We're roughly halfway through Lent, and the challenges presented by the news could very easily lead to the hardening of hearts. In fact, I have heard some rumbling about the Russian war against Ukraine and people advocating for us to take more steps to protect the Ukrainians by enacting a no-fly zone. The difficulty of that is that if a Russian plane were to fly into Ukrainian  air space, it could be shot down...and if the ones doing the shooting is the United States or any of the other NATO nations, we are running the risk of unleashing the worst madness imaginable: World War III with nukes. 

Yet-another variant of COVID, BA2, has begun emerging and its more transmissible than even the Omicron variant, which was more transmissible than the Delta variant, which all goes back to Beta...and the two years of mask-wearing, handwashing, social distancing can feel like we're not making any progress.

And it's those feelings of hopelessness and despair that lead to the hardening of the heart. We can't let that happen. 

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Text: Luke 13:1-9…and a bit of Exodus 3:1-15

Prayer: Lord, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds and think through them;
Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. Amen.

(Brief comment about the “word of the day”)

If any of you are fans of the British comedy sketch team Monty Python, you might recall the skits when they would mock the terrors of the Spanish Inquisition. The cardinals would descend upon some poor hapless soul who had just snarkingly uttered the phrase, “Well, I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition!” The red-caped cardinals would rush in and begin to “torture” their victim. In one sketch…the implement of torture was poking with soft pillow cushions as they screamed for the person to “Repent!”

For me…a less comic experience of the word “repent” came almost 30 years ago. I was marching for justice for the LGBT community in Washington, DC, with about 500-thousand of my closest friends. As we turned on one of the street corners, I could hear a loud bellowing roar coming from the crowd ahead of us. And on the sidewalk, a huge banner in red, orange, and black rose high enough for us to see its message: “Repent or Burn!” These were counter demonstrators, using all their fire and brimstone to condemn us. As many in our crowd yelled back at the demonstrators, I found myself singing the sweet Sunday School tune:

Jesus loves me this I know ‘cuz the Bible tells me so.

I may not have been actively going to church at that time, but obviously God was engaging with my soul in a way that I had not anticipated…to remind me of my essential truth.

“Repent” means to “turn around” or to have a change of heart in a spiritual sense.

It’s really the bass note of the season of Lent, and so it’s no surprise that we have Jesus calling on those who have come to tell him stories of Pilate’s dastardly deeds that they should tend to their own hearts first before telling him about others, even Pilate.  

What’s at play in this Gospel passage is the ancient belief that if something bad happens to someone, it must be because they sinned or someone in their family had sinned. The idea being that if people lived good and healthy and God-fearing lives, nothing bad would happen to them.

Well, we know that’s not how things work.

We know that there are times when no matter how “good” a person is, no matter how many marathons they run, or how many vegetables they eat, cancer has a way of getting into the body’s cells. And it’s not because the person with cancer sinned.

The same goes for the Galileans in this Gospel passage. People brutally killed while celebrating their religious rites or crushed in a terrible tower collapse didn’t die for any wrongs committed against God. And truthfully…according to all historic accounts…there’s no evidence that either of these events actually happened. This may have been an embellishment based upon Pilate’s true character.

He was not a benevolent Governor. He detested Temple worship and enjoyed crushing the opponents of the Empire.

Still…it seems this story was made up and the ones reporting it to Jesus were looking to provoke him, get him to act out of anger rather than love as he moved toward Jerusalem.

Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Instead…he reminds them… and us… many centuries later…that every person is capable of being sinful…and rather than focusing on others…get your own self right. Don’t focus on the sins of a corrupt leader or worry that some might be less than perfect and deserving of a terrible fate. Turn your own heart toward the mission of God. That mission…bringing good news to the poor, sight to the blind, release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed (Luke 4:18)…is vital to the work of living into that part of the Lord’s Prayer:

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Thy will. Not My will.

To hammer this home…Jesus shares the parable about the fig tree.

For those who were the first hearers of Luke’s Gospel many centuries ago, this story would resonate.

Fig trees and their fruit…or lack thereof…were the metaphors the prophets such as Isaiah and Micah would use to decry the waywardness of Israel or Judah.

Apart from God, they were like barren saplings. Living in unity and relationship with God and creation, they would bear bountiful fruit.

And Jesus adds an important twist to this story.

The God who sees the useless tree is a God of judgment, ready to chop the tree down and repurpose the soil. And this same God is also one of mercy and compassion.

God will listen to the plea of the gardener who asks for a second chance to help the tree live.

However…God’s mercy…as shown in this parable… is not some cheap grace.

It must provoke a response from the gardener to do the work of tending to the poor pitiful tree. The gardener must put in some physical effort…lay out the cost to get some manure…keep watering the roots so that it can produce fruit.

And the time is short. If the tree continues to be fruitless after a year…WHACK…here come the axes and saws to take it down.

We are in the same shorten time span if we think about it.

We’re at about the halfway point of Lent, this time of self-examination. And there’s no time like the present to be looking into our hearts and considering if we have become apathetic about the work given to us to do to make this a better world for everyone.

Have we allowed the news about Russia’s attack on Ukraine to keep us from seeking to live in a world of peace and not war?

Have we grown so bitter and tired of COVID that we don’t care that people are still getting infected and ending up in the hospital?

Have we let all the ills of the world…the political divisions…the racism…the climate change…the anger that’s been building…lead us to declare that it’s all too much to deal with and we can’t do anything so let’s give up?

Nope. Tough as it is. Hard or even terrifying as the news can be, the spirit of Lord is still upon us.

Around us.

In us.

If we are feeling overwhelmed, we need to acknowledge that, pause and pray…in whatever form our prayer takes.

Trust that God will respond…in God’s own way and time…but God will respond. As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry reminded the members of the House of Bishops this week…that when we are feeling worn out by the weight of the world…Jesus said:

“Come to me, all you who are burdened and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

Part of having faith is recognizing that we are not meant to solve all the problems of the world on our own.

Even Moses, when standing there before a burning bush, was wondering out loud, “How in the heck am I going to convince a beaten-down and beleaguered people enslaved in Egypt…let alone a powerful Pharaoh…to listen to me?’ God responded to Moses’s concern and promised to be with him and shared with him the name of God: “I am.”

The singular present, past, and future tense of the verb “to be.”

That’s our first job: to be. To be present in our homes, in our jobs and in our world.

Enter God’s presence through prayer. Bring our overwhelmed selves before God. Engage with God about the concerns we have for our world. And then…like the gardener…use the insights gained through prayer to act to make the tree healthier. Even if it is small actions…we move out that prayerful presence to act.  

This is how we tend the tree of today to bear fruit for the future generations. This is the way we turn around and go toward God.

God’s kin-dom come. God’s will be done.

In the name of God, F/S/HS