Readings:
Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm
63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9 I
read an article this week that has made me rethink my decision about not
going to see The Passion of the Christ”.
In it a Muslim writer, Alexander Kronemer, who was raised in a
Jewish-Christian family, spoke about how his view of Jesus and the
crucifixion were changed by the film.
Even when he first heard about the movie, it raised his hopes.
“I hoped,” he says, “for a film that would remind us all
that mercy is at the heart of the Abrahamic tradition we Christians,
Jews, and Muslims share.”
Although
he heard about the anti Semitism and brutality inherent in the movie, he
was still able to see it with an open mind.
He came away feeling hopeful.
“One can be a passive bystander at the Sermon on the Mount,”
he says.
“One can listen only half-attentively to Jesus’ parables,
react with quiet cynicism to the miracles.
But his suffering and death stir emotions that cannot fail to
move us.”
He concludes, “As difficult and troubling as the movie is to
watch, the message of mercy, compassion, and hope is perhaps there after
all.”
The
Christian message purports to be one of mercy, compassion and hope.
Lent, a time of spiritual renewal should be above all a time for
generosity and justice.
It is a time to consider our responsibility for the community,
not just our church community, but society as a whole.
It is certainly Paul’s reminder to the new Christian community
in Corinth.
They are a deeply troubled community.
They are fractured by disunity and immorality.
He calls on them to put aside their anger, resentment and
alienation, the things that are tearing them apart as a community.
He tells them that nothing will test them beyond their strength.
God, he assures them, loves them and is always faithful.
They need to repent and turn back to God.
God’s forgiveness and grace will be there for them.
The community can recover and be all that God intends it to be.
Isaiah
sees God’s compassion reaching into all of society.
He pleads for a renewed set of values.
He acknowledges that there are those that have nothing.
Even so all can find something to make a difference in their
lives.
The renewal and transformation of the people of Israel, he says,
will bear witness to other people that God is with them.
Isaiah is calling for a real renewal that results in action.
It
resonates with the Jewish saying, “Pray as if everything depends on
God and act as if everything depends on yourself.”
What a transformed world this would be if we kept that in mind.
That message of mercy, compassion and hope is one that the world
badly needs.
Our world is reeling from the horror of the bombings in Madrid.
Violent acts are an everyday occurrence in the Middle East.
There is civil unrest in Haiti.
There are countries in Africa that have not known peace in forty
years.
Time and again, one race or even more dishearteningly, one
religion, rises up against another and slaughters indiscriminately.
In the name of God, a whole culture is wiped out.
We do not need to go far to see the horror of violence.
In our own city we read of senseless acts of violence shattering
families, taking the lives of young people.
We
witness terrible disasters in the world around us.
We experience pain and suffering in our own lives.
We blame God.
We ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
We begin to question the very existence of God.
What kind of a God allows senseless acts to take place?
It
is that same question that is being raised by the people who are
gathered around Jesus, sharing the latest news with him.
There was an uprising, a Jewish demonstration in Jerusalem.
Religious Jews who were pleading for religious tolerance were
brutally suppressed by Pilate.
They were slaughtered for their faith.
“They didn’t die,” Jesus says, “because they were
terrible sinners any more than we are living because of our
righteousness.”
Suffering and sin are simply not connected in that way.
He
reminds them of a local disaster.
During the construction of the pool at Siloam a terrible accident
occurred.
Eighteen construction workers were killed when a wall collapsed
on them.
It created a sensation.
People were outraged, mostly at God.
How could God permit such a terrible thing to happen?
Did they die because they were sinful?
These were, after all, their friends, their neighbours.
If it could happen to one of their friends, couldn’t it just as
easily happen to them.
Could God simply zap them from the sky and bring an end to their
existence?
And
Jesus goes on to tell a parable that is the real point of the story.
It resonates once again with the wonderful compassion of our
loving God.
A man has a fig tree that has failed to produce any fruit in
three years.
He tells the gardener to cut it down.
The gardener persuades him to nurture it for one more year and
see if it will bear fruit.
The
parable is a good description of what we need in order to become
spiritually whole.
Healing requires the right conditions.
We need to make some changes in our lives.
Like the people of Corinth we need forgiveness for the past so
that we can begin to live a healed existence.
We need to stop laying the blame for what has happened in society
and open ourselves to change and wholeness.
As Christians, we need to bear fruit, to be everything that God
is calling us to be.
We need to be part and parcel of changing society so that it
reflects God’s kingdom on earth.
Lent
gives us an opportunity to come into right relationship with God.
God is there to prune us and stir us up so that we can be
everything God intends us to be.
It is not up to us to explain human suffering.
We simply cannot explain it.
We cannot explain the actions of God.
But we can take responsibility for one another.
We can be accountable for our own lives, and for those who share
our faith journey. While we cannot explain the actions of God, we can experience God with us. Jesus is present again and again whenever we allow him into our lives. He is with us through pain and sickness. He is with us through disaster. His love quenches our thirst and satisfies our hunger. He is there reaching out to us as we reach out to others. And God’s kingdom of mercy, compassion and hope draws us in. |