THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT Year C

LUKE 13:1-9

We began Lent by marking ourselves, calling to mind our identity and dignity. We called ourselves God’s children and told Him that we desire to be with Him forever in heaven. We asked our God for the blessing of forgiveness and conversion. We recalled how God longs for us to be with Him, to return to Him with our whole heart, body, and mind.  This call to conversion needs to be retooled now that we are in the midst of our Lenten journey. We are about half way through Lent and it is good for us to look back and be moved with true version. In our first reading on Ash Wednesday, from the Prophet Joel, we heard, “return to me with your whole heart…rend your hearts…for gracious and merciful is He, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.” The prophet Joel told us that God wants us to call and proclaim a fast, as the people gather together. Lent calls us to be like Moses and Paul, so that we can understand Christ’s mercy and love. The fig tree image today, like Paul’s heedful call, should make us stop and really want to be turned around, converted into discipleship.

Moses gives us unique witness today. He tells us that God calls us to a higher place. The ancient writer, Origen, reflecting on this call writes, “When Moses had seen the bush burning and not being consumed he was astonished at the sight and
said, “I will cross over and see this sight.” He certainly also did not mean that he was about to cross over some earthly space, or to ascend mountains or to descend the steep sides of valleys. The vision was near him, in his countenance and in his eyes, but he says, “I will cross over,” that he might show that he, reminded forcefully by the heavenly vision, ought to ascend to a higher life and cross over to better things than those in which he was.”

The burning flame that does not harm and is not consumed, is hosted today on the wood of the tree and the thorns of the bush. As God speaks to Moses in Exodus today, we already find the Trinity revealing Himself in this unique call and commissioning of Moses. We see images that will come and have great meaning for us, as God’s people, when Christ appears and offers Himself for our Exodus.  We will hear the Father’s voice. We will see the thorns and wood used as eternal mystic symbols of salvation.

After God reveals Himself to Moses, He speaks to Him in His identity as one revealed in the story and relationship that have come to Moses through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God tells Moses that He is sending him forth to the people is Israel, so that they might have salvation. Moses replies, (literally) “Who am I?” God replies, “I am who am.” What Moses is seeking he finds in God’s name and person.

Moses finds being in God’s name and person.  Moses is humble in God’s sight he has already left the worldliness of Egypt to become a humble shepherd. In his littleness, Moses finds God and receives a call and offer to have a divine relationship.  We know that later in his life, this personal relationship changes Moses and we will find him not afraid, rather full of grace with a glow of sanctity.  God who is all and complete in Himself, gives His creatures the gift of a relationship with one who is forever and ever, even though our being is lacking in everything. Our conversion needs to be as clear for us as it was for Moses. We see and hear our God in the Sacred Scriptures and most clearly in the Eucharist. We need to bow down before our God and seek to have all those impediments removed.  How could we not want to take of our shoes off?  How easy it is to be changed from our weaknesses, all the ways we judge, want and act that separate us from love?

May we learn to repent, to seek conversion and the love of God’s Kingdom. May we fall before our God and ask Him, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Father of our Lord and Savior, save me, cultivate me, make me turn to you so that I may have
your divine life and love and be with you forever.

In His love, Fr. Sean