3rd Sunday of Lent

To All the Lenten Pilgrims of the Epiphany 

Call to Repentance and the Patience of God 
Third Sunday of Lent (Luke 13:1-9) 

The Gospel for this third Sunday of Lent (Luke 13: 1-9) speaks to us about God’s mercy and of our conversion. Jesus recounts the parable of the barren fig tree. A man has planted a fig tree in his vineyard, and with great confidence, each summer, he goes in search of its fruits, but he finds none because that tree is barren. Spurred by this disappointment which has recurred for at least three years, the man considers cutting down the fig tree in order to plant another. So he calls the field hand who is in the vineyard and tells him of his disappointment, ordering him to cut down the tree so as not to use up the ground needlessly. But the vinedresser asks the master to be patient and asks him for one more year during which the vinedresser himself would take special and delicate care of the fig tree, so as to stimulate its productivity. This is the parable. What does this parable symbolize? What do the characters in this parable symbolize? (Pope Francis, Angelus, 2019) 

Dear parishioners, in the Gospel of the Third Sunday of Lent, Jesus uses two local tragedies to teach us about our need for repentance and a renewal of life. Firstly, the slaughter of the Galileans by Pilate, recorded in today’s Gospel reading, is unknown outside Luke’s Gospel. But the Jewish historian Josephus reports how Pilate disrupted a religious gathering of Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim with the slaughter of the participants. On another occasion, Pilate killed many Galilean Jews who protested when he appropriated money from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct in Jerusalem that would provide a better water supply for the pilgrims. But Jesus presents these two real incidents as one tragedy, which occurred on the Temple premises. Even though it was Pilate who commanded the atrocity to be carried out, the natural assumption at the time was to think that the victims were particularly guilty and must have somehow “deserved” it. 

Secondly, Jesus proceeds to connect his warning to another episode, namely, what appears to have been an accident related to the renovation work on the control tower of the water supply scheme at Siloam, in which eighteen people died. The Jews interpreted this tragedy as God’s punishment of the workers who had co-operated with Pilate in his sacrilegious aqueduct project. Jesus denies that either the Galileans or the eighteen people suffered because of their sins, but he calls his listeners to repent lest they suffer for theirs. In fact, Jesus presents both these incidents as timely reminders of the need for all to repent, saying, “…unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Repentance is given major emphasis in Luke’s Gospel. The call to repent of one’s sins always includes the threat of Divine retribution if one does not repent and the promise of forgiveness if one does. By citing two tragic events, Jesus warns his listeners not to spend their time speculating about the guilt of others, but to concentrate on examining their own lives, and their own need for repentance and forgiveness. 

Dear friends, in all these above cases, we need to trust in Divine Mercy, believing that God is with us and God is on our side, even in those situations we cannot explain. Jesus’ life is the clearest evidence that a person’s suffering is not proof of that person’s sin. While sin can lead to tragedy, not every tragedy is the result of sin. The unrepentant sinners will perish spiritually and die “the death” of spiritual death just as those Pilate and the tower killed physically died. So, while it is not necessarily the case that all sin causes physical suffering or physical death, it is clear that all sin does cause spiritual death, which is far worse, as that is permanent and eternal. So, Jesus asks the crowd, and all of us, to view such tragedies as providential invitations for continual conversion by examining our own life and relationship to God and responding with humble repentance for our sins and a real change of life. 

Dear Epiphany, the Jewish rabbis taught that repentance required five elements: recognition of one’s sin as sin; remorse for having committed the sin; desisting from repeating this sin; restitution for the damage done by the sin where possible; and confession. “Confession” for the Jews had two forms: ritual and personal. Ritual confession required recitation of the liturgies of confession at their proper moments in the prayer life of the community. Personal confession required individual confession before God as needed or inserting one’s per-sonal confession into the liturgy at designated moments. Repentance, or a turning away from one path to an-other, is not so much finding God as being found by God. Jesus calls us today to “repentance” – not a one-time change of heart, but an ongoing, daily transformation of our lives. 

In one of his letters, Thomas Merton writes: “We are not converted only once in our lives, but many times; and this endless series of large and small conversions, inner revolutions, leads to our transformation in Christ.” 

On the one hand, Jesus informs us that those who do not repent will perish. On the other hand, Jesus tells us a parable about the patience of God. The fig tree in His parable is a familiar Old Testament symbol for Israel. As the fig tree is given one last season to produce fruit before it is cut down, so Jesus is giving Israel one final opportunity to bear good fruits as evidence of its repentance. 

This metaphorical story of the fig tree planted in the vineyard reminds us of the parable of the vineyard in Isaiah 5:1-7. The fig tree is considered as a symbol of the People of Israel, and this parable is perhaps meant to indicate that Jesus will work on the Jews for a little while longer, before cutting them off as a lost case and open-ing the Kingdom wholeheartedly to the Gentiles. 

Through this parable, believers are reminded of the patience of the God Who is willing to give sinners chance after chance to reform their lives and to seek reconciliation. Even when sinners waste or refuse those chances, God, in His mercy, allows still more opportunities for them to repent. And, just as the farmer tended the barren fig tree with special care, so God affords sinners whatever graces they need to leave their sinful ways behind and return to God’s love and embrace. Divine grace is expressed as justice with compassion, and judg-ment with mercy. 

But we cannot continue to draw strength and sustenance from God without producing fruit. God does not tolerate this type of “spiritual barrenness.” The “fruit” God wants consists of acts of self-giving love done for others. These are the spiritual and the corporal works of mercy that we’re called to do out of love for God and others. Jesus warns that the Galileans died “by the malice of some human being” and the eighteen died by chance, but the fig tree “will die expressly because of inactivity and unproductiveness.” However, the gardener is asking mercy for the disobedient fig tree. Is that what Jesus is doing when he warns us we will perish if we don’t repent? Our life-giving fertilizer consists of repentance, confession, and a firm commitment to change our life. This is, in effect, removing our sandals in the presence of our God as we admit our guilt and plead for his mercy. We then trust in God’s mercy and ask Him for the grace we need to redirect our energies into more pro-ductive endeavors. 

In the case of our souls, Jesus’ words are an act of mercy: Repent, Jesus urges, while you still can. Bear fruit before your life becomes a barren wasteland. Change, because I love you; it is not too late. We still have life within us, and God loves us enough to exhort us to exercise our freedom in favor of what is true, and good, and beautiful. 

Dear Epiphany, during Lent, we, too, are given another chance to repent and return to our Heavenly Father’s love. We are also expected to give others another chance when they ask our forgiveness. God would like to use each one of us as the “gardener” in the parable to help Him cultivate our families and communities and enrich them with grace. Let us thank God for using others to help us bear fruit. Grace is everywhere. Let us always cooperate with grace, especially during Lent. 

Father of Mercy, thank you for doing all you can to help me live a fruitful life. 
Please give me your grace to always choose what is best. 

Fraternally, 
Fr. John Peter Lazaar SAC, Pastor