Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent
March 14, 2004
The Reverend Pamela P. Snare

“So, if you think that you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (I Corinthians 10:12)

“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.” (Luke 13:2-3)

One of the most powerful acts in our liturgy occurs at the beginning of Lent, on Ash Wednesday. Our foreheads are signed with the cross, using ashes from incinerated palms blessed at the previous year’s Palm Sunday liturgy. As our foreheads are marked with ashes, we are reminded of our mortality with a phrase from the third chapter of Genesis: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is, if you will, a liturgical memento mori: “Remember that you must die.”

I still remember vividly the first time I experienced this. I was a Methodist, 25 years old, and a student at The Divinity School at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It happened that an Episcopal priest on the faculty was in charge of chapel that Ash Wednesday and he used the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer.

The actions and the words frankly shocked me. They were such a bald, unadorned, and direct statement of the truth of the human condition: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” For several seconds I knelt at the altar rail trying to assimilate the truth that there are no guarantees in this life. I might die that very day. There is no time to waste or waffle. Now is the time to live for God. Every day is a gift. Every day and every moment of every day is an opportunity either to grow toward God, to allow him to use me as an instrument of His will and to further His kingdom, or to grow away from God, to ignore or forget God’s will for the world and His call to use me for His purposes.

It was both a shocking moment and a liberating one. My life and God’s use of my life did not begin after I graduated from seminary; or after I had my first parish; or after I was finally appointed to a large parish. God’s call and claim on my life was now.

In today’s gospel, Jesus has been speaking to a large crowd that has gathered around him. Chapter 12, which precedes today’s reading, is chock-full of exhortations and warnings to be watchful and alert and aware of God’s presence and action and call every moment. It includes the parable of the rich man whose crops are so abundant that he decides to build bigger storehouses, so that he can take his ease and “eat, drink, and be merry.” What he doesn’t calculate is that he dies the very evening he makes this decision, and all the wealth he has accumulated is no good to him. He has lived for himself and his own ease, and neglected the call of God. Now, all that is left to him is to face God with empty hands.

It is in this context of exhortations to stay watchful, alert and attuned to God and to his call and claim upon us and upon our lives that some in the crowd are moved to ask Jesus about two recent catastrophes or tragedies. The first is Pilate’s massacre of some Jews from Galilee while they were offering sacrifices in the Temple court. The second is a construction accident in Jerusalem, in which a tower fell and killed eighteen men. We could substitute the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, or any numerous plane crashes, or any of numerous construction accidents, or an illness or disability -- or you pick your catastrophe.

Why did these catastrophes happen? Why did they happen to these people? Isn’t there a connection between their guilt, their wickedness --if you will-- and the fact that sudden catastrophe overtook them? They must have deserved it. They must have done something really terrible.

These questions and suppositions are not explicit in the gospel story, but they are implied in Jesus’ response. He perceives that his questioners want some assurance that sudden catastrophe and sudden death are linked to guilt, and that if they just do the right things, if they are “good,” they can count on being spared such tragedies, such sudden death. They want a guarantee that no such awful thing could ever happen to them, because they have done the “right” things.

“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.”

Jesus’ response levels the playing field, so to speak. He puts all of us in the same boat, the same human condition: “Unless, you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Or in the words of St. Paul, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

What is Jesus trying to do here? Is he trying to scare his listeners and us with threats of catastrophe and sudden death into a fearful and servile relationship with God? Perhaps so. But the truth, I think, is deeper. It is as if he is saying, “Everyone of you will die, and anyone of you could be a victim of catastrophe. Wake up! Don’t you see that your life is a gift?! You did not bring yourselves into this world, and you are not in charge of your leave taking. You were made for God and for his love. You were made to live for God and to live in his love. Recognize the truth of your situation! There is no time to procrastinate. God’s love, God’s future, God’s call, God’s kingdom is now!”

The clue to Jesus’ message and its meaning is in the parable of the barren fig tree. Jesus’ response is not just meant to say, “Remember that you must die.” It is meant to say, “Remember the purpose for which you were made. Remember why you are here.” We were meant to bear fruit for God. That is why we are here. We are not here to amass riches for ourselves. We are not here to take our ease. We have a purpose, which is found only in God, and it is that purpose and that purpose alone which fulfills and satisfies our deepest longings and desires. We were made for God and our hearts are restless until they rest in him.

God’s call to us is not in the future, it is now. It does not begin when we get to high school, or after we graduate, or after we graduate from college or after we have our first jobs, or after we are married, or after we have children, or after our children leave home or after we retire. Every day and every moment of every day are our opportunities to live in the love of God, to be an instrument of his will, to further his purposes of love and joy and justice and peace. What are the specifics of his call? They are as individual as our lives. But I do know this: His call begins with those with whom we are in touch everyday; our families, our friends, and our larger community.

Being attuned to God’s call means being mindful every day that he desires and intends to use us for his purpose that day. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.”

We could not do any better than to make that phrase from Lamentations our daily morning prayer—our daily reminder of God’s love and his loving purpose for us, for our families, for our friends, for those in our community, and yes, his loving purpose toward those whom we may consider our enemies.

Our clergy retreat in January was lead by the Reverend Dr. Mark MacIntosh, who teaches theology on the faculty of Loyola University in Chicago, a Jesuit institution. The Jesuit motto is: “to the greater glory of God,” and St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, thought that every day we should ask ourselves, concerning all that we do, “Am I serving the greater glory of God?” Mark shared with us that one his colleagues at Loyola will say to him when passing in the hall, “MacIntosh, are you living today for the greater glory of God, or are you just horsing around?”

In today’s gospel, Jesus confronts you and me and Christ Church with this question: “Is what you are doing today for the greater glory of God, or are you just horsing around?”

What is my response? What is your response? What is our response as a community of faith?





 

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