THE GOD OF SECOND CHANCES
The Third Week of Lent (Year C)
Exodus 3: 1-8A, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10: 1-6, 10-12; Luke 13: 1-9
Two and a half weeks ago, as Lent began, we were marked with ashes, reminded that we are dust and unto dust we shall return upon our death, and instructed to repent and believe in the Gospel. We listened with fresh ears to St. Paul’s appeal as an ambassador of Christ calling us to be “reconciled to God” and enjoining us not to procrastinate, saying that “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation.” Lent is a period in which we remember, in the words of today’s Psalm, that the Lord is “kind and merciful,” pardons all our iniquities, heals all our ills, redeems our life from destruction, and crowns us with his kindness and compassion. It’s a chance for us to ponder how merciful and gracious he is, how slow to anger and overflowing in goodness, and to come before him to allow him to fill us with his merciful love, press the reset button on our life, bring our soul back to its baptismal splendor and make all of heaven rejoice that we, who were wayward and lost, have been found. And we who were dead through sin have the chance to experience resurrection through reconciliation.
But we need to ask ourselves what difference this special season, overflowing in God’s mercy and kindness, has made in our life until now. Have we heard and responded to Jesus’ call to conversion and spiritual growth? Have we prayed more, read Scripture more, sacrificed more? Have we demonstrated more patience, more love, more compassion, more mercy? Or have we been nonchalant about the opportunities Lent offers us and find ourselves on this Third Sunday of Lent no spiritually different than we were on March 1st, the day before this holy season began.
That’s one of the reasons why today’s readings are so important, because they’re meant to shock us out of complacency — almost as defibrillator paddles for our souls — and get us to examine honestly whether we have been responding to God’s kindness and mercy as he desires us to do this Lent or whether we have been taking these 40 days in vain - casually, no different than the other 225 days of the year.
Today’s Gospel begins with the people discussing what is weighing heavily on their minds and in their hearts. Pontius Pilate has made a religious sacrifice to the emperor - who was often considered a kind of demigod. And, as a part of that burnt sacrifice, he slaughtered a gathering of Galilean Jews and placed their remains on the sacrificial pyre, mixing their blood with the blood of the animal sacrifices that the Galilean pilgrims had brought to the Temple. And as if that isn’t horrifying enough, at the same time Jesus hears of Pilate’s treachery, news arrives that a tower in Siloam has fallen, crushing eighteen people.
We can relate, can’t we? Because technology has made the world smaller, we hear of all the disturbing and unsettling tragedies from around our country and in our world; tragedies which break our hearts and shock our sensibilities. Just in the past two years the world has dealt with pandemics, floods, draughts, earthquakes, volcanos, locust infestation in Africa, terrorist attacks in Afghanistan and Somalia, war and inhuman atrocities in the Ukraine. And like the crowd in today’s gospel, their questions are our questions. Why? Why God? Why do bad things happen to good people? Do these people deserve their fate? Is it God’s will? Is it his punishment? And Jesus emphatically says to them, and to us, “BY NO MEANS!”
Although our mind often likes to connect a cause with an effect, Jesus’ response is good news that should give us a sense of peace and consolation. Because what Jesus is saying is, we don’t have a vengeful, spiteful God. He doesn’t punish us with tragedy, calamity, misfortune, bad luck or disease. We don’t have a “Gotcha God,” one who lurks in the shadows and behind the corners ready to lunge out and punish us at our smallest indiscretion. God just doesn’t work that way. It’s not who he is. We are, however, vulnerable to human nature, to the poor, sometimes evil, sometimes even horrific decisions of other people. And we’re also vulnerable to the forces of nature, forces that can bring about both atmospheric calamities and disease. Our faith is not a suit of armor that renders us impervious from these things, but it can be a shield to help us remain strong in the face of them.
So, from a feeling of compassion, and maybe even empathy, that we might feel for the Jews who had to come to grips with the tragedies mentioned in the gospel, to a feeling of consolation that God doesn’t rain misfortune on our sinfulness, Jesus then seems to pull the rug from in under us. He says, “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” Just as we were feeling safe and secure, Jesus reminds us that God is just and that he does punish . . . in the afterlife. And we know that, of course, but it’s certainly something that most of us would like to forget - that what we do does have consequences . . . eternal consequences. That we aren’t blameless. And that we need to repent, or our fate will be worse than those who lost their lives in the tragedies in Israel.
From there, Jesus tells us the Parable of the Fig Tree that doesn’t bear fruit. In ancient times, Palestinian fig trees were valuable. They bore fruit ten months of the year, and their fruit was very popular. In Jesus’ story, the gardener has spent three years nurturing that tree, encouraging it to mature and grow fruit, but it has produced nothing. The orchard owner has lost patience and is ready to cut it down, but the gardener pleads with him to give the tree one more chance, to let him prune it, to cut away what is dead, to fertilize it, and see what that attention and care might yield.
And so, yes, Jesus says that if we don’t repent, we will all perish, but through the parable, he reassures us that God is a God of second chances. And maybe even third, fourth and fifth chances. Jesus wills that we live. He wills that we bear fruit. And he will do everything possible, even move heaven and earth, to get us to do that.
As with many of Jesus’ parables, we don’t get to hear the end of the story. We don’t because the end of the story is still to be written. Many of Jesus’ parables are meant to be mirrors for us to look at and see ourselves. Are we the fig tree that responds to the care and attention of Jesus the gardener? Or, despite his efforts, do we still bear no fruit?
What type of fruit does God want us to produce? I’d like to suggest that there are three kinds of fruit he’d like to see from us.
- Firstly, there are the Fruits of the Spirit that St Paul talks about in his Letter to the Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Do you produce all these fruits? Do they reflect your life today?
- Secondly, there’s the Fruit of Good Works, which St Paul also talks about in the Letter to the Colossians. What good works are you now doing for others? What should you be doing for others?
- And finally, there are the Fruits of Praise. Our reverence, praise, gratitude and joy start from a seed of awareness and acknowledgement of God in our lives and is grown in the soil of our hearts, enriched with humility, surrender and trust. Do you spend time getting to know God? And how do you express your love for him?
As we approach Christ, the Tree of Life in the Holy Eucharist, as we draw near him who is the incarnation of the God, we thank Him for all his blessings — for our baptism, for the privilege to receive his body and blood, for the availability of his life-changing forgiveness in Confession, for his great hope in us — but especially for giving us more time this Lent to bear the type of fruit that he expects. The most fruitful tree that has ever existed was the Tree of the Cross, and it’s here at Mass that we become truly united as branches on the Tree with Christ on the Cross so that, together with him, we will indeed bear much fruit. In the Mass, from the Cross, Jesus is fertilizing the soil of our souls so that we will bear abundant fruit, fruit that will last, fruit that will bring us to salvation. Jesus tells us that if we do repent, if we do respond to his mercy, if we heed his warning, then we will experience what we prayed in today’s psalm: that the Lord will redeem our life from destruction, crown us with eternal kindness and compassion, and bring us to that place where our soul and all our whole being will bless God’s holy name forever!
