tragic and provocative incident that had only recently occurred.

With us these days, it is customary to refer to sufferers of regrettable accidents as being now most certainly at peace and happy, somewhere above, 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 to both the religious attitude of His Jewish contemporaries and to our modern humanitarian outpourings, for He neither judged the dead nor did He indulge any banalities such as many of our politically-correct, overly-sentimental expressions of 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 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 of readings you can, perhaps, begin to appreciate how alien much modern clap-trap piety about “God’s goodness”; modern words – heavy in emotional content but little serious and prayerful thought -- about the dead now looking down from above on those left behind, though heaven is not to be mentioned; and, finally, those ‘heartfelt thoughts’ – a popular modern coinage-- without any mention of ‘prayers’ for the dead!  How alien indeed such tokens of sincere love must be both to Jesus and God Himself Who are deliberately excluded.

Now, I am not denying that God is good.  Far from it!  He is GOOD; indeed, He alone is good, as Jesus Himself said, but He is not good in the way our sinful world imagines Him to be.  God is good FOR OUR BETTERMENT, 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, indifference, or imbecility.   Jesus’ first message as He began His public ministry had been:

The time is fulfilled, and 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: it is part of our unique likeness to God that we can learn to recognize, reject, and hate sin.  No one who fails to repent for sin can be acceptable to God, as St. John tells us:

God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth...  If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   (1 John 1:5 ff.)

Jesus had been sent by His Father to plead for and to save those who were sinners, worthy of God’s punishment, just as the fruitless tree in the Gospel parable deserved to be cut down.  Jesus’ parable-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 final opportunity to learn to repent and bring forth fruit for God, fruit acceptable to Him.  And, to 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 delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?  (Romans 8:32)

Paul then intones (8:34-9:1) one of the most beautiful songs to God’s great goodness that could ever be conceived, a song that makes all modern sugar-daddy imaginations seem, as they truly are, sick and utterly unworthy:

Christ (it is) Who died, and Who, furthermore, is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God (and) makes intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written: "For Your sake we are being killed all day long, we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."  Yet, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

People of God, may that love of Christ pierce us through and through; may it be seen in us as humble repentance for our sins, as loving zeal for God’s glory and the well-being of Mother Church, and as sincere fellowship with all men and women of good will.  The love of Jesus is being offered us still today: indeed, His Precious Blood -- poured out for us on Calvary -- continues to be sprinkled over us throughout our lives through Mother Church’s sacraments, that we may bring forth fruit ever more befitting God’s great goodness and mercy.  Without repentance, however, He will be found to be no soft touch; for He is a holy God Who, in response to the gardener’s words and Jesus’ saving plea, has warned us:

If it does not (henceforth) bear fruit, you can cut it down.