5th Sunday of Lent C

 

The Adulterous Woman at Jesus’ feet (Andrey Mironov )

5^th Sunday of Lent C

 

Readings Isaiah 43:16‑21  Philippians 3:8‑14  John 8:1‑11

 

            As we make a sincere effort to turn from sin during the Lenten season, God's grace offers undreamt possibilities for new life.  In today's readings Second Isaiah, Paul, and Jesus speak of new beginnings for those once trapped in sin or self-righteousness.  Let us celebrate the new life beyond sin in the words of the responsorial psalm: "The Lord has done great things for us;/ we are filled with joy" (Ps 126).

            In the first reading Second Isaiah announces that the Lord is about to lead the Jewish exiles home from Babylon in a magnificent new exodus.  The same Lord who opened a way in the sea and "snuffed out" the Pharaoh's "chariots and horsemen" will now liberate the exiles from the mighty power of Babylon.  In fact, the exiles are commanded to forget the wonders of the past, so magnificent will this “new thing" be. "Remember not the events of the past,/ the things of long ago consider not;/ See, I am doing something new!/  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"  This new deed includes a wondrous journey home through the wilderness filled with life-giving waters.  All is done so that the Israelites may witness to the Lord by announcing his praise, the very thing they do in the verses of the responsorial psalm. “When the Lord delivered Zion from bondage,/ it seemed like a dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter,/ on our lips there were songs.”  (Ps 126:1‑2)

            In the Epistle Paul testifies to the Philippians, who were tempted to adopt a righteousness based on the observance of the Jewish law, that he himself has forfeited such righteousness and accounts it as "rubbish" in comparison to the justice which comes through faith in Christ.  In contrast to the old human righteousness which rests on our paltry observance of the law and inevitably leads to self-righteousness, this new righteousness "has its origin in God and is based on faith."  It involves "knowing Christ" by sharing in the pattern of his suffering and death, but also being strengthened by "the power flowing from his resurrection."  This righteousness through faith in what God has done in Christ gives the believer a hope which Paul describes as a runner straining for the finish line.  Because he has been freed from the burden of the past and "grasped by Christ," he can say: "I run toward the prize to which God calls me‑‑ life on high in Christ Jesus."

            The Gospel selection from John also shows Jesus offering a new life that transcends self- righteousness centered on the law.   Using a woman caught in the act of adultery, the scribes and Pharisees attempt to trap Jesus into condemning her to be stoned, something mandated by Jewish law (see Lev 20:10; Deut 22:23‑24), but forbidden by the Romans, who according to John did not allow the Jews to carry out the death penalty in cases where their law required it (see John 18:31).  At first, Jesus delays by simply bending down and tracing on the ground with his finger.  When the scribes and Pharisees persist in asking Jesus to render a judgment on the case, he challenges them with the words: “Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her.”   Confronted by their own sins, the crowd drifts away, beginning with the elders. 

            Jesus then offers the woman, who had simply been a legal case example for the elders, a new lease on life.  Suddenly alone with Jesus, she appears superior to her accusers in that she has not condemned another.  Jesus simply asks, “Woman, where did they all disappear to?  Has not one condemned you?”  When she humbly replies, “No one, sir,” Jesus sends her on her way with an assurance of forgiveness and a command to turn from sin and begin life anew. "Nor do I condemn you.  You may go. But from now on, avoid this sin." Our Lenten observance is moving toward its goal when we act on these same words.   

4th Sunday of Lent C

 

4^th Sunday of Lent C

 

Readings: Joshua 5:9, 10‑12   2 Corinthians 5:17‑21   

Luke 15:1‑3,  11‑32 

 

            "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord."  This Sunday's responsorial psalm (Ps 34) invites us to rejoice in the bounty of God's goodness.  In the midst of our Lenten penance we joyfully remember the goal of our life's journey: the heavenly banquet with God and his children. Today's gospel parable of the father and his two sons issues a twofold invitation.  If we have squandered our Father's gifts, we are called to return home to his loving embrace.  If we resent the Father’s forgiving love for others, we are invited to rejoice in the return of our prodigal brethren.

            The reading from Joshua recalls Israel's first celebration of Passover in the land of promise when our Jewish ancestors ate "the produce of the land in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain," which replaced the manna that sustained them in their forty year wilderness sojourn.  By their repeated sins in doubting the Lord's sustaining power in the wilderness journey (see Numbers 11‑21), the Exodus generation forfeited the privilege of entering the land of Canaan.  After forty years of wandering, a new generation has been born, and they have crossed over the Jordan and entered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership.  Their joyous celebration of Passover reminds us Christians of the Easter celebration which is the goal of our Lenten journey.

           In the 2 Corinthians reading, Paul is both celebrating the reconciliation between God and humanity through Christ's death and also appealing to a divided community to "be reconciled to God."  Paul's language in this section is apocalyptic.  Christ's death and resurrection have accomplished a "new creation" for those who are "in Christ" through faith.  At the apocalypse, the judgment of sinners was expected to take place.  But God, in Christ, has now reconciled the world to himself by "making him who did not know sin (Christ) to be sin, so that in him we might become the very holiness of God."  Paul and the other apostles are “ambassadors” for Christ, and so he implores the Corinthians in Christ's name: "be reconciled to God." 

            Luke's parable of the father and his two sons both celebrates a resurrection victory over sin and offers an appeal to reconciliation.  Jesus speaks this parable, as well as the  Lost Sheep and Lost Coin (see Lk 15:4‑10), to defend his joyful table fellowship with "tax collectors and sinners," who have  turned from sin, and also to appeal to the self-righteous  Pharisees and scribes who are murmuring, “This man welcomes  sinners and eats with them.” 

            The prodigal younger son, like the tax collectors and sinners, once left his father's home for a far country and squandered his share of the estate “on dissolute living.”  But, after a famine has driven him to slave on a pig farm and reduced him to hunger, he comes to his senses and decides to return to his father's house.  "How many hired hands at my father's place have more than enough to eat, while here I am starving."   Although he only expects to be treated as a hired hand, his loving father greets him with "the finest robe . . . a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet."   He then throws the most extravagant of parties with "the fatted calf," dancing, and music, because, as he says, "this son of mine was dead and has come back to life.  He was lost and is found." 

            The elder son, like the Pharisees and scribes, has dutifully served his father and never disobeyed his orders.  But now the father invites him to rejoice in the return of his younger brother to life. His complaint to the father expresses the self-righteous resentment in many of us over God's mercy to others. ‘For years now I have slaved for you.  I never disobeyed one of your orders, yet you never gave me so much as a kid goat to celebrate with my friends.  Then, when this son of yours returns after having gone through your property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for him.’

            The parable ends with the father's assurance of his love for the elder son and a justification of the celebration for the younger brother. ‘My son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice! This brother of yours was dead, and has come back to life.  He was lost, and is found.’

            Jesus leaves the parable open ended.  We are not told if the elder son chose to join the festivities.  We have to hear the parable's call and complete it for ourselves.  Perhaps the greatest challenge Jesus offers us is the invitation to rejoice in God's forgiving love for others.

3rd Sunday of Lent C

 

3^rd Sunday of Lent C 

 

Readings: Exodus 3:1‑15   1 Corinthians 10:1‑12   Luke 13:1‑9

 

            Midway through our Lenten journey, we are challenged by God's call to struggle against oppression and to reform our own lives.  As we listen to this Sunday's warnings to repent, let us sing with courageous confidence the refrain of the psalm: "The Lord is kind and merciful" (Ps 103). 

            To understand the terrifying challenge of Moses' call we must recall the bleak situation of both Israel and Moses at the beginning of the book of Exodus.  A powerful and paranoid Pharaoh has cruelly imposes slave labor upon the Israelites and plans to kill all their male children (Exodus 1).   Moses himself narrowly escapes death through the heroic actions of his mother, sister, and the Pharaoh's daughter (2:1‑10).  And, when he attempts to help his people by slaying an  Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and then tries to stop two  Hebrew slaves from fighting, his efforts are rejected with the retort, “Who made you a prince and judge over us?  Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (Ex 2:14).  Realizing that the murder was known to the Pharaoh, Moses flees to Midian where he marries Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian, and begins to tend his father‑in‑law's flocks.  His son's name, Gershom, meaning "I am a stranger in a foreign land," reflects his present status as an exile from his suffering people (Ex 2:22).      

            If Moses is to save his people, he must be called and equipped by God, and that is the point of today's burning bush story.  His call begins with an experience of the awful holiness of God.  When Moses turns aside to see the burning bush, God tells him, “Come no nearer!  Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”  After God has identified himself as the God of the fathers, he announces: "I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey." 

            Understandably, Moses doubts that his own people will believe that he speaks for God, and therefore he asks, “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?”  The old name, “God of the fathers,” is inadequate for this new stage of God's action.  God answers by saying, “I am who I am.”  Moses is to tell the Israelites that “I am” sent him and that the sacred name, “Yahweh,” is to be his title for all generations.  Yahweh is the transposed third person form of "I am who I am."  The sacred name connotes God's freedom and unrestricted power to save his people.  Equipped with this new revelation and numerous miraculous signs (Exodus 4), Moses will eventually obey the Lord’s call and undertake the task of freeing his people.

            The Epistle warns us that even those called by God can fall.   Paul reminds the Corinthians, who were tempted to take part in pagan worship services (see 1 Corinthians 8‑10), that even the Exodus generation, led by Moses, fell into the sin of idolatry.  Despite having God's cloud for guidance, passing through the sea, and being given manna and water from the rock (see Exodus 13‑17), many of the fathers "were struck down in the desert" for their sin in making the golden calf (Exodus 32).  Their example is a warning:  "Let anyone who thinks he is standing upright watch out lest he fall!"

            In today's Gospel Jesus uses two recent tragedies and a parable to warn the crowds of the dire consequences of failure to repent.  Both the Galileans cruelly killed by Pilate and the eighteen crushed by the tower of Siloam were not necessarily terrible sinners, but their sudden deaths should alert the crowd to the seriousness of Jesus' call to reform.  Twice Jesus repeats the warning: “But I tell you, you will all come to the same end unless you begin to reform” (Lk 13:3,5).  Jesus' fig tree parable stresses that the time for repentance is running out.  Only the vinedresser's intercession keeps the exasperated vineyard owner from cutting down the tree which has failed to bear fruit for three years.  The crowds, like the fig tree, have only one more chance for repentance.  The vinedresser's words should remind us that during this Lent we too have only this opportunity for repentance from our sins. `Sir leave it another year while I hoe around it and manure it; then perhaps it will bear fruit.  If not, it shall be cut down.'

2nd Sunday of Lent C

 

                 2^nd Sunday of Lent C

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Readings: Genesis 15:5‑12,17‑18   Philippians 3:17‑4:1  

Luke 9:28‑36 

            On the Second Sunday of Lent the Church's liturgy always presents us with the story of Jesus' Transfiguration.  In the journey to the cross in Jerusalem, we-- through the eyes of Peter, John, and James-- are given a glimpse of Jesus' ultimate glory as God's Son and admonished to “listen” to his teaching.  As we continue our Lenten journey, let us pray with faith the refrain of this Sunday's responsorial psalm: "The Lord is my light and my salvation" (Ps 27).

            The Old Testament readings for this Lent recount the central stories of the history of salvation which lead up to the promise of the New Covenant.  Last Sunday we heard the retelling of the exodus from Egypt, and this week we recall the covenant with Abram/Abraham (Genesis 15). 

            This story highlights Abram's faith in God's promises of offspring and land, despite apparently insurmountable obstacles to their fulfillment.  The first is the barrenness of Sarai/Sarah, his wife (see Gen 11:30).  In the lines immediately before our reading, Abram complains, “See you have given me no offspring, and so one my servants will be my heir” (Gen 15:3).  But the Lord promises Abram that his own issue will be his heir (15:4) and then says: “Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.  Just so shall your descendants be” (15:5).  Without further complaint, "Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness" (15:6).  A second obstacle is that the Canaanites are occupying the land promised to Abram (see Gen 12:1‑9), and so he asks, “O Lord God how am I to know that I shall possess it?” (15:7‑8).  This time the Lord gives instructions for the sealing of a solemn covenant which Abram dutifully performs.  In ancient covenant ceremonies contracting parties "cut a covenant" by splitting animals in two and passing between the halved parts to indicate that they were willing to be cut in two, if they should fail to keep the covenant.  In this case, the Lord, under the form of "a smoking brazier and a flaming torch," passes between the parted animals and binds himself with the oath: “To your descendants I give this land from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River.’”

            The Epistle reading from Philippians continues the theme of faithful trust in the future fulfillment of God's promises and also Paul’s faith in the transfiguration of the body of believers beyond death through the power of Jesus’ resurrection.   While in prison and facing the prospect of death, Paul asks the Philippians, who are tempted to put their trust in the bodily observances of Judaism, especially circumcision and dietary laws, to imitate him by trusting in the cross of Christ and the second "coming of our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."  He reminds them that they have their "citizenship in heaven” and are living in faith for the future when Christ "will give a new form to this lowly body of ours and remake it according to the pattern of his glorified body, by his power to subject everything to himself." 

            Luke's account of the Transfiguration is closely tied to the beginnings of Jesus' fateful journey to Jerusalem (see 9:22‑62), and therefore emphasizes his coming passion and resurrection.  When Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appear in glory with Jesus, they speak "of his exodus which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem."  In Luke, Jesus, like the suffering prophets before him, has a destiny to go to Jerusalem to die, then be raised up and pour out the Spirit on his disciples (see Lk 13:31‑35; Acts 1-2; Deuteronomy 34; 2 Kings 2). At this point Jesus' disciples can neither understand this mission, nor its implications for their lives.  They will be instructed in the way of discipleship on the long journey to Jerusalem (9:55‑19:27), but only with Jesus' resurrection will they begin to understand that according to the Law and the prophets "it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory" (see Lk 24:25‑27, 44‑49).  Therefore Peter, upon seeing the glory of Jesus, Moses and Elijah, wants to build “three booths” to honor them.  We are informed, "He did not really know what he was saying."   When Jesus, Moses, and Elijah enter the cloud, God's voice speaks: “This is my Son, my Chosen One.  Listen to him.”  As they leave the mount of Transfiguration to begin the journey to Jerusalem, the disciples see only Jesus, but they have been told what to do.  They are to listen to the Son and Chosen One as he teaches them about a life of service on the way to his cross, resurrection and gift of the Spirit.