Third Sunday of Lent Year C
Readings
The two phrases “God's patience” and “second
chance” seem to capture best the message of this Sunday's readings. The Lenten season is a second chance that God
in his mercy and compassion offers us because God is patient with us. I recall
that when I was about 17 years old in the Junior seminary, I got a second
chance. I had the temptation of running away from God’s vocation because the
life was really miserable, but I think God did not want me to get home. My
seminary near Nairobi was surrounded by a National Game Park Nairobi and go home. I
could not stand the many hours in a day we spent on manual labor. Very early in
the morning, while the other boys were still asleep, I left and started my
escape. After walking for 3 miles, I arrived at a valley with trees on either
side, and fear entered into me. I did not know why, but on looking at the side
of the dirt road, a person's head and the remains of the rest of the eaten up
body by an old lion had been left there. I was even more frightened and was
unable to continue my escape, and a voice asked me, where are you going? The
danger that I could be the next one to be eaten up made me to turn and go back
to the seminary. That is how I strangely got my second chance.
When a calamity struck the Jewish people such
as the 400 years of slavery in Egypt, they saw that as being the consequence of
their persisting unfaithfulness to God. As we hear from the first reading from
Exodus, because God is patient and merciful, God gives the Jewish people a
second chance. “I have observed the misery of my people.... Indeed I know their
suffering, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians... to the
country of the Canaanites..” It is God's initiative to come down and ask Moses
to be his servant in delivering the people from slavery into freedom; from sin
into faithfulness. God deals with us today in the same way he dealt with the
Israelites in the Old Testament when they strayed and became unfaithful.
The Gospel is about sin, unfaithfulness and its
consequences. The disasters mentioned in the Gospel were seen by the listeners
of Jesus as being the result of unrepentant sin and unfaithfulness to God. But,
after giving a clear warning on the consequences of sin, Jesus turns around and
tells a dramatic parable about a barren fig tree that was not productive for
three years. The way the gardener pleads with the owner portrays a patient,
loving and compassionate God, who gives us a second chance to repent. “Let it
alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put some manure.” The
Lenten season is like a second chance offered to us by God through the Church
to dig around us and give all the help we need to convert. God “is compassion
and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy.” So what message do we take home
this Sunday? 1) The readings invite us to take our second chance more seriously
as an opportune moment to repent and deepen our relationship with God. 2) Lent
is a time we could deeply experience the mystery of God's patience, love and
compassion through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. 3) In this sense, Lent can be a “joyful
season”, a moment to celebrate the holiness, the joy and the happiness that
Jesus shares with us as the loving, patient and compassionate gardener. 4) It
is my hope and prayer that the Lord with indeed give us the grace that everyday
during the coming week may be a gift and a moment of spiritual growth; a moment
of coming alive to being God's new creation.
©2013 John S. Mbinda
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