Third Sunday of Lent

 "...whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall."(1Cor. 10:12)

 St.Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians gives us an enticing frame for today's gospel.  Paul is writing to the wealthy and sophisticated church at Corinth, which he founded and  nurtured as a spiritual father---the father of a spiritually adolescent community.

Paul admonishes the folks at Corinth to be careful of being spiritually proud.  Many believed that simply by partaking of the sacraments they were being given the fullness of salvation rather than the orthodox teaching that the sacraments are a process of salvation, the "food for the journey".  He alludes to the Jews in the Exodus who "...all drank the spiritual drink . . Yet God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the desert."  The sacraments must be approached with humility, a sense that they indeed confer grace, not a sense of entitlement.

Jesus's call to repentance likewise uses allusions to the past folly of those who presumed favor with God, but he goes further by using a parable of an unproductive fig tree.  The landowner wants the fruitless fruit tree uprooted, but the gardener intervenes and suggests a little individualized attention---to take a "wait and see" approach in the hopes that the tree will be producing within a year.  Clearly this allegory positions Christ as the Gardner and God the Father as the landowner; the fig tree is Israel. Though the three gospels contain a story involving fig trees, Matthew and Marks are similar (withering curse of a fig tree by Jesus), the story in Luke---aside from the figure of the fig---is different.  The "fruit" of Luke's fig tree is associated with the expectation that Israel will be righteous before God, that they will live out the covenant; however, they have turned away from righteousness as primarily demonstrated with how they treat the most vulnerable.  Luke's gospel is focused around justice for those ignored and outcast.

Jesus's deeds in the following chapter after his call to repentance is a wonderful illustration as to how Jesus was fulfilling the Covenant: he healed and liberated a woman who was crippled and "incapable of standing erect."  Most telling, was his calling "the leader of the synagogue" a hypocrite for objecting that healing cannot be done on the sabbath.  Jesus replies rather forcefully: "Hypocrites! Does not each one of you and the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering.  This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?" This was the repentance the previous chapter was calling Israel to: Repent to heal, and heal to repent; forgive to be forgiven.  Healing was not an option for Jesus, it was the core of his ministry.  Repentance means, literally, to turn 180 degrees. 

The repentance of this Lenten season asks us to become amazed at the injustice in the world; but working for a cause can be just as insidious in leading us away from healing others as becoming obsessed with preserving orthodoxy (Jesus healed on the sabbath!).  Jesus tended to the woman first.  His priority wasn't to make a point; the woman wasn't a visual aid. Jesus responded to the need as it presented itself, and then tended to the dried up fig trees in the synagogue.  

For our Lenten meditation, let's consider ourselves in this scene not as Jesus, and perhaps not even as the crippled woman, but as part of the crowd of orthodox observers who are upset at Jesus' violation of the sabbath.  If we can sit with this for a few minutes, we can clearly and unequivocally proclaim:  "We're not there yet!"