Readings: Exodus 3.1-8a, 13-15 / Psalm 102.1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8 and 11 (R/v 8a) / 1 Corinthians 10.1-6, 10-12 / Luke 13.1-9
Sisters and brothers, aren’t we often in a haste? In a haste to get from A to B. In a haste to get the job done and move on. In a haste to get it right, however, we do it. In haste to say something, sometimes without thinking. In haste to judge, find fault and to correct.
Can we do with less haste? Yes, we can. But why should we? Because less haste allows for more grace – more of God’s grace into our lives.
For me, this is the lesson Jesus teaches in today’s parable. Consider.
A man planted a fig tree and wanted it to bear fruit quickly. He comes each year every year for three years to check. It bears no fruit. He decides to cut it down. In anger. In disappointment. In haste.
Aren’t we like the fig tree when others so quickly judge, criticize and put us down?
Aren’t we also like the man who planted the fig tree when we judge our family and friends who disappoint us because we feel they love us less, not always, never wholeheartedly?
Aren’t we like this man when we give up on work and school because we cannot see immediate or good results after working so hard and giving our best?
All these actions are done in haste. For what? Lots of waste. Wasted relationships and effort. Wasted dignity and dreams.
In contrast, the gardener wants to give the fig tree one more year. One more year for him to cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it. One more year to wait for fruit. One more year to let the fig tree grow, mature, and flourish. One extra year of grace. Grace for the gardener to care, to tend, to nurture, to bring to life. Grace for the tree to live.
Yes, less haste for more grace.
Lent has begun. We began it with holy desires to do more prayer, more fasting, more almsgiving. Many are giving up more in sacrifice. We are each doing more in Lent because we want to let God’s Spirit more into our lives to turn our lives around. We do because we want to live more in God’s ways as his children.
To accomplish this, I believe we are trying, again and again, to know Jesus more intimately, to love him more intensely so as to follow him more closely. Isn’t this why we throw ourselves into the thick and thin of everything Lenten by rightly focusing on Jesus’ journey to the Cross?
But are we doing all this with too much haste? With too much haste to do go to every Lenten event possible? With too much haste to do as many Lenten practices as we can and tick off all the right boxes so that our Lent is complete. With too much haste that our focus is on doing, doing, doing.
We have tried doing all these in the first two weeks of Lent. Some of us may find ourselves failing. We are not having a holy Lent so far. We are struggling to keep the many promises made for Lent. So, in haste, we say, “enough,” “no use,” “I can’t” and “I give up.” We may have then fallen back into our bad habits and sinful ways. Then in haste, we decide not to bother and end up wasting God’s gift of Lent for our conversation.
But what if we make our Lenten efforts with less haste, and give God more time and space to work his grace in us and for our conversion? Yes, less haste, more grace.
At every ordination ceremony, the bishop says, “May God who has begun the good work in you, bring it to completion.” I love this line. It reminds us that the work we do is not ours, but God’s. This puts in perspective all our efforts in Lent. Yes, we must make the effort to change. Hence, the Lenten practices we must do. But the work of conversion is God’s – if we let God more into our lives in Lent, as we must every day.
God wants to intervene in our lives to save us. For God to do this, we must let go and let God take control of us. Then, God can be the gardener of our lives. This is Jesus hope-filled teaching today.
To follow Jesus’ teaching, we need to have a humble self-knowledge. Such knowledge comes from an experience of being humbled before with the living God. Our first reading shows us how Moses had and practised it. When God calls out to Moses, he replies, “Here I am.” “Here I am,” he is saying, “as I am, in my truth. This is me. Only I know who I am in front of God.”
And what is God’s reply? “I am who am.” In Hebrew “I am” comes from the verb “to be or to exist.” God says he is the God of Moses’ ancestors as he is the God of the Israelites. God is always present with his people, throughout history. But God is present in a distinct way: to save. God says. “I have seen my people’s suffering, I have heard their cry for freedom, and I have come down to rescue them.” Here is a God who wants to be with his people, ready to intervene and save all.
Here indeed is our God desiring nothing less than to be with and for us, as we are.
Is this the God you and I believe in as we come to today’s Eucharist, perhaps, failing repeatedly in our Lenten promises yet trusting God loves us as we are? Do you and I come believing God has seen our efforts at conversion, heard our cries in disappointment, and still wants to give us his grace to make this a good Lent?
If we do, we are practising the kind of humble self-knowledge Moses had: that God is God and we are God’s creation. God wants to save us because we are God’s beloved. God does not want to waste us in hasty condemnation but to redeem us, his beloved, in bountiful grace. Yes, God is patient because God works with less haste to give us more grace.
So let us ask ourselves today and each day this Lent three questions. When has God been reaching out to me this Lent, even when I’ve failed and sinned? In these moments, how has God been calling out to me, like God called Moses to come to him? And what is God saying to me about his desire to be with me and everyone and to save us all?
These are good questions for daily prayer and reflection in Lent. They can help us act with less haste and give God the needed time and space for his grace to work in our lives and for our conversion.
God must the gardener of our lives, as Jesus reminds us in John’s gospel. God wants to take care of us who are the branches as Jesus is the vine. Indeed God is the good gardener because he will prune and cut off every branch that does not bear fruit so that they can yield more.
Maybe the real challenge in Lent is this: for us to give God permission to prune our lives at his speed, in his time and with the graces he wants to give, not what we want, when we want and how we want. We can embrace this challenge by choosing to do one or two Lenten practices well with less haste. In this way, we let God’s grace go deep in us by cooperating with God at God’s pace and in his way to bring about truer conversion in us.
I think we all want this hope to become real in our lives this Lent. It can be so. We simply need to shift our focus and say “No” to doing too many and too much in haste this Lent and saying “Yes” to God and God’s grace for us.
So let’s say “yes” to God with nothing less than great haste. Let’s wait no more. Let’s do it.
Preached at Church of the Transfiguration
photo: Evan Sung, New York Times
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