7th March 2010 : Lent 3 : Year C
9:30am Camillo
Isaiah 55:1-9 : 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 : Luke 13:31-35
All week I have wrestled with the gospel reading. It’s my usual practice but what was difficult this week was my inability to remember what the reading was about!
The other readings were straightforward enough. Isaiah presents a scene in which Yahweh offers the people of Israel an abundance of nourishment. It is a moment of God’s grace. It is an offering of the things that are essential for life – water and food, with a few delights thrown in, like milk and honey.
It’s not an extravagant gift – it is simply the things that humankind needs. But the whole is given a spiritual cast. This is special stuff. It’s no mere meal, not even a banquet. It is, quite simply, enough. But because it is the gift of God’s grace, even “enough” is more than any human can imagine in their wildest dreams.
And needless to say, only the Living God can provide this sufficiency. And it is only available to those who seek out God and accept the invitation. It’s not a huge demand. It’s not a demand at all.
It’s worth remembering that God does not and will not make demands on any of us. God always invites – and it is always a gracious invitation.
And if it were that easy then perhaps we wouldn’t be here this morning. Perhaps the world would be in a state of peace and harmony, sharing resources of every kind, from food and water to skills and technology.
No. It takes a considerable act of will to abandon the old and familiar – especially when they are damaging and destructive, paradoxical as that may sound. …Because in some ways we become more familiar with our enemies than with our friends. We seem to invest more in hating them, more in gaining knowledge of their ways, of nursing and nourishing old wounds and grievances.
This is clearly an unproductive practice, however comforting it may seem. Ultimately, it is the way of dusty death. The Living God, on the other hand, offers life in all its fullness and it is an abundant offering, made by the ultimate philanthropist – a delightful word whose meaning is lover of humanity.
In contrast to the Living God’s exuberant prodigality – God’s limitless generosity – is the unruly, myopic attitude of human beings.
When Paul writes to the community of faith in Corinth he gives the example of the demanding, puerile attention-seeking misbehaviour of the nation of Israel. They have, says Pauly, spiritual food and drink – the same spiritual nourishment that the Corinth folk possess – but they are not satisfied.
Not because the food and drink on offer are unappetising or lacking in anything we humans need. But because earthly pleasures are too easy, immediate, gratifying. It’s all short-term, of course, which is why people need more and more, seemingly without an end, creating ever-more sophisticated but ultimately hollow and lifeless means by which to access those pleasures.
For Paul, the crux of the matter seems to inhabit the world of entitlement, with its burgeoning suburban sprawl, arrogance. Paul is saying that none of us should take for granted God’s offerings, even though they are graciously made. Nor should we assume that because we are the recipients of such magnanimous favour, we are somehow superior to anyone else. We are not. We have simply fallen flat on our faces and God has rolled us over, and the first thing we see is Jesus, smiling yet profoundly concerned, with a tray of food and drink.
And this, then, is what so wounds Jesus as he gazes upon Jerusalem, the city that is so important in Luke’s gospel – so important that Luke does a straightforward enough editorial on the post-resurrection tradition and has the apostles and disciples hole up in the holy city rather than scatter to their home towns.
He ends with an allusion to Psalm 118 – we bless you from the house of Yahweh – and a full-blooded quote: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of Yahweh!”
When does that happen? It’s a foreshadowing of his entry into Jerusalem on the day we call Palm Sunday. Jesus is aiming for Passover, timing his arrival so that he will be among the crowds of pilgrims. Luke makes his Jesus determined to meet destiny in “the city that kills the prophets”.
But what he also meets is the perverse nature of those who wilfully reject grace. Grace has been and continues to be offered but Jerusalem – a potent symbol of the people of Israel – gives God the finger and goes its merry way.
We in Camillo need to heed Paul’s warning. We pursue our own plans and desires at the expense both of the Living God and of ourselves. Grace is always available. So much so that one of my unfulfilled schemes is to produce a bumper sticker saying, Grace Happens, because that is exactly how it is. Grace Happens!
But we have to make ourselves available to receive it. And understand that it is given, not because we are better, more worthy, purer, more special, more deserving, better bible bashers or superior scripture students, but because God loves us and “doing grace” is where God is at (man). Whoa.
As last week’s study of Mary Magdalene put it – “I am good because God loves me…not loved because I am good.” Or to paraphrase the title of a book I came across recently, we are (potentially) grace-filled “for no good reason”. In other words, we don’t and can’t earn God’s grace. Grace just flows out of God like a fountain in a lake.
Question is: are we secure enough in our faith to accept this wonderful spiritual freebie? Or do we still need to learn that the grace of God is here-now if only we would reach towards God and accept it?
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