Year C Lent 3, 23 March 2025
St James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA
“Second Chances”
Collect: O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Exodus 3:1-15
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”
But Moses said to God, “If I come 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 shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I am has sent me to you.'” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you':
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.”
Luke 13:1-9
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
I come this morning with one of the foundational beliefs of my life. It is so simple, but it is the key to all the good we might have in life, or the stumbling block tilting us toward all the heartache and heartbreak of existence. So hold on. Here we go.
In today’s reading, Jesus discusses the problem of why bad things happen to good people. And he clearly goes against the common wisdom, that people get what they deserve. If you have lived long enough, you know that that happens sometimes. Often it doesn’t.
But the problem with that kind of thinking is that we put ourselves in the role of deciding who deserves what. Jesus goes back to the source of the problem. The splinter in our sibling’s eye is not the problem, it is the log in our own.
Jesus starts with a situation familiar to some who were hearing him that day. Pilate had added insult to injury in his executions of some Galileans.
At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
Now when Jesus says repent, he does not mean it like we mean it. Repent, too often for us, is just saying sorry. Repent is not about words, but changing one's life. Turn around! Change your ways! That is what Jesus was talking about with Repent.
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you!”
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, or so St. Paul tells us in Romans (3:23). And the idea of levels of sin is where we get into that middle school ranking on the playground: “Who is better than whom?” “Who could beat up whom?” Working in middle schools 12 years, you were okay as long as you were not on the bottom of the list.
In our prayer of confession, while we name ourselves sinners, “by things done and left undone,” we do recognize we all are in the same boat. You, me, all of us. However, where we fall into the trap when we think we are better than anyone else. We may think to ourselves, “Well, at least I am not like him.” We do that because no matter how much we preach and teach and call it amazing, we are not living by Grace, but by works. It is how we seem to be wired. And we play that Middle School ranking game, “At least I am not that bad.”
And that is why Jesus says for us to Repent. Change your ways.
He went on:
“Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
And here it is again. Those we may look down our nose at, they are no better than us, but they are no worse than us. We all are in the same boat. And unless we repent, we all will perish as they did.
We won’t perish from a lack of repentance, but when we perish, the only guarantee in life, we will be in the endless cycle of tit-for-tat “Do unto others before they do unto you!” that has been our Standard Operating Procedure since the dawn of time. Jesus came to bring us the Kingdom, and in the Kingdom we can let go of that way of always doing it the way that it has always been done, and step into the light of Grace.
Lent is not about making us feel bad. We are going through this season of reminder to refresh the wonderful newness of Resurrection that the Kingdom enables. We can Repent. We can do things differently. We have been given another way.
In one of my favorite books, Watership Down by Richard Adams, there is a passage where the hero, Hazel goes off to meet his adversary, General Woundwort. Hazel and Woundwort are adversaries in the book. Hazel, innocent and just trying to keep his people safe and alive, has defied the autocratic Woundwort. And before the final battle, Hazel goes alone to speak with Woundwort, something beyond comprehension to the bully Woundwort. And Hazel not only offers him Grace, but more, redemption. He offers Woundwort a vision where he is not only in charge, but the hero, the Good Guy, not just the Chief Rabbit, but the esteemed and admirable Chief Rabbit. This is the hero, Hazel, offering Woundwort another chance…
A lot of your rabbits are unhappy now and it's all you can do to control them, but with this plan you'd soon see a difference. Rabbits have enough enemies as it is. They ought not to make more among themselves. A mating between free, independent warrens— what do you say?"
At that moment, in the sunset on Watership Down, there was offered to General Woundwort the opportunity to show whether he was really the leader of vision and genius which he believed himself to be, or whether he was no more than a tyrant with the courage and cunning of a pirate. For one beat of his pulse the lame rabbit's idea shone clearly before him. He grasped it and realized what it meant. The next, he had pushed it away from him. The sun dipped into the cloud bank and now he could see clearly the track along the ridge, leading to the beech hanger and the bloodshed for which he had prepared with so much energy and care.
"I haven't time to sit here talking nonsense," said Wound-wort. "You're in no position to bargain with us. There's nothing more to be said.”
While just a story, it models the great “What If?”s that history is filled with. Those times like when Lincoln appealed [in his first inaugural address] to the “better angels of our nature.”
When offered a different way we are given Life. When offered a different way we are given Hope. Jesus does not want us to perish like those sad cases he mentioned that have been lost to history, but recorded for us in Luke. And then he goes to his favorite way of making a point, a parable. A story we all can get, but complex enough to have us still wrestling with them 2,000 years later. The parables twist our norms and posits that different way for us. Today’s parable in the Gospel reading is no different.
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
In a word, Jesus instructs us to give the thing, or rather the person, that we would write off and chop down another chance. This one we are ready to throw out onto the burn pile does not need chopping down, but love and care. It needs fertilizer and attention to get back on track.
Don’t condemn those punished by Pilate as worse sinners, or those who were killed in the freak accident as getting what they deserved. Find the one we are ready to write off and invite them back in the fold.
This story is told over and over and over again. The Wolf of Gubbio with St. Francis. Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. The Coen Brothers Huddsucker Proxy. Or even Moses in today’s Old Testament reading, a prince of Egypt who had been hiding in the desert for decades after he murdered someone, God did not forget him. God met him where he was, and invited him home.
Friends, we talk Grace so readily. But Grace is not cheap. It takes effort and sweat. It can cost us, letting go of the grudges and things that get in our way of Grace. We have to withhold our tendency to judge and discriminate, and embrace that child of God that may need care and love. We often have to make the effort because the one who needs Grace may not be able to love themselves. Like Moses, “And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”
One of the hardest people I find to forgive is myself. Often, even tears later, I beat myself up mercilessly. Why do I think my judgment is better than God’s? If God can forgive me, and give me another chance, maybe I should, too.
I know you have heard me mention it a lot. While it was airing, it was a favorite topic of discussion of Miriam, Kasey, and me in the office. Ted Lasso was a show about a British Premier League Football Club, but it was really about being human. All the good, bad, and ugly. But also, it was about what we are talking about today. Grace. Giving it when we see someone who needs it. And more importantly, receiving it when we have gotten off track. Near the end of the series, the main character says this:
“I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by our actions at our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we’re ever given a second chance.”
We all need that Get Out of Jail Free card that Grace provides at times.
When my father died when I was young, I remember him telling me all the things he was going to do “One day.” His one day never came.
I swore to myself to do my best to live my life with no regrets. I have failed at that many times in the years that have been given to me, and most of the time I have been able to give myself Grace over that. But of my list of regrets, high on that list are the times when I withheld Grace, when I did not go to people where I consciously or unconsciously did not forgive them. Sometimes it took months or years to confront them, and ask for their forgiveness for my lack of Grace. As I said, these are some of my deepest regrets.
Our place is not to judge.
Our place is not to chop down.
Our place is to dig around, fertilize, and nurture. Let God do any pruning or chopping down that needs to be done.
During this Holy Lent, run to Grace. Flee judgment. And give someone that 2nd Chance that goes against the ways of this world. And that Grace given will be seen as amazing! Amen
