March 7, 2010

LENT 3 YEAR C

Deacon Carl Knapp

God comes to us at the strangest times and in the strangest places, but God does come to us. The Lenten season is a time when the readings recall the many wonderful ways that God has spoken to folks in the past as they strove to make meaning of their lives in the daily moral struggle. We have our own struggles; our own difficulties. The examples in the readings show us that God is always seeking to reveal himself to us in the natural events of our daily life. But we are so preoccupied that we tend to look for him only in special and splendid ways. Our preoccupations blind us to the presence of the Lord. And then something happens and God takes us by surprise and we are stunned by that presence.

We have an unfortunate habit of thinking that religion is a matter of unusual gestures, special actions to the Almighty. Sacred words like thee and thou. Many years ago Dr. Williamson preached the most wonderful sermon on the change in the reading from Faith, Hope and Charity to Faith, Hope, and Love. He carefully demonstrated that the most accurate translation was not Charity but Love. At the end of the service one of the sacred elders of the parish came forward looked at Dr. Williamson and said, very loudly: “The word is Charity.’ Sometimes we begin to worship words or actions. The Lord is to be found in the ordinary ongoing parts of our lives. The Lord wants us to respond in our natural and normal deeds; perhaps, to be performed more lovingly and more frequently in our daily chores of work and existence.

The prophet Samuel told King Saul that to obey is better than of offer sacrifices. The same applies to us if we wish to heighten our recognition and response to God as he comes to us this Lent in both the most normal ways and yet the strangest places in our lives.

In each of today’s lessons we catch glimpses of those surprising ways that God comes to us to quicken our faith and obedience. God came to Moses in a burning bush. Moses was in exile when he was told to stand still and listen for a new revelation for forgiveness; a new call to restoration and duty to God and to mankind. In Egypt, Moses had murdered a man, now God would restore and prepare him to confront Pharaoh and lead the people of Israel to freedom.

The Lord came to Moses just as the Lord sometimes comes to us –at a point of desolation in our lives. Why then? Because all too often that is the only time that we open ourselves to the presence of the Lord. These are the times when we feel as though we are in exile. When we lose a job, a dream falls apart; a marriage collapses. President Kennedy said it well: “Life is not fair!” But in times of darkness of the soul God always whispers a word of hope and usefulness. The Lord sends the word, but are we ready to receive the word?

Victor Hugo, the French author, was living in exile. His daughter had died. He used his pain and agony to write, Les Miserables, an intense tale of sin, suffering, and redemption. The Lord does not allow us to wander the mountains of desolation without giving us a burning bush to help us find the way back to Him. In our darkest moments when we are lost, God knows where we are! The Lord will find us and heal us and restore if we are willing to open ourselves to Him.

God also tries to speak to us through the tragedies of life. Earthquakes cause building to fall and bridges to collapse. Disease steals upon us in the prime of live. Random violence interrupts and destroys lives. All of this is part of our existence. These things are not sent as curses upon us. But they may, however, enable us to pause, stop, and hear that still, small voice of God, as we stumble in our pain and confusion. And that small voice entreats us –lovingly-return to your Lord; fear no more; allow me to comfort you.

And God can even come to us in our daily chores – the ongoing grind of life. In the Gospel reading the gardener gives the non producing tree one more year. There are times when we need to be shaken in our faith and practice. We need to realize that we are being given one more chance to produce. And perhaps the Lord even sends someone to spread some manure around us to help us produce. Perhaps it is when the manure is up to our necks that we are able to become our very best. Almost 70 years ago in the Philippines the Bataan death march had started. The survivors remember those, who in that horror, were able to call upon the strength of the Lord and reach beyond themselves and help others. In San Francisco when the last earthquake hit there were those who carried ladders and climbed into that fallen highway to search for and help the injured. Just last week an Iraq veteran working as a window installer passed the burning IRS building stopped, grabbed a ladder, and rescued five people. In one of the burning towers of the World Trade Center many remember the building maintenance man who walked up the stairs telling bewildered people which stairways were open. Bruce Springsteen commemorates his sacrifice in that epic song: “Into the Fire, into the fire.”

In today’s Epistle Paul warns us that city living is difficult. There is a constant, insistent, insidious, and silent pressure to do less than the right thing. No one is exempt from it. The temptations to cut moral corners are in all occupations. We are all tempted in subtle ways as were all of the saints. Life is not easy. There is a price for maintaining integrity. There is no free lunch. There is no cheap grace.

The message of Lent is clear, as we march toward the redeeming cross of Christ and the remembrance of the resurrection promise of Easter. God is faithful and comes to us in our tragedies, trials, temptations and moral snares. The key word for our response to this gracious promise is the term repent. Simply put it means to turn around. Turn away from the forces that would destroy your spirit.

When we take the Lord for granted, we can recognize our blunders, sins of commission and omission. But when we take the Lord for granted it is all too easy to merely be remorseful about our transgressions.

But when we open our hearts and souls to the ongoing presence of the Lord in whatever ways the Lord chooses to meet us then we can move beyond remorse to true liberating repentance. Repentance gives creative action to what other- wise is merely self centered remorse.

God’s grace seeks us everywhere, but we are not listening and sometimes we harden our hearts. We stiffen our backs in righteous rebellion. That small still voice cannot be heard.

Lent is the season to find some way to open some space in our lives; by reading, by prayer, by meditation. Something beyond what we now ordinarily do that will help us to open up our proud hearts and souls and enable the quiet voice of the Lord to enter into our very being. For, truly, the Lord will come to us in the strangest of times and in the strangest of ways.