The Mystery

H2odevos p4p Lent 2013 “The Mystery”

March 3, 2013

3^rd Sunday in Lent

"Haven't made sense of the Mystery

but It makes sense of me."

Still In One Peace  by Peter Mayer

I just love a couple of passages in the First Lesson appointed for today, the Third Sunday in Lent. They come from Isaiah 55: 8"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." These words have given me a great deal of comfort over the years as I have contemplated what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Again and again, I have wondered and I suppose, wandered about the spiritual landscape of my life looking for signs and wonders. No doubt I have set up theological propositions, treatises and creedal calculations that have resulted not in the peace I was searching for, but rather in more questions and concerns. Peter's twelve words capture the reality of the Divine, "Haven't made sense of the Mystery but It makes sense of me." I don't know of any clearer example of God's "difference" or "otherness" than today's Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13, which can be viewed here.    Here you see in just off to the left a fig tree that has not produced. Jesus is in the center of the picture, and there is another character on the right, holding an axe. Maybe he is the owner of the field. In the background you see something, which is in the upper left regarding the Galileans whose blood "Pilate mingled with sacrifices." And in the upper right corner there is the depiction of a natural disaster where a tower fell and killed 18 people.  In the first six verses Jesus is basically telling the people that "stuff happens" in this life. Often, as you know, when something terrible happens, we try to rationalize or figure out why it happened. But, Jesus seems to be saying, things do happen, but what is most important is that all people, including you and me, repent. As you have heard before, the word for "repent" often used in the Scriptures is "metanoia"  (literally changed mind) which means to make a mental and physical U-turn, to stop what one is doing and head in the opposite direction. And then Jesus tells this story about a man who planted a fig tree but was very disappointed that it hadn't delivered any figs. So, he says to the gardener to "cut it down." The gardener, who has a relationship with the tree, pleads for a second chance and promises to work on the tree for the next year. 8"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." The owner rightly could order the wood to be chopped up for firewood. The "gardener" advocates for the tree, promising to work with it for a year. Who among us hasn't needed or wanted some kind of a second chance? I mean really. So, the simple point of today's message is that we have a God of second chances. Jesus, who knew something about trees, ends up going out on a limb for us, dying on the cross so that we might have life. We say in the liturgy during Passion Week, "he who by a tree overcame might by a tree be overcome." So, that is a reference to the devil who by tricking Adam and Eve seemed to win the battle. But Jesus, sent because of God's love, ultimately won the day and all of eternity by dying on a tree so that we can have second chances. Last fall when I was visiting our son Nate in Washington DC, I visited the Phillips Collection. There I saw a Van Gogh painting that I had never seen before called "The Road Menders." It was painting in 1889, so it was less than a year before his death. I think I was taken by the painting because it made me think about our role, yours and mine, as people who can help "mend" the road for one another.    View here. It makes me feel good today know that I/we "Haven't made sense of the Mystery but It makes sense of me." Blessings, rtg