March 23, 2025 – The Third Sunday in Lent
Fr. Cal Calhoun
In the Name of God, the Ever-present God, who makes all things Holy: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Last Thursday morning, I was sitting out there in the Chapel, saying my morning prayers. Some of that I do with my eyes closed. “Something” caused me to open my eyes. I’m going to call that “something” the Holy Spirit. As I opened my eyes five deer moved slowly from right under me at the corner of the building toward the playground. They were slow, grazing. Koda was with me. He didn’t bark. He watched them carefully, probably hoping like heck I didn’t give him the order to go round them up. We had rain early that Thursday morning, It was gray and cloudy. While the deer were there and as I watched them, the sun suddenly came out, brightly, and lit up the grass and the moss on the tree limbs to an almost unnatural green.
Moses was out in the wilderness. Actually, our reading says beyond the wilderness. He came to Mt. Horeb, which is described as the mountain of God. He sees the burning bush. And as he turns to look at this bush that is burning and yet not consumed, God speaks to him from the bush. God tells Moses to come no closer and to remove his sandals “for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Week before last, I was with some seminary friends and we visited a garden. When we stepped out onto a grassy space, one of our group removed her shoes to stand barefoot on the grass. I thought about joining her, but her Birkenstock’s made it easy for her. I had walking shoes laced up with socks, it seemed like too much work. I sort of regret that now. Why would Moses need to remove his shoes on holy ground? I think it is to have a connection to the holy. Another way for us to touch and feel something holy.
The moment back there last Thursday, with the deer, reminded me that it is not just Mt. Horeb that is the mountain of God. All the mountains are mountains of God. All the plains and valleys are the plains and valleys of God. All Creation is God’s. All Creation is holy. What it takes for us to recognize something as holy, is for us to stop, and see it’s beauty, it’s uniqueness, and the deep and diverse ways that life is happening right before our eyes. There are last Fall’s leaves on the ground, at the same time the buds are popping out on the red bud. It is not just the burning bush that is holy, but every bush. It is all blessed, and it is all holy, if we but stop and recognize it as God’s.
What is going on in the gospel today? “There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” What? Well apparently, Pilate had some people killed, Galileans, like Jesus himself, in the Temple, while they were making their sacrifice. That is terrible on lots of levels. First, Gentiles, like you and me and Pilate’s soldiers, wouldn’t be allowed in the Temple, and certainly not back where the sacrifices were made. So, Pilates soldiers desecrated the Temple by merely entering the holy space. Then those they killed were making their sacrifice. So their own blood was mixed with the blood of the animals being sacrificed. This would be an especially dark and seemingly unholy way to die. Jesus asks them, “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. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”
What is Jesus saying here? He is saying God doesn’t work like that. The folks who died in the Temple died, not because they were worse sinners than others, but because people in power decided to kill them. The eighteen who died because the tower of Siloam fell on them? They died not because they were the worst of sinners, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of the realities of life is that bad things happen to good people. And the opposing corollary is also true, good things happen to bad people. It doesn’t make sense. It is not fair. Now Jesus could be thought to be saying, “if you repent and turn to God, everything will be fine and those kinds of things won’t happen to you.” That is not what Jesus is saying. Truth is every life has its hard moments, hard days, hard seasons. And some folks have more than their share. We know them. We have cried with them. Maybe “they” are “us.” Jesus isn’t saying repenting will make all things great. Jesus is saying, the repenting is for us. The repenting, the saying we are sorry for our mistakes and our short-comings, for the times we treated people ungraciously, not recognizing the holy within them. Repenting helps us not to carry those burdens all our lives. We need God’s forgiveness for us. We need to forgive others, not for them, but for us. When Jesus says it is more blessed to give than to receive, he is not saying this as means to bless all the poor and needy who might benefit from our generosity, although that is true. Jesus is talking about the giver. We need to give for us. Giving changes us. Makes us more compassionate, more aware. And it also makes us less fearful, less concerned that there will never be enough. We need to give for us.
We repent so that whatever life brings us, we can live and love closer to God. We can live and love with a clearer conscience, that helps us learn and then move on from our worst moments.
Jesus so often uses the language of agriculture. He was in an agricultural society, after all, as humans have been for most of our existence. So often Jesus tells us we must bear fruit. We must bear fruit for God. That is what we are to be about. If we are not bearing fruit, we are not doing what God put us here to do. In this parable at the end of the gospel, the vineyard owner is ready to cut down the fig tree that is not bearing fruit. The gardener, the gardener who represents God’s graciousness and love, says, wait! We really haven’t given the fig tree a fighting chance. Let me prepare the ground and fertilize it, and give it a second chance.
Our God isn’t destroying sinners with the evil acts of others or the falling of towers. God is a God of love and grace, who makes everything and everyone holy. And is indeed the God of second chances.
Lent is the time we focus on our need to repent, not to in order please God, but to help us be our best selves, to be the fruit bearing humans God has created us to be. To help us see the holy in all creation.
May this Lent help you repent, and may you that know the God of second chances is always, always with you. Amen.
Year C – The Third Sunday in Lent – March 23, 2025 – The Rev. Cal Calhoun
