Third Sunday in Lent – 11 March 2007
Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9
“It’s a very God thing!”
The final verses of today’s first lesson have haunted me all week:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.
It’s not that I haven’t heard them before. It’s just that I am listening out of a new context. We are on this journey through Lent, and I am with you on this journey. As we follow the St. Paul devotional, “A Traveler’s Guide through Lent,” we have the opportunity each day to reflect with other sisters and brothers in faith on the words of scripture, and the events of our journeys, and to discern God’s voice more clearly, to heed what God has to say about this life we’re called to live. It is a journey of humility and truth, of challenge and danger, a journey of joy and delight and also a journey of judgment.
If we’re honest with ourselves, the judgment we experience in life is more often than not OUR judgment of others. The half page article in Saturday’s ABQ JOURNAL caught my attention: “Seriously funny -- Pastor uses humor to talk couples through marital problems.” Legacy church is hosting a marriage seminar with a guest presenter who is more like a standup comedian than a lecturer. Let’s face it, Pastor Gungor says, men are not very much interested in workshops on marriage – “We rate marriage seminars along with rectal exams.” Pretty clear picture there! Pastor Gungor goes on to say that maintaining committed relationships in this day and time requires us to center anew on two things: taking the promises we make seriously, and not taking ourselves too seriously. “When you promise ‘for better or for worse’ just what do you think WORSE means?” Good question. In our consumer oriented hyper-disposable times, it can be hard to find the commitment required to be community. If the microwave doesn’t work, get a new one. When I tried to find someone to repair my broken steam iron a few years ago my friends thought I was crazy – “you could get a new one at Costco for less than the repair costs!” Sometimes we treat our relationships with others that same way…if it isn’t working, get a new one. To quote the seminar presenter again, “It’s not about finding the right person, it’s about doing the right thing – and most people don’t know what to do….”
Into the midst of that comes the word of the LORD: my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts. It’s a good thing, a very good thing….
One of the vivid memories of my time in Ghana was the tour of the St. George castle, for 350 years a slave-trade fort on the “Gold coast” of Ghana. It was originally built by the Portuguese in the late fifteenth century as a fort with rooms for grain storage, but quickly became a slave-trading post; later when the Dutch defeated the Portuguese they ran the slave trade until mid-1800. The way both groups of soldiers treated their African prisoners was horrendous. They were mere product, stored with precious little accommodation for their human needs in former grain storage rooms; each group was held an average of two months until the ships arrived to transport them to the slave markets of the West Indies, Europe, and North America. Half of those who didn’t die in transit to the prison or while being held there would die en route to their new country. When one member of our tour group commented that not to feed and care for the prisoners was a bad business practice – that his father cared for the animals on his Wisconsin farm better than the slaves were treated -- our Ghanaian guide was silent….what could he say?
The journey through Lent reminds us that we aren’t nice and kind and all okay. Like those who’ve gone before us, in many and various ways our lifestyles and our life choices are contrary to God’s desire; Lent reminds us of our need to repent of all the broken ways we treat one another, all the ways we have failed to measure up to what the Lord requires – to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. We stand in need of judgment, in need of correction for our mean-spirited attitudes, the ways we put others down to feel better about ourselves, the ways we set our own greed above the simple needs of our neighbor, the ways our own blindness keeps us focused on our own desires instead of God’s.
And yet this Lenten journey also reminds us of God’s words of grace: my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts. God is the judge – the judge who does not throw us in the stone cold cells of death but the judge who offers us, time and again, the absolution of forgiveness and, time and again, new opportunities to rise and walk.
Work on the ABQ Habitat for Humanity houses began yesterday. There were scores of people working on two houses side by side, and by 11 AM several walls were already framed and upright. It was so inspiring to see men and women hammering, schlepping wood, laughing and helping one another make a difference in the lives of two families of our community. When I congratulated the new soon-to-be-owner of the house the Lutherans are building, with support from Thrivent Financial, she told me – with a wonderful smile on her face – “I guess this is what sweat equity is all about!” “Yes, my friend,” I said, “sweat equity AND community.” She agreed. It’s a good thing, this Habitat effort – an opportunity to try new skills, to walk the journey with others in a new way. It’s a God thing. We still need volunteers so sign up at the Welcome Center or speak with our project coordinator, Nancy Jenkins. She’ll be the first to tell you that you won’t be judged if you can’t drive a nail straight! You’ll be blessed -- and a blessing -- just by showing up!
God’s grace is a powerful thing, a very good thing that is powerfully experienced in those times when we least deserve it. How often in the midst of trial or danger, when we hear news of a friend’s accident or the death of innocents in the Bronx or Beirut, how often do we find ourselves badgering God with questions like “why is there innocent suffering in our supposedly good world? Why don’t my plans work out like they should? Why do evil people prevail with no one to stop them?”
This place of worship, this time apart with God and fellow believers is a good time and place to raise those questions. Yet here, in this very place and in this very hour, God meets the hunger and thirst of our questions with questions of God’s own: “Why is it taking you so long to start doing what you know you should do for my sake? Why do you continue in your self-destructive, sinful ways? Why are you so reluctant to walk my way?”
Here in this place, into the midst of our self-absorbed lives, God is doing a new thing, a very good thing, a very God thing. Do you not perceive it? Turn to God with hungry hands and thirsting hearts. Receive forgiveness and hope. Turn even now and live.
Let us pray:
Lord, give us grace to lay aside our questions and center our lives in becoming your answer: lives transformed and lived faithfully for you. Amen