Third Sunday of Lent Year C

Lectionary: 30

“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
and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

 T his is the rare Sunday in the Church's three year cycle when the Old Testament reading outweighs the Gospel. Every Bible school student of any age remembers the story of Moses and the Burning Bush. Fire is fascinating, mystical, and enchanting; who would not "go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned?" 

Eventually the student will want to know the name of this God who spoke to Moses, but devout Jews, Catholics, and Christians never enunciate the name of God. It is too holy, too terrible, and too beautiful ever to be sung, spoken, or whispered aloud. Jesus never spoke it in his life. We use circumlocutions, words like God, the Holy of Holies, the Lord God of Hosts. 

When Moses asked the Voice in the Burning Bush, “...if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?” God replied, “Tell them the LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sent me to you.” 

As Jesus stood before his accusers, neither he nor the high priest dared to utter the name of God.

…the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One?”

Then Jesus answered, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’ 

They would say, “the blessed one” and “the Power,” but they would not speak God’s name. 

And finally, the curious scripture scholar must hear what the God whose name is never spoken says to Moses: "I have witnessed the affliction of my people...." 

The Church of the 21st century, deeply concerned about the fate of the Earth and witnessing the affliction of billions of impoverished people yearns for the Day when God will hear and "come down to rescue his people... and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Recently, at the dinner table, a friar spoke of the immigrants and new citizens whose American employers do not permit them to attend Mass on Sunday. Some are told they should attend Mass on another day of the week, "...if it's that important to you." 

Because their employers have sold their souls for a dollar, they have no sympathy for men and women who love their spouses, the Sacrament of Marriage, and their children. They do not remember the plagues of Egypt and scoff at the idea that God might punish their lack of faith. "That's Old Testament stuff!" the pseudo-enlightened declare with infallible certainty.

Lent calls Catholics to be like their God and hear the cry of the poor:

• Psalm 34:7 --This poor one cried out and the LORD heard, and from all his distress he saved him.
• Sirach 35:16 --God does not forsake the cry of the orphan, nor the widow when she pours out her complaint.
• Matthew 25:45: ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Most Americans, reminded of these dire warnings and feeling helpless to do anything, might dismiss them as irrelevant. That old time religion doesn’t speak to me; it doesn’t apply to me or fit my experience. Their banal religion appeals to consumers, and assures them of their "personal salvation" regardless of the fate of any nation, city, state, or corporation. Don’t worry; God loves you like you love your dogs and cats. 

But that religion only cements things in place; it cannot deal with changing times, and upheavals in the world around us; much less the Day of the Lord or the Coming of the Kingdom of God. It will not tell us that our customs and culture only compromise God’s law; that our wickedness is deeper than we know or imagine, or that our possessions, securities, assurances, and insurances have lashed our souls to the sinking ship of this passing world. 

Lent calls us first to recognize that we are a people peculiarly his own. We have been called, and set aside to be holy as our God is holy. We pray differently, and act differently. We don’t do abortion, or euthanasia. We honor marriage and welcome children, even the handicapped and disabled. We have different memories and a different history. We don’t want their money or their power. 

And we fast and pray and practice works of charity in the face of mechanized, bureaucratized, weaponized modernity. In fact we are as helpless as the slaves in Egypt. Like the shepherds and farmers of ancient Palestine, like the blind and lame beggars of Jerusalem, we flock to hear Jesus announce the Kingdom of God in the wilderness of America. 

But we are no more helpless than the Man who took up and carried a cross. He is the First Penitent who leads us on the road to Calvary. Like him, we do penance and try to atone not only for our sins but the sins of the whole world

I have often supposed the last line of today's gospel was the typo of a hurried evangelist. When the landowner told the gardener to cut the barren tree down, the gardener replied, 

Sir, leave it for this year also,

and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;

it may bear fruit in the future.

If not you can cut it down.

I supposed that the word you was either a typo, because the gardener will have to cut it down when the boss orders it. Or it's the gardener's impudent reply meaning, "I won't cut it down but you can if you want to."

But on further reflection, it may be that the unexpected you represents the God whose name is holy, and too terrible to be uttered. He will descend from heaven to personally cut the damned tree down – and burn it.

There is time. It is now. This is the final hour when we must repent, confess our sins, pray, fast, and give alms of time, talent, and treasure. We pray in the Spirit of Abraham who pleaded for the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, "The Lord will not destroy our world if there are some righteous people in it." Genesis 18:24