Year C Lent III Exodus 3:1-15 Luke 13:1-9

“The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.

Moses and the burning bush! It’s a story with which we are all well acquainted. Many of us probably heard in Sunday School when we were children. As children we knew who Moses was. He was the baby found floating in a basket in the bulrushes; the one Pharaoh’s daughter saved and brought up as a prince of Egypt. He was the person who, as a man, walked through the Red Sea and led the Children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the desert on their way to the Promised Land.

These are our childhood images of Moses, and for many of us, they are the images we still carry today. But Moses had a history, a darkness in his past that we often overlook. Like many of us, Moses had a “skeleton” in his closet. Long ago, Moses had struck down and killed, murdered an Egyptian.

So, we come to today’s reading. …The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of a bush. All the paintings we see of this moment, what the imagination of great artists and folks like us picture when we hear these words, show a bush on fire. But scholars point out that the person who recorded this story had no other way to describe the Glory that Moses was seeing. God is Light – the Light that moved on the waters at creation, the Light that is Christ, the Light of the World. This is the Light that surrounded that bush, bright, intense, terrifying.

Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

And so Moses does just that, only to encounter something equally terrifying – a Voice. ” When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to Moses out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Even today, as sophisticated as we think we are, an experience like this would strike terror in our hearts. Moses, the sinner, the murderer, is no exception. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Brave man – most of us might have passed out. Then, amazingly, despite his fear and his past transgression, Moses is chosen by God.

And we know that Moses is chosen because of an exchange that means little to us today. In the Jewish faith, to be named is to be known, not just in a surface way, but in the deep mysterious way of the soul. God has called Moses by name. From this, it is clear that God has the Power, that He sees into Moses and that He has accepted Moses’ penance. He knows Moses intimately, and charges him, “I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

In response, Moses says something incredible. He asks for the Name of God! “Moses said to God, ‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?’ God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ He said further, ‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” We will hear this Name used many times by Jesus, as He says “I AM” thus and so.

The Name of God is not a noun. Rather, God’s Name is a verb. It is a verb which performs no specific action, but rather is all action, everything. It is being, life. Like the fire that engulfs the bush without destroying it, God engulfs and fills. Moses asks God for an incredible intimacy, and with full knowledge of the power it imparts, God gives Moses, and us, His Name.

This morning’s first reading points out that even someone with a past, with a “skeleton in their closet”, a criminal, a murderer, can be chosen by God. Sometimes, God even use our “skeletons” to enable us to help others, for having repented and moved on we find we are not alone in sin, and they find in us a compassionate and understanding soul.

But beyond this, the reading this morning attempts to convey to us somewhat cynical, modern minded folks, something that cannot really be put into mere words. It tries to tell us just how beautiful, amazing, and yet overwhelmingly terrifying, majestic, powerful, how omnipresent and omnipotent is our God.

“At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

Jesus knew questions like this were on people’s minds when they came to tell Him horrible news: Pilate – the same Pontius Pilate who oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus – had slaughtered some Galilean Jews. Making Pilate’s appalling action even more offensive is that he did this terrible thing while they were offering their sacrifices in Jerusalem.

It’s Jesus who asks the questions on everyone’s minds: ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? Did they do something to deserve such an awful death?

And it’s Jesus who gives the answer: No.

Or when the tower of Siloam fell and eighteen people were killed, crushed because they stood in the wrong place at the time, is that because they were sinners? Jesus says, “No”.

The question is this. Is God keeping track in some gold-leafed ledger who’s been naughty or nice and whether to respond with earthly punishments or rewards? The answer is no. Does God allow tyrants to kill people or tsunamis to drown people because they’ve done something to deserve it? No.

Another time some people ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither.” says Jesus, and he cures the man of his blindness. Jesus denies a correlation between the man’s problem and someone’s sin.

Yet, it’s a persistent question. And it goes with a persistent assumption, that somehow what people get in life is what they deserve – that there must be a connection between the sorts of people they are and the bad or good things that come their way in life. We’ve heard people say, “I wonder what he did to deserve that?” or make pronouncements, “this plague/natural disaster/fill in the blank is God’s punishment for their sin.”

Perhaps the war raging now in Ukraine provides an eye opener. We know the Ukrainians did not provoke it. Yet, to justify it, Russian news is portraying Ukraine as having done things that make the war, which Russia refuses to call a war, their “fault”. We humans are confused by the unprovoked action of evil, because we think in terms of fault and punishment for fault.

But Jesus says that is not how it works. Sometimes we do suffer as a direct result of some wrong we have done, some bad decision, some action we’ve neglected to take and we suffer the consequences. Mistreat your body, and you will get hurt. Mistreat a friend, and you may damage your friendship. The negative consequences of our actions can be clear. But sometimes we’re confused, not when we can see how a mistake or bad action has led to suffering, but when we’ve been good, done right, tried hard, and still, nevertheless, we suffer.

As Christians, we really shouldn’t be so surprised when this happens. The idea that only good things happen to good people should have been put to rest when Jesus was nailed to the cross.

Christian faith is no magic protection against tragedy. The cross is our central symbol – the cross, where an innocent man died the death of a criminal. Nonetheless, Christians have long wondered why bad things happen to people, even good people.

In his book The City of God, St. Augustine considered the great suffering that occurred when the barbarians sacked Rome, and he noted that when the barbarians raped and pillaged, Christians suffered just as much as non-Christians. Faith in Christ did not make them immune to pain and tragedy. Augustine wrote, “Christians differ from Pagans, not in the ills which befall them, but in what they do with the ills that befall them.” The Christian faith does not give us a way around tragedy. Faith gives us a way through tragedy.

This in no way lessons the pain, the horror, the suffering felt by those who experience such things, in no way lessens the atrocities being done to the people of Ukraine. What it does do, is tell us we can no longer look at tragedy and assume that someone did something to deserve it.

“But,” Jesus says, “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

What does that mean?

Today it should turn our hearts and minds back to the story of Moses and the “burning” bush, to the unimaginable, inexplicable power, majesty, and glory of God.

We are always distracted by the world. The people questioning Jesus are thinking as we would, looking for reasons to explain horror. They want answers, explanations, reasons for why these things have happened. But the parable Jesus gives them is not about what has happened to other people, but about what might happen to them, His listeners.

"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 around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Those listening to Jesus knew that in that day and age a fig tree represented Israel. The fig tree used up a lot of nutrients but didn’t produce any figs. “Why should I let this do-nothing fig tree use up good soil?” asked the man, and he tells the Gardener to “Cut it down.”

There are many opportunities for us to help Ukraine, to help all the innocent who suffer, to bear good fruit. But these actions must be the result of the chief work of our lives, of our focusing our hearts and minds and lives totally on God, the God who burns but does not consume, through Christ Jesus our Lord. We are not called to spend time puzzling the answer to why bad things happen to good people, not called to ask “why?”

Our work in this world requires that we turn to God the Father, that terrifying Being, and to Jesus, the all loving and forgiving One who tells His Heavenly Father to give us a bit more time to repent and surrender to His will. Jesus, our gardener, is patient and waits for us sinners to turn away from all worldly distractions, and to set our hearts on Him.

And the gardener replies, “Let it be for one more year. I will do everything I can for it. If it bears fruit, great! If not, cut it down.”

Let us pray:

Lord, we are not worthy of You and we are constantly distracted from You, turning our attention to things of this world. Help us to humbly recognize this, and, in that humility, help us to also recognize the blessed Truth that You desire us to come to You, to dwell in You, as You wish to dwell in us. Jesus, we trust in You. Come Lord Jesus and dwell in our hearts. This we ask for Your love and mercy’s sake, Amen.