Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
Revelation 7:9-17
John 10:22-30

          Today’s gospel lesson is the passage that follows the famous story of the good shepherd.  In that story Jesus describes himself metaphorically in the role of shepherd.  He is known by the gatekeeper of the sheepfold; he is known by the sheep who follow and never fear him.  And he calls each of the sheep by name because he knows each one of them.  They follow him in trust and without fear in a way they would not follow a stranger.  The metaphor of sheep and shepherd is a stretch for us latter day city dwellers and suburbanites.  But the image of the shepherd is still compelling.  It gives us comfort and confidence to remember that we are known by name and cared for individually.  It gives us comfort and confidence to know that there is one whose concern is for our welfare, one who will guide us to what we need and protect us from harm.

          The last few days have brought us one shock after another.  The week began with horrifying images from Boston.  The crowd gathered to celebrate local history and human athletic accomplishment falls victim to an act of cruelty and malevolence.  A bomb set to explode in a crowded place is the kind of situation we hear about and perhaps see pictures of almost daily, but those words and pictures come from other parts of the world.  That kind of chaos may be the new normal for others, but it is not so for us.   With the news that police were searching for those who planted the bomb, we heard also that a town in Texas had been destroyed and lives lost in a factory explosion.  The US Senate officially opposed the will of 90% of those it represents to require stricter background checks for the purchase of guns.  Closer to home, our neighboring state of Kansas took a step closer to arming school personnel, determined to fight fire with fire in the wake of the growing number of mass murders on school campuses.  And much farther away, we hear news of another powerful earthquake in rural China.  It was a chaotic and harrowing week, even for those of us who live hundreds or thousands of miles away from the worst events that occurred.

          The earthquake was a natural disaster.  We stand in fear and awe of the power of the natural world to destroy the order that human beings attempt to impose upon it, but we do not ordinarily ascribe intention, motive or failure to the pain and disorder of natural occurrences.    The cause of the explosion in Texas is unknown.  It occurred in a factory that produces a volatile chemical substance.  There are rules in place to reduce the risk, but they do not eliminate it entirely and human beings make mistakes, even in circumstances that are intended to assure their safety.  Investigation of the accident may eventually reveal that rules were contradicted or people made mistakes.  But at the moment it appears to have been a terrible accident.

          The other events that shocked us this week reflect something else – the human desire to dominate others.  Jesus lived in a culture of domination.  The Roman empire imposed on its conquered territories an economy and political culture that were built upon little more than the exercise of power.  In such a culture, human value is calculated upon your or my usefulness to a more powerful person.  The good news Jesus preached – the unconditional love of God for each person – contradicted that culture of domination. 

          Killing and injuring other human beings to achieve a purpose is an act of domination.  In the last few years we have witnessed increasingly horrifying examples of individual persons and small groups killing and wounding strangers in public places.  In some cases we know what motivates their actions.  It may be the desire for revenge or to further a political cause.   At other times they appear to be motivated by the symptoms of mental illness that remains mysterious and incomprehensible to anyone else.  The authorities feel confident that the man they have arrested for the bombing in Boston is actually the one who did it, along with an accomplice who was killed in an attempt to escape.  Many people have remarked that his capture will eventually lead to the explanation for his actions being made public and that somehow the knowledge of it will help to ease the pain.  But at this time, we don’t know what motivated him to act.

          Each new act of aggression and mass murder shocks us momentarily and brings about calls for action that will increase our safety.  The school shooting in Connecticut just before Christmas seemed to have tipped the balance.  Opinion was divided about how to proceed.  Among the options was to respond to attempted acts of domination with greater force: to out-dominate the would-be dominators, to build another layer into the culture of domination in which we now live, to answer force with greater and better organized force.

          As Christians, we understand Jesus’ resurrection as God’s rising above the human will to dominate.  Jesus’ death was brought about by what seemed to be a power greater than all others.  It dominated the economy and political order of the world he lived in.  It posed an ongoing challenge to his religious beliefs and those of the community with which he shared them.  When he died, his friends believed that he had fallen victim to a power greater than himself.   Time revealed that the power they feared, under whose domination they lived was no power at all.  That knowledge is what makes us a people of resurrection.

          The power whose domination we fear – whatever specific form it may take – has no power over God.  In recent decades, it has become very common for political and economic domination to wrap itself in religion, but that is a lie.  In our time we may use force to achieve safety and stability for the greatest number of people because we cannot find another way to do it.  We try to come to agreement about how such force is to be regulated because we see its potential dangers.   But in God’s kingdom, peace and justice will never be achieved by domination.  God calls us as Christians to look for glimpses of that kingdom and to work toward its realization every moment of the day.  That includes praying for our enemies and those who do us harm.

          Amid the fear and chaos of the past week the image of the shepherd who knows each one of us by name is a comforting one with which to begin the new week.  Jesus is a shelter and refuge for all of us.  But when we come to the table today to celebrate the sacrament of his body and blood, the words of the prayer with which we gather pose a challenge to us as well.  Those words are “forgive us for coming to this table for solace only and not for strength, for pardon only and not for renewal.”  As the shepherd who cares for the sheep, Jesus is not only our protector, but our role model.  As the community of his followers we act in his name for those around us.  We are to be the good shepherd and to call others by name, to guide them to shelter and care for their needs as we have been sheltered and cared for.

          Fear is the source of the desire for domination.  Love is its opposite.  Shepherds do not keep their charges confined within a pen.  They find safe places where food and water are available; they create safe environments for their rest and oversee their movement from one place to another.  They are watchful for danger.  But they allow their charges to act according to their own nature.    We question why God, who is perfect and complete, leaves us to deal with a world that is very much the opposite.  Our perfection and completion are still unfolding.  Human nature will look for ways to take advantage of that.  God never will.  In Jesus, we have an example of humanity as God sees us and knows each of us.  However imperfect our efforts it is him who we are called to follow.

Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

          During Easter season we hear lessons from Acts of the Apostles in place of the Old Testament lesson.  Acts is generally accepted as being the second part of Luke’s gospel.  You’ll recall that Luke was written by a gentile for a gentile audience.  Acts is the story of the early days of the church – the work of Jesus’ apostles Peter and John, Barnabas who was chosen to replace Judas, Stephen and one other.  Today’s lesson from Acts is known as the story of the Conversion of St. Paul – a Pharisee with a passion for faith of Israel who actively persecutes Jesus’ followers until he becomes one of them.

          The members of the church are suspicious of him.  Even a vision of God ordering him to visit Paul and lay hands upon him is insufficient to silence questions from Ananias about the wisdom of such a mission.  In the vision God answers, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”  The first part of that response must have come as a surprise to at least some of Jesus’ followers.  The gospels portray Jesus himself saying that his mission is to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  In the story of the woman who asks him to heal her daughter, Jesus replies initially that the gentiles are not the ones to whom his message is directed.  She eventually changes his mind, but not everyone’s.  The book of Acts recounts leaders of the church wrestling with the question of who can and can’t be a member of the church.  The question was – do you have to be a Jew first?  Or can a gentile pass from polytheism and no knowledge of the law of Moses directly into the community of Jesus’ followers?  There will always be differences of opinion about what constitutes legitimate, faithful religious practice.  For the last few years our own church has been pondering the question of whether or not a person must be baptized in order to receive Communion.  Right now in West Missouri you must, but there are churches in other dioceses that invite all persons, regardless of baptism to received Communion.  In the first century leaders of the  Jerusalem church thought you did have to be a Jew by birth or a full convert in order to be a member of the church.  In Ephesus or Corinth, in the churches founded by Paul, the apostle to the gentiles, you did not.

          In the early 21^st century, the church faces an environment that some people say is closer to the 1^st century than the 20^th.  Last October, a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that 19.6% of Americans claim no religious affiliation – an increase of nearly 5% over the previous poll in 2007.  70% of that unaffiliated group say that they believe in God and many of them pray, meditate and undertake other practices associated with religion.  Three-quarters of the group have been affiliated with an organized religion in the past.  Their top three reasons for letting it go are that they see it as being too concerned with money and power, too concerned with rules and too involved in politics.  70% of that unaffiliated group were born after 1980. 

          A popular definition of religion – one that is likely close to that held by many of these unaffiliated Americans is: an institution that has organized matters pertaining to belief and derives its authority from external sources such as creeds and persons who are accorded authority such as members of the clergy.  For many of the unaffiliated religion is defined in contrast to spiritualty.  You’ve heard the expression “I’m spiritual but not religious.”  In that context, the definition of spirituality is something like:  an experience that connects one with a deeper sense of self and of the divine wherein authority is validated through internal sources, the sense that what one has experienced is true.  If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the language of mysticism, the original Evangelicals and Paul, the apostle to the gentiles.

          Historically the interplay between spirituality and the institutional aspects of religion has been an ebb and flow.  During their times of relative ascendancy we benefit from its  positive aspects: the historical grounding, orderly processes and skilled leadership of institutional religion and the energy, fluidity and wide circle of leadership characteristic of spirituality that is relatively unhindered by institutional religion.  We also cope with their  respective down sides:  the stagnation, hypocrisy, self-centeredness and authoritarian culture of organized religion and the unregulated and sometimes harmful charismatic leadership and lack of core convictions associated with spirituality without institutional order. 

          We’re emerging from a century in which institutional religion was dominant.  Power frequently produces the seeds of its own decay.   With  organized religion we observed it in the last three decades with wrangling over human sexuality, child abuse scandals and the mix of conservative politics and religion that reached fever pitch after September 11, 2001.

          Paul’s experience in today’s gospel lesson shows us a middle way through the ebb and flow of spirituality and institutional religion.  His vision on the Damascus road is one of profound wonder.  He moves from the immediate impact of it to a time of solitary prayer and fasting during which he remains blind.  In this radically solitary state of being he is left alone with God to reflect upon his experience and come to his own decision about its validity and meaning .  After a time he emerges from solitude.  It is important to note that he rejoins with world and enters the community of Jesus’ followers through ritual, the laying on of hands by Ananias.  Ancient tradition and practice ascribe meaning to that action.  In the church we offer it to those who desire healing.  We use it as the church’s response to the adult affirmation of baptismal vows in Confirmation and to set persons apart for mission through Holy Orders.   Although no one knows the full meaning of it at the time, when Ananias lays hands on Paul they enact through ritual all three of these momentous transitions.  Ritual has the power to unite the tradition and practice of the institution with the spiritual experience of the individual believer.

          Paul was a real person.  There are no original copies of his letters, but other contemporary evidence allows us to date them.  The earliest of them that we have was written and sent to the church he founded with his colleague Silas at Thessaloniki two decades after Jesus’ death.  In the context of the first century, Paul represents the fluidity, risk taking and openness of unhindered spirituality defined in contrast to the church’s nascent institutional center at Jerusalem.   But the ideas he developed in his letters are foundational to the most central teachings and traditions of the church.

          The Episcopal Church and our own parish are in a position to reach out to the many people who now identify themselves as unaffiliated with religion.  Many of them express admiration for the church’s care for persons in need; many would like to have a part in the kind of mission centered community that grows out of religious belief.  We need always to be looking for ways to connect with people whose lives could be made better by the church and who could make the church better by their presence.  That includes listening to what people have to say about their own experience of religion and spirituality and inviting them to visit when you have an opportunity.

          There are times when the most authentic expression of faith lies not in reverence for tradition but in taking risks, opening the circle of leadership and extending community beyond old boundaries.  I believe that like Paul, we live in such a time.

           

Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18 

          Unlike the momentous events of more recent times, the resurrection of Jesus is largely a mystery.  There were no video cameras to capture the action live, no reporters on the scene.  The accounts of it begin when a handful of people, mourning the death of someone dear to them discover that things are not as they seemed to be.  It is not objective, provable fact, but it is profoundly true.  Its reality is in our experience of its meaning, the conviction we sense deep within ourselves.

          Jesus’ resurrection reveals that we can know God most clearly and completely when everything we had hoped for and worked for has failed completely.  God is with us always, present and self-revealing.  But when our own efforts are successful and the world treats us kindly, it’s difficult to see beyond pride and a sense of accomplishment and realize that God is there all the time.

          Jesus’ death brought together the worst aspects of human behavior.  It was a terrible injustice, a misuse of power brought about among an oppressed people.  The gospels tell us that Jesus’ enemies treated him with terrible cruelty and that his friends responded to his plight with cowardice and disloyalty.  They tell us that he had worked for some years trying to help people understand a better way to be and to live.  He revealed that new way for them through his own behavior by acting in generosity, authenticity, honesty, friendship and love.  The people he met, and even those who traveled with him took what he had to give them but only occasionally did they really seem to understand what he was trying to teach them.   And those who did get a glimpse of his true meaning had difficulty applying it consistently to their own lives.  They lived in a harsh and unjust world with few comforts.  How could their behavior possibly change the world?

          Jesus was charged with crimes he did not commit.  He was executed because people who appeared to be more powerful than him wanted him out of the way.  A world that operated according to the principles he taught had no room for the misuse of power on which their lives and authority were built.  In the end, he knew how he would die.  The stories we have of him describe him gathering his friends together one last time to try to help them understand and then going out with them to face the pain that lies ahead.  When the time comes, they all run away and leave him alone to face the accusations, to die in pain as a criminal, a failure for all to see. 

          What no one understood was how deeply God was interwoven into this experience of terrible failure.  Until Jesus’ grieving friends return from wherever their fear has driven them, prepared to face the aftermath of the events they did not have the courage to witness, they do not understand the most important thing about the events of those three days.  They do not understand until that morning that God has been there all the time, living through the worst horror they could imagine.  It is God who had called them away from their life’s work to walk together for those few short years of teaching, preaching and healing.  God had gathered with them on that final night to pour himself out for them and command them to do the same in remembrance.  God had stood silent in the face of unjust accusations and watched as the last friend ran away in terror.

          And then God prevailed over it all; life, hope and love conquer cruelty, injustice and fear.  In the resurrection God who lived as one of us shows us that our worst failures and fears, our greatest suffering and the things about ourselves that we most despise are not greater than God’s love nor will they ever separate humanity from that love.  

          As Christians we are a people of resurrection.  If until now you understood Christianity as being a set of rules you have to follow, or a set of beliefs you were required to claim, or a calculus of rewards and punishments, Easter is your invitation to a change of mind.  Resurrection is what defines us as Christians and it is about the unfailing love of God for all creation.  It is God saying to humanity, nothing you can do will end my love for you.  That unfailing love shapes our individual lives.  It forms us as community and distinguishes the way we encounter the world.  Resurrection inspires us to live lives of thanksgiving and generosity.  God’s love offered to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a gift so rich we need never feel that we do not have enough to share.  Resurrection leads us to model God’s love.  It calls us to build communities of welcome and affirmation that reflect, however imperfectly, God’s mercy and forgiveness offered to all humanity.  We believe that lives and relationships that are broken can be healed because we, ourselves, know that healing.  We seek to build a world on the principles of love and true justice.  We believe that one day God will bring that world into being.

          When you leave here today, carry with you this celebration of resurrection and let God’s love fill you with joy and new life.  Alleluia, Christ is risen.          

Palm Sunday

Luke 19:28-40

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29    

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem sends a powerful message to the crowd.  It is a quotation – an unmistakable visual reference to a beloved passage from Holy Scripture.   By entering Jerusalem riding on the back of a donkey colt, Jesus puts the crowd in mind of Zechariah 9.9.  It reads “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  The manner of his entry into the city recalls hope and memory making it present reality.  God’s anointed, Israel’s liberator has arrived to herald the coming of God’s kingdom.

          The joy that they feel escalates the already heightened emotions coursing through Jerusalem as its citizens and visitors prepare to celebrate the Passover.  The festival’s focus on Israel’s original great liberation from captivity generates anxiety among the authorities who will have peace and order at all costs.  There are too many people, too much energy, too many hopes, dreams and memories.  Jesus iconic entry into the city further escalates the emotion.  The crowd shouts with joy.  A few among them try to stop what is happening; to contain the crowd before it gets out of control.

          The crowd is unaware of what is to come in the next few days.  Like the Israelites who followed Moses out of captivity in Babylon, they will pass through a time of fear and chaos that will echo the story of their ancestors’ passage through the Red Sea.  They will come to know the full and terrible measure of their own cowardice.  They will argue against what it happening, but they will not stop it from happening.  Once the crisis is past, they will, like their ancestors, experience a time of waiting, uncertainty - wondering what it all meant, or if it meant anything.  And like those who came before them, they will ultimately find meaning in their encounter with the divine made human.  They will shape and interpret it and pass the meaning they make of it on to the generations that come after them.

          As we enter into this week that tests our faith, challenges our complacency and puts all our own weakness and cowardice before our eyes, we are reminded again that throughout all of the pain, terror and sorrow of the story we begin to make real and present on this day, God who was made flesh as one of us continues to be in our midst.  Through the events of Holy Week, God gathers in violence, injustice, fear, failure and death, encompassing, fulfilling and transforming them and us in divine love.

Fifth Sunday in Lent - St. Patrick

            It is the fifth Sunday in Lent, but it is also St. Patrick’s Day.  I am sure it’s fallen on a Sunday more recently, but the last one I recall was Sunday, March 17, 1991.  It was Palm Sunday that year.  I don’t recall the sermon that I heard that day.   I doubt it had anything to do with St. Patrick – but this one today does.

          The fact that Patrick is commemorated as a saint at all is a triumph of tradition over history, a common occurrence in the early centuries of the church.  He wasn’t among the saints who were decommissioned after the Second Vatican Council partly because there is evidence that he actually existed and probably because nobody wanted to deal with millions of disgruntled Irish Catholics.

          Beyond the fact of his existence, very little is known about Patrick.  He was born to a wealthy Christian family in Britain near the end of the fourth century.  The name of the town he identifies as his home is unrecorded anywhere else.   His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest.  The family was not known to be particularly devout and it is said that the two entered holy orders for financial advantage more than anything else.   Patrick showed no particular inclination to religious devotion early in life.   He was educated according to his station in life and two letters that he wrote in Latin still exist.

When he was 16 years old, he was kidnapped by pirates, taken to Ireland and sold into slavery.   One of his letters describes his captivity.  The man to whom he was sold as a slave was a high priest of the druids, the prevailing religious tradition in Ireland at that time.  Patrick worked for him as a shepherd.  The solitude of that occupation and the stress and sorrow of captivity inspired in him an increasing sense of religious devotion.  He began to pray daily.  He describes an experience that occurred in the sixth year of his captivity.  He heard a voice telling him that he would soon go home and that his ship was ready.  Patrick escaped his captor whose land he believed to have been in County Mayo.  From there he describes a journey of two hundred miles to a port where he persuaded a ship’s crew to take him on board.  After three days of sailing, Patrick and the crew landed on what is now the coast of France, abandoned the ship and wandered for several weeks.  Eventually he made his way back home to Britain.

Patrick’s letter describes an experience that occurred not long after his return home.  It reads: “I saw a man coming, as it were from Ireland. His name was Victoricus, and he carried many letters, and he gave me one of them. I read the heading: ‘The Voice of the Irish.’  As I began the letter, I imagined in that moment that I heard the voice of those very people who were near . .  the western sea—and they cried out, as with one voice: ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.’”  There was, in fact, a bishop named Victricius who visited Ireland from his home in Rouen, in what is now northwestern France, during Patrick’s lifetime.  After the experience of this vision, Patrick began formal religious studies after which he was ordained to the priesthood and returned to Ireland.  There he began the work of converting followers of traditional Celtic religions to Christianity.

He was received with hostility initially.  A druid text describes the Christian missionary in derisive language.   Not unlike Christian missionaries throughout centuries, Patrick incorporated symbols, rituals and religious practices of traditional Celtic religion into Christian observance and teaching.  Stories about him include one in which he taught the doctrine of the trinity using the shamrock.  It had been sacred to Irish pagans long before Patrick’s time in Ireland.  Its green color represented rebirth and new life and its leaves called to mind the number three which was sacred in traditional Irish religion which had three principal goddesses.  The Irish Druids lit fires as an act of religious devotion.  Patrick encouraged them to continue it and is said to have lit one himself on the eve of Easter.  Legend holds that his fire could be extinguished by no one but himself. 

St. Patrick was never formally canonized by a Bishop of Rome.  In the first thousand years of the church, canonizations took place mainly on a local and regional level.  His feast day, March17, gained greater recognition in the 18^th century through the efforts of an Irish Franciscan monk. 

One of the letters written by Patrick is entitled Declaration.  It describes his life as a Christian minister.  He claims to have  "baptised thousands of people" . . . and having  “ordained priests to lead the new Christian communities.  He reports having converted wealthy women, some of whom became nuns in the face of family opposition and converting the sons of kings to Christianity.

Patrick’s Declaration also describes an incident in which charges were brought against him by fellow Christians. He does not describe the nature of the complaint, but in the description of his subsequent trial he writes that he returned the gifts which wealthy women gave him, that he accepted no payment for baptisms or ordinations.  He writes that he covered the cost of gifts he made  kings and judges from his own resources and paid for the sons of chiefs to accompany him on his missionary travels. Historians have concluded that he was accused of some sort of financial impropriety, and perhaps of having obtained the office of bishop in Ireland with personal gain in mind.  Given his family history, the financial gains his father and grandfather received from having been ordained, he may have been especially sensitive to such charges.

As modern historians began to study Patrick a theory developed which argues that much of the work attributed to him was actually accomplished by a Bishop named Palladius.  There is a record of his work which took place a few decades after Patrick’s lifetime.  It had less to do with converting the Irish to Christianity and more to do with ministering to established Christian communities.   At mid-century this theory of the two Patricks was presumed to be true.  Now religious scholars are not so certain that the work of Patrick is interchangeable with that of Palladius.

It appears relatively certain that Patrick died on March 17, but there is uncertainty about the year.  At one point it was believed that he died around the year 420.  Later on 460 became the accepted year of his death but there is evidence from independent contemporary documents that it could have been later.   One writer claims he lived to the age of 120 years, not likely, but it would argue in favor of his having lived to very old age.  Later writers refer to Patrick as our Papa, that is our Pope or Primate.   The relative lack of centralization of the Church in the fifth century meant that bishops had great authority within their own lands.  

Centuries after his lifetime Patrick’s legend continued to grow and a variety of churches and other places claimed affiliation with various events in his lifetime.  Among the miracles associated with Patrick is ridding Ireland of snakes.  In fact, fossil evidence indicates that Ireland has been a snake-free zone since day one.  They just don’t live there.  But Patrick continues to be credited with driving them all away.  Aside from a handful of incidents described in his own words, we know little more about him than that he was a beloved spiritual leader.

Patrick’s spiritual depth was forged in adversity.   As a young man he looked forward to a relatively easy life on the estate of wealthy parents until the day he was captured and enslaved.  He says himself that hardship and solitude inspired his religious devotion and brought him closer to God.   When he returned home and experienced the call to ministry, he became aware of the limits of his early religious education.  Rather than letting that be a barrier, or using his family’s position to his advantage, he studied for years to prepare for ordination.  Rather than following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who held comfortable and lucrative positions as church officials, Patrick returned deliberately to what he knew would be hostile territory for a Christian missionary and made it his own.

It is interesting to note how much the church’s contemporary struggles mirror those that Patrick encountered in the 5^th century.  We do our work within a culture that is increasingly removed from organized religion.  Religious leaders in our time are suspected and frequently rightfully accused of misconduct.  The issues we are called to challenge include violence, poverty and human trafficking.  Like Patrick, we are called as servants to do the work of turning human nature toward the building of God’s kingdom.  It’s no less difficult a task in the 21^st century than it was in the 5^th.

Patrick, the stranger in a strange land, not once but twice, became a beloved international ambassador for his adopted country.  He is the founder of feasts, parades and celebrations around the world; the patron of numerous professions including engineers and paralegals and of the city of Rolla, Missouri.

Today we give thanks for his ministry and his legacy.  And we give thanks that in our church the gifts of myth and tradition are honored for what they truly are, rather than being tortured into inauthentic and unsatisfying substitutes for certainty and fact.

Let us pray

Almighty God, in your providence you chose your servant Patrick to be the apostle of the Irish people, to bring those who were wandering in darkness and error to the true light and knowledge of you: Grant us so to walk in that light that we may come at last to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

            Throughout the Bible the image of the fig tree is one of the most prevalent and consistent.  It is symbolic of blessing and goodness.  When a biblical text describes times and places in which good things are happening, the growth of fig trees and the ripening of their fruit figures highly in the descriptive imagery.  Fig trees are the only individually named plant in the story of the garden of Eden.   The parable of the fig tree, which we hear today  from Luke’s gospel also appears in similar form in Mark and Matthew.  In this instance, the fig tree’s usual symbolic function is turned on its head.  The tree in question is not a sign of goodness and Blessing.  It gives no fruit and it hasn’t for three years.  Just as fruitful fig trees are a symbol of blessing, this barren fig tree signifies unrighteousness.  Jesus tells the parable  in the context of a discussion of sin and punishment.

          It begins with an account of Galileans who were slain at the order of Pontius Pilate.  He is an official of the Roman Empire, familiar from the Palm Sunday and Good Friday lectionary.   Rome governed its conquered territories with an eye toward maintaining order and deriving the greatest possible revenue from the land they acquired by conquest.  Occasional peasant insurrections were dealt with harshly.  Although we can’t identify the dead Galileans mentioned in today’s lesson with  specific events, such peasant uprisings were not uncommon.   This story is a parable and Jesus’ parables always challenge the assumptions of his audience.  We see that with the fig free and in his challenge to the the assumption that hardship, punishment and suffering are inflicted because of sin.

          In the interaction before the parable, Jesus tells the crowd that the Galileans who suffered at the hands of Pontius Pilate were not particularly better or worse than any other Galileans – including those gathered around him at that moment.  He reminds them that all of humanity is sinful; all of humanity falls short of God’s ideal.  Those who were singled out by Pontius Pilate suffered and that is a terrible thing, but it could have been any one of the group of people Jesus is talking to.  All of them, all of us must repent and turn away from sin continually.  To presume that those who suffer did something to deserve it that none of the rest of us has done is wrong.  We can only count ourselves blessed that we do not suffer as others do and turn toward God for forgiveness.

          Jesus goes on to tell the group gathered before him a parable.  In it, there is a fig tree which has no fruit.  The owner of the garden where it is planted comes looking for figs and is once again disappointed.  We learn that he has waited for three years for the tree to produce and it has never grown a single fig.  He instructs the gardener to cut it down, saying that its presence on the land is a waste of the soil that might grow a more productive plant.  The gardener’s response is interesting for a couple of reasons.  He challenges the master’s order to cut down the tree and asks for another year to work with it, rather than simply doing as he is told.  He describes the work he will do with the tree, digging and fertilizing.   The gardener concludes his plan saying,  “If it bears fruit next year, well and good.  If not, you can cut it down.”  The shoe is on the other foot now.  The gardener is telling the boss what to do next year if the tree has still not produced.   Jesus has shocked his audience with a very assertive gardener and the mention of a form of fertilizer that they would not have expected to hear about from a traveling preacher.

          This parable leaves the audience hanging.  They will never hear the end of the story – we won’t either.  But it points the hearer in the direction of hope.   And there is more to the imagery than one more chance for the barren tree.  The image of the fig tree giving fruit is integral to biblical descriptions of the hope for the Messiah and the restoration of Zion.  And on a number of occasions in the Bible, women who have been barren eventually give birth to children.  The promise of Israel’s deliverance and the miraculous births to women like Sarah and Hanna call to mind the entirety of God’s gracious and mighty acts.  In the context of this gospel lesson, Jesus reminds his hearers that God leaves open the path to repentance even for those who have been given up as hopeless sinners.  God has the power to transform that which was cursed into blessing.  God does not see failure as the end, but as a point on the journey.

          In his blog this week, Bishop Marc Andrus of the Diocese of California wrote the following about the Episcopal Church:  “we are a church that believes Christ continues to be with the world, moving with us, helping us find meaning in moments of joy and also loss and pain.  The Christ whom we recognize is the one who speaks in John’s Gospel, saying, “There are many things I would teach you but you cannot bear them now . . . the Spirit will lead you into all truth.” 

          Lent is that time of year when we step back from our own goals and desires and allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit toward those things which we are not able to see and hear through our own efforts.  Our culture is geared toward meeting goals and being productive.  One of the prominent cultural and political motifs of the last 30 years has been the perceived divide between those who produce and those who do not.  Our nation’s government has ground to a standstill more than once having been consumed by conflict over the appropriate rewards and punishments for those who are perceived as makers and takers.

          This parable points out that for all our efforts and accomplishments, we come before God as creatures who have failed to live up to the promise of our creation in God’s image.   We come before God in need of forbearance, patience, cultivation and forgiveness.  Everyday life does not teach us to see ourselves in that way, but the Spirit gives us the opportunity to become aware that all we have comes from God.  Through prayer and fasting and setting ourselves apart from the pleasures and routines we take for granted we have the opportunity particularly during Lent to enact that reality.  In doing so we feel Christ moving with us through the world.