Lectionary for the 3rd Sunday in Lent.
O God, your steadfast love is better than life, so my lips will sing praise to you. I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. Psalm 63:3-4
Collect. Holy and merciful Father, you never leave your children abandoned but always reveal your name to them. Break through the hardness of our minds and hearts, so that we may learn to receive your teachings with childlike simplicity, and bear the fruit of true and continual conversion. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Reading. Isaiah 55:1-9. This passage comes after Isaiah’s servant song and the declaration of a Covenant of Peace. Therefore in its setting the invitation is to come and participate in the reign of peace that God wishes to begin. After holding out a whole raft of promises the passage ends with the renewed invitation to “seek the Lord while he may be found” and then the understanding that, “My ways are not your ways!” So often in life it has become commonplace to believe that God is, if not against, then certainly displaying anger towards his people. Some well meaning sermons even encourage the understanding that God was determined to punish his people but is that really the way it is? One of the stand-out passages of scripture for me is from Hosea 11 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more I called them, the more they went from me; … Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them”. Hosea 11:1–3.NRSV. This presents quite a different understanding of God’s dealings with his people. For me it projects a hunting echo of God’s great love for his people along with the sorrow brought about by their estrangement. Yes God did allow their exile from the Promised Land, but was that a punishment or was it the consequence of their failure to live in obedience to his Covenant and commandments? God had led them from slavery in Egypt into a land of freedom. It was a place where they did begin to flourish; but then disobedience grew and they turned away from God and his ways. It was after they turned away from God and after many warnings by each succeeding prophet that the exiles occurred. Yet through it all God remained faithful and as our reading today emphasises the promise of fulfilment is as strong as ever. The promise of a return to God which will bring real blessing is still open. Yes, people may have been disobedient and life may have dealt out some harsh blows but despite that God’s love and welcome remains. 6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7 (NRSV)
We might ask how this can be, and the answer is there in the text, God’s ways and thoughts are not our ways or thoughts. He made a promise to redeem his people and that promise remains God is always true and always faithful and nothing can change that. Yet in the same way the key to remaining with God and his provision remains the same obedience to his way and will. That obedience is achievable through trusting in Jesus for as he says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. John 14:6 (NRSV)
Prayer. We thank you Lord God that through Jesus you have made a way for us to be reunited to you and so be free to love and worship you in Spirit and in truth. Trusting in Jesus we give you all thanks and praise for all the blessings that we have received. We have nothing to offer to you but thanks and praise yet through trust in him alone the wonders of Sonship are available to all your children. So with joy and thanksgiving we humbly bow before you. You alone are worthy of our wonder and adoration. To God be all glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Reading. Luke 13:1-9. Many estrangements begin with misunderstanding and as we read today’s passage it is easy to misunderstand the uncompromising statement Jesus made to his questioners, v.5. “ No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Three things to briefly touch on from the passage: failure and suffering; repentance; and the true nature of God.
Let’s begin with the Fig tree; to our ears an extra year seems quite fair but not an excessive reprieve. To Jesus’ hearers the message would have been quite different. The context of the passage began with the implied question; does God cause suffering and if he does, why? In the time of Jesus a fig tree took three years before it bore any figs, then according to Leviticus for the next three years the figs remained unpicked, they were the “first fruits’ and belonged to the Lord. Then the owner came for three years looking for figs but found none. Therefore the extra year of reprieve meant the owner would by then have waited for ten years without any fruit. Now ten years in a garden is a very long time. The message from Jesus would have been crystal clear; the Lord God has been and continues to be excessively patient with Israel.
In the first part of the passage the implied question is “Why does God allow these terrible things to happen? Was it because of their sin?
In the first disaster it was Pilate who caused the deaths. Pilate was a weak, cruel, godless man. They knew that for they all lived under his tyrannical rule. The second incident was an accident and in both cases it did not mean that those killed were in any way guiltier than those who escaped or survived. What happened were sad events of life though not caused by God. At the same time Jesus is also saying that those who suffered were not therefore more worthy nor afforded special favour from God. Life is a mixture of joy and sorrow and in all of life’s events the love and patience of God remains, always the same, as the parable that Jesus taught reminded them. In every case God is loving, caring and forgiving. God had covenanted to lead his people to security and freedom, that had not changed and still has not changed. In other words God is always open and welcoming to his people and comes to them with nothing but love. To fail to begin from that clear premise as Jesus said, calls for repentance. Repentance is not simply feeling sorry for the things you have done or how you have behaved; that is a component of repentance but is not the main thing. Repentance means to change your mind, and in this case it is to change your mind about God. In order to repent you first have to understand who God is and what is his nature. Jesus was reminding them that they had to change their minds and stop failing to see the forgiveness and loving kindness of God. Questioning God does not lead to him for that implies that you are the instigator of the relationship. It is God who calls his people not the other way round. Repentance then makes life fall more readily into place for we understand more fully his nature. Furthermore through our new relationship with God we find that he is there supporting us in every circumstance of life. With God we have a glorious future. God’s patience does not wear out, neither does his love towards his people ever change.
Prayer. All loving and forgiving God have mercy on us when we think and act contrary to your will and purpose. Forgive us when we choose to follow our own ways and turn aside from your choose path for us. Surround us with your love and give us courage in our suffering and when times are hard, and true humility in our victories and our successes. Save us from being proud, rather, help us to trust you fully in all situations. By the power and protection of our Lord Jesus Christ keep us always in your race until that day when we meet you face to face with all the company of heaven. This we pray, through our Savour Jesus Christ. Amen
Collect. You call us to turn around, God of patience, whoever we are; help us to accept our need, but help us more to find the freedom and energy of forgiveness, and the joy of knowing you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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