Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent, C

The fig tree is standing in for the cross. Only by standing under the cross will we be able to understand how God is leading us out of the place of slavery and death into a land of promise and abundance.

I have Mass on Sunday, March 23 at St. Isidore @ 9:30/11:30 am

frjoedailey@gmail.com

Transcript

A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Luke. 

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus said to them in reply, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means. But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did." 

Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means. But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did. 

And he told them this parable. There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it, found none. He said to the gardener, "For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree, but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?" He said to him in reply, "Sir, leave it for this year also. I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it. It may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down." The Gospel of the Lord. 

The Lenten landscape shifts again. We descend from the mountain to the desert ground. A bush, though on fire, was not consumed. A voice speaks from the bush, "Moses, Moses, I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt, and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave-drivers. So I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians." 

Moses had also seen the Israelite suffering. One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinfolk. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 

When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting. When he asked the one why he struck his fellow Hebrew, he said to Moses, "Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "Surely this thing is known." And when Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. 

Moses flees to Midian, and it is there that God first speaks to Moses, because Moses, like God, has seen his people suffering. Moses' awareness of the injustice that his own people are suffering make him ready to take up a new stage in his life. He is ready to give the rest of his life to leading the children of Israel to the land of promise. 

"Come no closer. Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

 Removing shoes as a show of reverence is still a practice in Islam today. Many years ago, before it was closed to non-Muslims, I was able to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. There must have been a hundred pairs of shoes at the entrance. 

Taking off one's sandals is also a gesture in many traditional cultures that is associated with entering a home. Moses, the alien, has at last found a true home with the God of his ancestors, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This encounter with the divine redeems Moses, restoring him to who he was meant to be, not an identity-confused murderer, not a stutterer or adoptee, but a child of God. Holiness has restored him to his true self. 

"I am who I am." in Hebrew, "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh." "I am the Lord your God, ...who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell with you." God is the one who meets us on the way, makes a home with us, and journeys with us, leading us out of slavery and death into abundant life. 

God has always been with us and will be with us always, but forever is a long time, and it's easy to forget, especially in difficult and violent times. 

What about those Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices? And don't forget those eighteen who were killed when the Tower of Siloam fell on them. 

Has God forgotten us? Does God no longer hear our cry? Is God with us or not? 

So Jesus tells them a parable about a fig tree that a man planted in his vineyard. Israel often thought of themselves as a vineyard that God had planted. But didn't Jesus just steer the people away from thinking that destructive events are signs of God's will? Why would Jesus then propose an image of a God who wants to cut down and throw away this tree that does not bear fruit? 

Notice this landowner has been looking for fruit on this fig tree for three years. Three years is important, as the book of Leviticus makes clear. You're not allowed to take any fruit from the tree in the first three years. In the fourth year, you can harvest the first fruit to be given as a tithe in the temple. It is only in the fifth year that you may harvest and eat at the fruit. 

In the parable that Jesus tells, the landowner is in direct violation of Torah for demanding fruit in the tree's first three years. 

There's another way to read three years. Jesus has been exercising his ministry for about two years. But if he started, let's say, in the eleventh month of the first year, and it was now the first month of the third year, the ancients would count that as three years. 

This parable then can be read as a passion prediction. The tree represents the biblical promise to the people of Israel. The tree is sadly barren. The voices of the prophets have died out. The pharisaical hardening of the arteries is taking place, all the things that could be said in just about any age in Christian history. 

It's the gardener who says, "Give it one more year." Jesus is the one pleading for mercy. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem to die. He knows that we will not be able to discover what God is doing this side of the cross. So he begins to prepare his followers for repentance, metanoia, literally the changing of our minds that will happen afterwards. 

I'm just going to be working the soil right now so that next year, a little while later, it will bear fruit. The fig tree is standing in for the cross. Only by standing under the cross will we be able to understand how God is leading us out of the place of slavery and death into a land of promise and abundance.