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The Third Sunday in
Lent
Exodus 3:1-15 The Good News If we were looking for some good news or words of comfort in the Gospel passage for this morning, we would be hard pressed to find either. At a first reading, the Gospel sounds like one of those big billboards that says “Repent or perish” or “Don’t make me come down there – God.” And yet the Gospel does not leave us without hope. Life is tough and things happen, but the hope expressed in the Gospel comes through the mouth of the Good Gardener. He wants to give the fig tree one more chance to bear fruit. That grace is our good news. Also, the Good News is that repentance is for everyone. God knows that our relationship with him is always in need of repair and God gladly repairs it when we turn and face him. But I think that for really good news on this third Sunday in Lent, we can turn to St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Paul has some inclusive words for us. We’re all on this planet together, and God won’t put more on us than we can bear. No
testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 This is good news. This is the eternal promise of God to us---that he will always be with us. There is no escape from the burdens of life – from illness, disasters, or death of our loved ones. There is no escape from our own death, either, but in both instances God provides the way for us to deal with it. God is our “Exodus” – the road out. This passage in Corinthians sounds almost like Paul’s letter to the Romans, wherein he explains how it is that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but then goes on to say that nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. In this Corinthians passage, Paul admonishes us to learn from history. He takes on a passage from Exodus and makes a case for comparison of baptized Christians. This is where Paul gets credit for developing the theology of the church in its early days. Paul takes what his audience knows, or needs to know, from existing scripture and brings it into a framework they can understand. Paul’s comparison of Christian baptism and the experience of the children of Israel coming through the Red Sea waters is especially enduring. That image is used abundantly at our Great Vigil of Easter. Paul’s exhortations are much like the Decalogue that we recite in Lent – but with a twist. Paul says, “Don’t commit this or that sin . . . and here’s why.” Our ancestors did this and God punished them for their misdeeds. They are an example to us. Paul just wants to save the Corinthian church a lot of time and trouble. As the old saying goes: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself.” One thing we can learn from history is that in every age, those who are given power will often abuse that power. If left unchecked, they can do irreparable harm to communities and countries. Take, for example, our Gospel’s depiction of Pontius Pilate, who served as governor of Judea from 26 to 36 A.D. The writings of historians such as Josephus agree with Holy Scripture that Pilate was brutal and arrogant in his treatment of those under his charge. He was, by the way, fired for misgovernment. In our own time we have known for several years about those third-world dictators who amass a fortune while their people have no food. Every generation tries to help the victims and feels helpless in the process. If those in Moses’ time were an example to the early Christians, how can we be an example to others now? How can we turn life around and make the Good News come alive in our own time? How can we bear fruit as Christians? I think in many ways we are already doing this simply by being Christians. The Episcopal Church already knows that repentance is for everyone. That’s why we observe a Holy Lent, with its penitent nature. In all our generations, the Episcopal Church has been known to sit down and talk with whoever would listen. It is in our bones to try to keep everyone at the table so we can work out the issues in peace. One friend of mine says that a person should be Baptist long enough to get saved, a Methodist long enough to learn to sing hymns, a Roman Catholic long enough to get a backbone about social justice, and then become an Episcopalian when they wanted to discuss the deep questions of life. In this past week I have been greatly disturbed by the new teenage movement to blaspheme God. You might have seen this on the news. It is really eerie. Teenagers are going on record in front of a camera as denying the Holy Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The leader of this movement says that we as Christians have oppressed teenagers by teaching them about God. The leader is determined to liberate these teenagers from us. There is a lot of anger and anguish being directed toward those teenagers right now. But God has not abandoned them. I think they are simply grappling with the deep questions of life, such as who is God and why would God care what I thought of God? The answer is that God created us for relationship with him and that until we get into that groove we will never truly be ourselves. All the spiritual writers affirm this. Augustine said that our hearts are restless till they find their rest in God. Thomas Merton’s famous prayer in solitude is “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.” God is all around. God sustains the world we live in and gives us air to breathe. We simply have to seek and find God for ourselves, and when we do, we will find and be found by him. That’s the Good News I have to share today. Amen.
On the grounds of Honey Creek
The Rev. Linda McCloud, Pastor |
