Journey's Weekly Homilies
A
bush burning, yet not consumed and holy ground, a God who will
only say tell, Moses, “I am who I am”. God is faithful, and
will not let you be tested beyond your strength. The temptation
will also provide the way of escape, that you may endure it.
Random death is not God’s will, and finally a barren fig tree,
given another chance.
All
are rich images of God and people. Doesn’t God burn through us,
with us and in us, and yet we are not consumed, but given hope and
new life. When we
have said all we can with prose and poetry about this God are we
not left with God is? Don’t
we long to say I am who I am and know in that saying the fullness
of God in us as integrity, hope and living grace? Isn’t Lent
about finding sacred ground in us and around us. Don’t we long
to dwell in that land of God’s own promise?
We
are midway through our Lenten journey.
We have heard the call on Ash Wednesday to rend out hearts,
on the first Sunday of lent, Jesus tempted just as we are tempted
and given instruction on how to face the temptations that surround
us. We do not live by
bread alone, we are to worship God, it is God alone that we are to
serve and finally it is not our task to tempt God, to presume in
our pride that God protects us no matter what risks we take.
Last
week we read of the transfiguration.
The moral of that story, to remember again, God in people
etched on each human face. And
when we finally come to the mountain of transfiguration or warm
ourselves by the burning bush that we have only begun to live
God’s promise. No
tent set aside for worship, no safe box in our hearts, stone never
to be rolled away. Only
hope, comfort and strength to live a life informed by such
knowledge and wisdom.
Down
from the mountain to the fig tree, living and yet not bearing
fruit. What a
description of what it is to be human.
Living, yet barren, even in years of good rain, giving
forth only a few small offerings, afraid to open the gates that
nothing that keeps us clinging to life will remain.
We comfort ourselves with the lie that emptiness and
loneliness are the fruits of God’s promise.
Even so, we are people of the great I am.
So
this tale of the fig tree, both burden and comfort.
The burden, that death comes to us and we don’t know the
day or the hour. The
reign of God comes to people and we know neither that day nor the
hour. Be ready to
die, be ready to live.
The
comfort, that God in one form or another, will pile extra manure
on us, tend to us, and love us until we too can bear fruit, until
we can be fully alive, fully human.
The nature of this manure, of this rich warmth and
nourishment, the people around us who call us forth from the
grave, who dare to tear down the neat tents we have built and lay
our roots bare to sun and rain, until they bring in the manure and
spread it over barren roots, that what was unearthed and unchained
might be protected and safe to grow towards the reign of God.
Now
is that how I view my relationship with you, that we pile on a
little crap on each other, at the right moments and all is well.
No, but I do think a people moving toward Jerusalem are
this for each other. It
is messy and smelly and sometimes there is too much manure and
others times not enough. We always resist having our roots
uncovered, but sometimes we are willing to let some one stay safe,
rather than move one another towards life.
So lets say
we’ve all got just the right amount of fertilizer and its
looking like our branches will be heavy with fruit.
So what?
What does this
parable of the fig tree mean for the world?
What a question, one that must be asked and may not ever be
fully answered. Maybe that where there is life there is hope.
That we should not ignore the drug addict or the nest
homeless person we see, because after all they have made their
choices and must live with the consequences.
That the country that has more debt that can ever be paid
off, should be denied relief, because business is business?
Let me make the
question even less abstract. I take real issue with methadone
programs. The people
I see still act like addicts.
Intellectually I think addiction is a disease and treatment
is needed. But
emotionally, faced with a patient who is going to demand that I be
face to face with her to get her through a procedure, there is
some part of me that says this is useless, we are accomplishing
nothing here. You see I want to use my therapeutic self-cause I
want too, not because some one demands it.
It is because weekly, here with all of you, getting a dose
of manure that I am able to step aside from my issues and see the
human being, the face of God, longing to be acknowledged.
It is for all of us to remember the tale of the fig tree and to be willing to rend our hearts, face temptation and yes be both the giver and receiver of the second chance for our selves, our communities and yes even this world.