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Third Sunday of Lent: Repentance

By The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

March 18, 2001

In this Sunday's rather odd Gospel story (Luke 13:1-9), Jesus is told about some Galileans whom Pilate put to death at the Passover festival. In the Gospel narrative, this story comes immediately after Jesus' remarks on reconciliation with one's opponent. The tale serves to heighten those remarks as well as to introduce an appeal for repentance and timely reform – presumably the reason why this passage was selected for this Sunday of Lent.

There is no way of telling whether this reference to the murdered Galileans – and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem upon whom a tower was said to have fallen – corresponds to a historical event. The story is found only in this Gospel and is not mentioned in any contemporaneous history, but the author uses it to issue a call to repentance. The Galileans' sudden death challenges those still alive to a reformation of life, an acceptance in faith of the saving word of God that Jesus has come to announce.

This story is followed by a parable that drives home the critical nature of human existence. Just as a final period of grace is given to the fig tree to produce fruit, so the call of Jesus constitutes a short period of grace before God's final judgment; it is the last hour. This is the basic intent of the parable. But by the time of composition of this Gospel some 50 years after the life of Jesus, the horizon has considerably widened and the barren fig tree takes on a different meaning: it becomes the symbol of an unproductive Christian. As a sequel to the preceding comments about reform of life, the parable has an ominous thrust. Unlike the Galileans who died through another's cruel deed, and unlike the inhabitants of Jerusalem who died because of an accident, the human being symbolized by the barren fig tree dies through his or her own inactivity. This parable accosts the Christian reader. Its message is: Now is the time for repentance, for reform, for decision; the time for any further procrastination has passed.

To go with this Gospel passage we have a powerful reading from the Passover narrative contained in the Book of Exodus (3:1-8,13-15). It is the famous story of the burning bush, symbol for a divine manifestation. If read with imagination and empathy, as one reads poetry, it communicates a dimension of meaning that cannot be conveyed by prose. Read literally, the narrative has various discrepancies: Moses' father-in-law, the priest-king of the Midianites, is here named Jethro, not Reuel; the sacred mountain is called Horeb, not Sinai; and there are different names for the deity. But read poetically, we see Moses introduced to Yahweh, who would become the God of the Israelites. Moses finds himself suddenly experiencing the presence of the Holy One who breaks into the human world and arouses a sense of awe and dread. Then the narrator quickly shifts attention from Moses seeing the bush to his hearing the God who speaks to him through historical circumstances. With profound religious insight, the narrative deftly describes the thoughts of Moses' heart as he reflects on the plight of his people and his new sense of vocation awakened by his encounter with the Holy One. It pictures God saying to Moses, "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall say to him, 'Let my people go.'"

Moses protests that if he were to go to the Hebrews in Egypt and tell them about his experience at Sinai, he would have to know this God's name. In antiquity this was a vital question, not only because it was believed that there were many gods, but also because a name was filled with power and vitality. It was crucial to know the name of a god for people to worship him. But here, in one of the most cryptic passages of the Old Testament, we have a rather elusive answer: "I AM sent you." This "I AM" is a form of the name Yahweh, which is composed of the consonants of the Hebrew verb "to be." It reflects a profound insight of the Hebrew people, perhaps as far back as the 13th century B.C., that is preserved in the third commandment, "You shall not take the name of the LORD (i.e., Yahweh), your God, in vain." The third commandment has nothing to do with cursing or swearing, but with not pronouncing the name of Israel's God, even in worship. Unlike other peoples of the ancient Near East, the Hebrews felt that they could not control their God in any way. Hence, they did not allow themselves even so much as to invoke his name in worship, lest they somehow seem to be manipulating him. Rather, their relationship to their God was to be one of response. Their God would speak and command; they would listen and act.

Finally, our second reading (1 Cor 10:1-6,10-12) takes us back in thought to the time of the Exodus. Paul expresses his view that everything written about Moses and the people of Israel then was written for those who would eventually believe in Christ. He describes the privileges of Israel in the desert after the Exodus in terms that apply strictly to the realities of the new covenant: "baptism" and "spiritual food and drink." Interpreted in this way, the words point forward to the Christian experience. But not even those privileges guaranteed God's permanent pleasure; for many of the people went astray and perished in a single day. For Paul this suggests the typological value of these Old Testament events: the desert experiences of the Israelites are examples for us. They were meant as warnings, to deter us from similar sinfulness and from a similar fate.

So our three readings urge us – in the liturgical context of the Eucharist – to put ourselves in a listening position for God to speak to us from whatever quarter, especially through the person and teachings of Jesus his Son; to learn from the examples of our forebears described in the sacred Scriptures how to respond to God in faith; and finally to decide, especially during this season of Lent, to reform our lives where needed, so that through appropriate repentance and amendment we may become more active and productive Christians in our personal encounters with God and with his risen Christ and in our encounters with one another in our daily lives.

Any questions or comments? cu a-public-affairs@cua.edu

Revised: March 18, 2001