March 11, 2007
The Third Sunday in Lent (Year C)
Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
This is the middle Sunday of Lent. We are half way there. In the middle ages this was the day that the monks really blew it all out. Having given up all sorts of things for Lent, they would on normal Sundays in Lent remember it was a feast day and so would have wine with dinner and all the other things they had fasted from, in moderation of course. But on this Sunday, known also as Rose Sunday, they went all out and celebrated like crazy. It is not something we have continued, but since it is the middle Sunday of Lent, I am aware that we are at the half way point. So I have been thinking about the lessons we have had so far and the ones coming up. I have tried to look at the gospel lessons in Lent holistically. What do they say to us about evil, sin, and repentance? We have the privilege this year of being surrounded by the lessons for the whole of Lent, thanks to the artists in our parish who will help us keep them alive until Holy Week. So on this middle week retrospective is clearly possible.
The first Sunday of Lent Jesus was "tempted in every way yet did not sin." Evil tempted him with the resources to feed the world (turn stones to bread), power (to rule all the kingdoms of the world), and eternal life (he could, if he would but follow Satan, jump off the tower without physical harm).
Last week Evil worked through people, sly as foxes, tempting Jesus away from his calling. Evil worked in the deal makers in
Today's gospel lesson is set in the context of the first century belief that bad things happen to people as a direct result of their sinfulness or inability to follow the Hebrew Law. Some Palestinians had been tortured and killed while they went to the
Then he tells the parable of the fig tree – now a fig tree would have been known to early Palestinians as a metaphor for
Next week we will hear the story of the prodigal son who is accepted back into the loving arms of his father after terrible behavior, exhibiting his repentance by merely showing up to the waiting parent, seeking to be accepted into his father's household as his father's servant, not even expecting to be fully reinstated into the family. His desire for right relationship was all the father needed to forgive him.
And on the fifth Sunday of Lent the lesson will be the story of the woman who wastes a pound of expensive nard (a luxurious anointing oil) by using it to anoint Jesus instead of selling it and giving the money to the poor. Doing good for others, in a self righteous way, Judas would have taken the money from selling the nard and used it to insure that he looked virtuous and righteous.
All of these lessons deal with human weaknesses and how we can be seduced into thinking of and for ourselves instead of putting God at the center of our hearts, minds, and actions. They deal with our human propensity to sin, to do the very things that separate us for the loving God who would give us another year, despite years and years of not producing fruit, to try again. The God who longs for, hopes for, and wants us in relationship. But we humans are greedy and power hungry. We lust after money and all sorts of material things. And the power of evil to use these things to sway us from relying on God, allowing their allure to cause us to sin, to give into that which would separate us from a deeper and holier relationship with God, is mighty strong.
As I thought of these things, these lessons that Jesus wanted so desperately for his followers to hear and understand before he made his way to certain death in Jerusalem, I thought not once did Jesus deal with sexual sins. Of course, I thought this because there is so much going on the World Wide Anglican Communion and in our own Episcopal Church around what sexual behavior can be labeled sinful and which cannot. It would seem to me that in these final hours of teaching that Jesus spent with his followers that if sexuality had been so all fired important in blocking a right relationship with God, Jesus would have at least mentioned it or told us story about it or something.
But he didn"t.
This got me to thinking. Our Episcopal Church is an off shoot of the Anglican church founded by Henry VIII who wanted a divorce because his wife was failing to produce a son and he wanted to marry another woman – and the pope would let him. But perhaps the deeper truth is that Henry wanted the land and the money that the catholic church sent to
Systems theory, of which I know just enough about to be dangerous, would tell us that families and institutions – and churches, especially churches – repeat patterns of behavior. It makes me wonder If we look at the controversy that is raging in the church today, is it really about homosexuality? Could it be that we are as a whole church being tempted by power? And are we using this theological difference to cover up a deeper lust for power?
We have always been a church that has lived with theological differences. From the time of Queen Elizabeth I who ordered the nation to pray the same prayers from the Book of Common Prayer and share the same Eucharist together in the morning, no matter what their theology, Protestant, Catholic, Calvinist, whatever. And then they were free to do whatever they wanted in the afternoon, to argue or preach for several hours, to dance or not to dance. They were free to believe and stand for their own viewpoint, but gathering in the morning as nation was not optional. She did this to secure her own power, of course. Her humanity cannot help but show through in that she was like her father Henry, but the impact was an enormous religious tolerance that we have inherited and has marked our history as a church.
So as a church we have two things we can learn from our history and it seems to me that one, the diversity of pieties gathered around the altar that
But this is the chance for us to accept the fertilizer, to grow and to bear fruit that once and for all breaks the pattern of our historical system.
I love this church. I spent much time doing the work of the larger church this week (a dean's meeting, a standing committee meeting, and convention yesterday) and so it is on my mind and in my heart. And I know that God loves it too, along with all the other churches. I know that and I also know that God will redeem whatever we mess up. That the reason Jesus told all these wonderful stories as he was on his way to
May the church be a true reflection of the vast and unending love God has for us. May we as members of the church strive to bear fruit worthy of that love.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd