3 Lent Yr C

So here’s Moses, going about his work, keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro. Moses really has a good life, a wife, a father-in-law that lets him keep the flock, not much more you could ask for. It’s been very quiet for him since leaving the palace as a young man, and it seems that Moses liked it that way, and probably could have lived his life quite contentedly. I imagine every once in while the memories would return to him. Memories of those days when he was raised as an adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Although an Israelite, he did not suffer along with his people. He was both an Egyptian and an Israelite, and yet he was neither.

But this day was not like the others. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush, the bush was blazing, but not consumed. Now, how many of you have been about your business, happily humming, and there appears to you a burning bush? Moses was told to remove the sandals from his feet, because the place on which he was standing was holy ground. And God said, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses recalls memories of these stories, but never had God intruded into his life before.

But God went on to rehearse the misery of God’s people in Eygpt, and Moses recalled the misery of the people he left. God gives Moses his assignment of bringing the people out of Egypt, and promises a new life for them. A life free of slavery and oppression. But then Moses says to God, almost like he wants to make sure he doesn’t look crazy when he tells the people about this, now one more time God, who should I tell the people you are? And God answers, tell them I am who I am. Tell them I am their God, the God of creation, the God of their ancestors, the God of their descendants.

Moses accepts God’s call to him. No longer will Moses’ life be a life of herding sheep, a life centered on his own comfort, no longer will he be centered on his own ego. Instead, his concern will be for the purposes of God, what God wishes for the world. No longer will Moses’ life be safe, secure, and devoid of growth. Moses gives himself up to a life of faith, and what does he get?

Moses must bear the people’s grumbling, their addiction to slavery, their readiness at every turn to flee from freedom. All this makes him feel stress and strain, and it turns his hair white before his time, and, Moses doesn’t even make it to the land that is promised, he dies just short of the goal.

Where are the burning bushes in your life? A bush blazes when some person or place or moment reaches out to you, calling you insistently by name. A burning bush is that yearning, that insistence in your life to reach deeper, to embrace fully, to be part of and connected to the story of creation, to dance in freedom with the God who says, I am.

A bush blazes for you this Lent; the blazing bush insists that you embark upon the journey that God wishes for you, the journey that you yearn for. The thing about this Lenten journey is that we know we must travel through the darkness to get to the Light. We must journey with Moses through the wilderness. The hard part of the journey is that there is no easy way out of the wilderness. There is no gospel of prosperity or happiness or ease. There is no road map that avoids the dark and dangerous places. Death is part of the wilderness. Sorrow and pain are part and parcel of life. There is no growth; there is no depth without this journey. There is no encountering God merely on the top of the mountain; God is encountered in the depths of the valleys as well.

And then in the gospel of Luke, Jesus is interpreting the signs of the times. The first part of the gospel is about the things that Pilate did which upset and irritated the local Jewish population. Sometimes it even seemed that Pilate was deliberately trying to make them angry. He trampled on their religious sensibilities; he tried to bring Roman military emblems into Jerusalem, with their pagan images. And in this part of Luke, we hear the results of an attempt by Pilate to slaughter the Jews. Additionally, it is important to remember that Jerusalem is under Roman occupation. Last week you’ll remember I spoke some about tragedy, and I said that tragedy just is, it is part of life on this planet. This bit of Luke illustrates that further. Sin does not make atrocities come. They just come.

This reality is what the next portion of this passage is about. Life's fragility gives it urgency. Jesus turns attention away from disasters, victims, and "why?" questions to address those of us who thus far have survived the hazards of the universe and human society. We should not mistake our good fortune as evidence of God's special blessing. We should count our good fortune as an opportunity for repentance and growth.

In our reading we have an apple tree, you may be familiar with it as the fig tree. This tree, which should be bearing fruit, is not. With another season, and some good manure, the tree has another chance to grow and produce. The expectation for the result of manure and time and care is bearing fruit. Although there is another chance at growth, growth continues to be an urgent matter. The time frame is clear and it is not infinite, there is another year, another season. In the midst of the reality of human life, the fragility of living, and the tragedy that just is, growth is urgent.

And according to Jesus, growth gives rise to repentance, the kind of repentance that is conversion of the heart. This repentance does not mean being filled and tormented by guilt. Instead, it means being ready to admit our responsibility for our actions and our need for forgiveness, and having a firm desire to change our life: to turn away from ourselves, in prayer and in love. Repentance means, above all, a constant, patient, growing in love. It means our willingness to open ourselves to the work of the Spirit in us and to embrace fully the gift of our salvation (Irma Zaleski The Way of Repentance 1999). The Christian outlook on repentance arcs toward joy.

In the midst of human existence and tragedy, God loves us abundantly and absolutely, and expects us to grow and to do it now rather than later. Growth begets repentance; repentance is being ready to admit our responsibility for our action, our need for forgiveness, and having a firm desire to change our life. We turn away from ourselves in prayer and in love, and we open ourselves to the work of the Spirit. This outlook on repentance arcs toward joy, it results in hope.

Both of these stories are about Love that begets growth, Growth that begets repentance, and Repentance that begets joy. Oh how very different from the way we expect it to be. It may very well cause our hair to whiten prematurely like Moses.

Pay attention to the blazing bush, take off your shoes, walk with one another on this Holy Ground, hold one another’s hand, wander and discover the abundant life God has for you. Pay attention when a bush blazes and something demands that you take off your mask and live from the center deep inside you. You bear fruit when you take what action you can for others, when you act on your impulse to help, when you act on your impulse to pray, when you act on your impulse to accompany one another on this journey in the wilderness.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: Come let us adore him.