Meditation for the Third Sunday in Lent
Collects
whose Son Jesus Christ fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are, yet without sin:
Give us grace to discipline ourselves
in obedience to your Spirit;
and, as you know our weakness,
so may we know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Luke 13: 1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’
Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’
Bloodshed and desecration in a Holy place, worshippers martyred by a vicious thug whose cruelty masks his weakness as a leader.
Innocent men, women and children killed as a result of the negligence and penny-pinching of builders looking only to maximise profit.
Natural disaster; war; sectarian, domestic and sexual violence; racism; slavery; poverty; lies; and betrayal.
You only have to open a newspaper to read about all of these happening in our ‘modern’ society.
Sadly, you only have to open your Bible and you can read about them there too.
‘If God’s on our side’, sang Bob Dylan in the Sixties ‘He’ll stop the next war’. He didn’t. Does that mean He’s not on our side? It’s a question that we have to be able to answer if our faith is to have any integrity in the face of those who are in pain. I hear it often from people wishing to justify their atheism. ‘If a loving God really exists, He wouldn’t allow suffering’.
To which the only answer I can give is to ask people to describe a world in which there is no pain and nothing bad ever happens because God is in control of our every thought and action, and He fixes everything before it happens. Unfortunately, if that were the case, neither would anything be capable of recognition as good. Think about it. Would you want to live as a puppet without free will? Where there was no opportunity for self-denying kindness or service? Where tomorrow would be just the same as today? Where there was no such thing as illness, and where therefore everyone would live for ever – in a world in which picture-perfection was as soulless as an artificial rose.
OK, says our atheist questioner. “We accept that if God exists, He has to allow pain. But that’s not proof that He does. We wouldn’t notice any difference if He didn’t.”
But I think we would – because Sin certainly does exist, and in a Godless, sinful world, it would be impossible to know love. But we do, and we choose to offer love in turn. God gives us the freedom to make that choice, and will always offer us another chance when we fail, as He did to the barren fig tree. We choose to trust in His grace and to Love in a life that is sometimes hard, sometimes full of joy, often inexplicable, but real
gods and God
You tell me of your god of beauty,
and you ask what are my beautiful names for him?
Your god being in the mind, mine alive,
he may claim silken names; but they are only words.
My own words might not sound as soft,
but often truth is not so pleasing to the ear as lies.
You tell me of your god of calm and peace,
of trees and open hills, of silver rivers,
ice-clear skies and morning rain,
your god of gentle names.
How small you think him; mine
is all of these, but so much more.
My God is a God of man, and He is where His children are.
So a God in pain and tears, He is,
a God in suffering, of crisis and of scars.
All these things He knows.
And though the picture that you paint
might smile with you when things are going well;
when you need him, how the colour fades.
Where is your garden-god when you are lost?
Where is your beauty-god when you are hungry and alone?
Where is your pain in his experience?
What map can guide him to your wounds?
So I’ll keep faith with my God, if you please;
the One who comes to me and stays,
not just in warm and slipper’d ease
but through the hurting days.
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His reply is clear.
“You”, He says.
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