3 Lent, 2025-C: Eternally shared relationship

Lectionary: Exodus 3:1-15, Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

En el nombre del Dios: creador, redentor, y santificador. 

In the name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.

Duncan Gray, III, retired bishop of the Diocese of Mississippi, once said: "Change is doing something differently. Transformation is becoming something more… Transformation takes place (he says) when we offer ourselves, our souls, our bodies – our dreams, our visions, our plans – to Almighty God. And as we make our offering we say, not, ‘here are our plans, bless them;’ but, rather, ‘here are our lives, use them.’”

What a beautiful way to approach Lent - offering God our lives. Since we were created by God to be in perfect communion with God and with all God created, to live in a harmony that resonates throughout eternity, when we are not experiencing this harmony, we know we need to repent, individually and collectively. 

Relationships require vulnerability, a willingness to open ourselves to another. Being open we can be hurt. We can also be transformed. We might do well to remember that in our relationship with God, there is mutual vulnerability. God opens Themself to us too, establishing a mutually vulnerable harmony of being, an eternally shared relationship.

Love is like that. When we love, we suffer when the ones we love suffer. When we love, we risk losing that love to death, and a piece of ourselves with it when that happens. God shares the same with us in this relationship of divine-human communion.

In the story from Exodus God demonstrates that we do not suffer alone. Moses is assured that God notices our suffering, and promises presence and redemption.

This is in direct contrast to the way leaders of the world, like Pilate, behave. Pilate was ruthless and despicable. He did horrible, shocking things, like mixing the blood of murdered Galileans with the blood of their temple sacrifice. That would be akin to someone murdering a person at our altar and mixing their blood with our sacramental wine.

In this gospel story, Jesus issues a warning to repent. This is not a threat, it’s counsel. Jesus reminds us over and over that there is only one source of life, and one path of life for us during our time on earth - the path of relationship with God: loving God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. If we take any other path, we will not have life.

The poetry of Psalm 63 beautifully depicts the human experience of our harmoniously vulnerable relationship with God: “you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you…” Likewise, God is steadfastly desirous in Their relationship with us.

In our humanness, we tend to either underestimate the powerful love of God for us and for all God has created, or we underestimate what God’s love can do in and through us. Either way, we sin.

Theologian Paul Tillich describes sin as a three-fold separation: from God, from each other, and from ourselves. I would add to Tillich’s description: separation from Creation. These separations distort all of our relationships. It is only by God’s grace and our willingness to repent, to return to God, that our relationships are restored and made right again.

As you often hear me say, sin isn’t what we do, it’s what’s behind what we do. The behaviors we see, what most people point to when they talk about sin, are simply the visible outcomes of our disrupted, distorted relationships.

So, when we repent, as we are called to do during the season of Lent, we intentionally notice these visible outcomes because they point us to the source of what has become distorted within us. Once we notice it, we can choose to address it; inviting God to redeem us, to transform us by Their love.

Jesus speaks plainly to us in the gospel on the issue of repentance, retelling a popular near-Eastern story from his time, the parable of the fig tree. In this parable, the owner of the vineyard sees a fig tree that hasn’t been producing fruit, judges it as useless, and orders it cut down.

We often hear this as a story of punishment - the poor fig tree couldn’t produce so it was condemned - but that isn’t what this parable is about. In this story, the gardener responds by asking for mercy, asking the owner to give him and the tree one more chance. The gardener changes the status quo and works to bring about fruitfulness. In order to live, this tree and the tree’s community (the gardener) must change how they’re living together… because the way they are currently living isn’t fruitful - isn't life-giving.

A fig tree is meant to produce figs. If there are no figs, cut it down.

Who can tell me what happens to a tree when you cut it down (if you don’t remove the stump)? It sprouts new life. In other words, when the way you’re living isn’t fruitful, stop it - “cut it down.” That death will lead to new life. Death always leads to new life for us - that’s the promise.

Our world has become a place where harmoniously vulnerable relationships are in short supply. The way we are living together is killing us –literally. And when I say us, I include the global human family.

Ruthless, despicable government leaders doing horrible, shocking things to the poor and vulnerable among us is not new - as our gospel shows us. Neither are racism, differences in beliefs and spiritual practices, inadequate access to healthcare, clean water, food, or education, and changes in climate which, by the way, disproportionately affect the poor. The world has a long history of disruptions to harmonious relationships.

Yet, Jesus loved this world and everyone in it. Everyone. And Jesus gave his life for this world, taking our sins to the cross and giving his life for us, for all of us, for all time - “once for all,” as St. Paul said. Then he told us to love one another as he loved us.

Looking around at the state of the world today, it appears we have some repenting to do. The way we’re living together currently is killing us and creation and we must repent. We must identify where the disruptions are in our relationships, then allow God to make the needed fundamental changes in us and our understanding to restore us to the harmonious relationships God intends.

How do we do that in the midst of so much chaos and disruption? One small step at a time. One relationship at a time.

At a small church I served in Western North Carolina, we held what we called, Abraham’s Table: a family reunion. We gathered with our Jewish and Muslim neighbors to learn and share what our faiths have in common. By our prayers, we intentionally invited God to restore us to harmonious relationship with each other. It was a transforming experience for all of us and friendships were built where none had been, friendships that could withstand the prejudice and violence happening at that time in the form of multiple hate-driven attacks on Muslims and Jews.

When we sin (and we will sin throughout our lives) we are invited by a merciful, loving God to repent, to be changed in our very being, which will result in real change in what we’re doing. We’re invited to trust that God loves us, knows our sufferings, and desires to restore us to the fullness of harmonious relationships - with God, one another, ourselves, and creation.

When we choose to repent, we will find ourselves transformed, and we become more than we had been - more open, more vulnerable, more harmonious, more loving, and more able to bring that to the world in which we live. It is by love that God's plan of love is fulfilled - a plan of transformation for the whole world. Amen.