Sunday the 23rd of March 2025 - Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15/ Ps 103(102)/ 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10/ Luke 13:1-9

One of the most challenging questions asked of us about our faith in a loving and caring God can be, ‘why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?’ Jesus addressed this issue in the gospel passage today by drawing attention to the slaughter of worshipers by Pilate and the people killed by the collapse of a tower. We experience the untimely and tragic death of innocent people ourselves and read about such events in our daily news. Jesus pointed out that the victims of these events are no more sinners than anyone else. The message of these events is to be always prepared for the unexpected and a reminder that we live in a world that was created in perfection but has been damaged and corrupted by the sinfulness of humanity. The fact is that we live a mortal life on earth, and it is guaranteed to come to an end. We cannot defeat earthly death by ignoring it. We can have short and tragic lives, or we can have longer comfortable lives but in the end we all must face the reality of death in this life.

God could have left everything in the perfection it was created in, and all would function as it was programmed to do. This would represent a world that would be completely passive towards God with no reciprocal love between the creator and the created. To share the unlimited and unmeasurable love that God has, or that God is, there must be an opportunity for the choice to love or not in return. God created humanity in his image and likeness, and unlike any other earthly creature, gave us the choice to love him or not. Without a choice there cannot be any true love. We can choose between right and wrong, good and evil; we can choose to love God or not. From the account of the Garden of Eden and all through the Old Testament we see how time and time again we turn away from God. Eventually God sent Jesus to make reparation for all of our sins but still we continue to turn away and spoil creation through our sinfulness. If we need evidence of this we can see the result all around the world, from the inability to live in harmony with each other, sometimes even those closest to us, the destruction of babies in the womb, the desire to encourage the elderly and sick to despatch themselves to an early death, the destruction of our environment for commercial gains, and the many wars and conflicts raging around the world.

There is a hymn, Creator of the Earth and Skies, not often heard, that sums up the relationship between us and God quite well. It tells of how the words of life belong to God and asks in prayer for the truth that will make us wise. Our life here can be dark until we realise that Jesus is the word of God made flesh and lived on earth with us. The world does not know God and you cannot love someone you do not know, our monuments, like the tower that collapsed mentioned in the gospel, reach for the skies but are merely signs of folly. We increasingly trust ourselves to overcome the miseries we bring on ourselves and others. All the hatred and evil that human pride produces around this world recoils on us eventually. The hymn concludes by calling us to repent and allow the grace of God to start working in us.

Lent is the time when we take stock of our lives. We can find the foolish pride within us that leads us to rely on ourselves rather than on God’s mercy. With everything we see going on around us we can have the hope that God’s promise of redemption brings. We know that if we turn to God there is an inexhaustible flow of love that will see us through any and all of the miseries encountered in this life and will lead us into our eternal life beyond all the pain and suffering of this one.

Like the barren fig tree, we need to be cultivated and manured so that we are not barren and good for nothing. We are cultivated through prayer, by following scripture, and the guidance of the Church founded by Jesus. When God the vineyard holder comes to us, his vine trees, will he find us rich in fruit or still barren and worthy only to be thrown out of the vineyard?

The opening prayer at mass today calls us to the fasting, prayer, and almsgiving of Lent so that, increasingly aware of our failings through a developed conscience, we can be lifted up by the love and mercy of God. God who loves us unconditionally, God who understands what it is to live in this world as a human being, God who sets no conditions on us loving him but simply wishes us to turn to him and avail ourselves of the gift of eternal life he offers. May we not be the barren fig tree that is good for nothing, but rather the healthy tree abounding in fruit.

God Bless Brendan