The burning bush – isn’t that a good story?
I have seen the burning bush – confirmed from at the least the time of Helena,
mother of Constantine, in the 4th Century.
It is at St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai.
A unique bush, none like it anywhere near.
Related to the blackberry, having bright red flowers.
now preserved within the monastery walls
(with a fire extinguisher attached to the wall beside it!)
Well, whatever bush it was, I think the bush that got Moses’ attention
was reflecting the Uncreated Light of God;
it was aflame with God’s radiance
in the same way that later Moses’ face would shine
when he came down from that same mountain
with the two stone tablets of the Law of the Covenant.
And then what? after Moses approached the bush
Ex. 3:7 ¶ Then the LORD said,
“I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt;
I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
Indeed, I know their sufferings.”
God says to Moses,
“I have seen their suffering.
I have heard their cry.
I know their suffering.”
The God who says “I am” as the Name God wants to be known by,
is the One who sees and hears and knows,
who is, therefore, the One who is with you.
Do you see that?
That is how God sees and hears and knows, by being with you.
This is not only a declaration of who God is,
but also a promise to be with you
in an intimacy of love with the people who are suffering.
So this passage was intentionally picked to go with the Gospel for today.
That might not have been obvious at first reading.
Suffering, as it is addressed in the Gospel for today,
can been seen as a tremendous motivation
for engaging in the process of repentance.
The context for the Exodus reading is the suffering in Egypt,
the crying out to God
which resulted in liberation and a journey into the desert
where they encountered God at Mount Sinai.
In the Gospel reading there is the suffering of those killed by Pilate
and those killed by the collapsing tower
representing suffering caused by natural disaster
and suffering caused by people perpetrating suffering upon one another.
And then there is the suffering currently reflected globally:
the war in Ukraine, the refugees from Afghanistan,
the prolonged fighting in Yemen, refugees at the southern borders,
not to mention the pandemic and climate-related disasters.
And we just heard Jesus say, “Repent, or you too will perish.”
Any suffering is a call to self-examination and repentance
which is, as Jesus was using it, a turning from death to life.
A turning from death to life.
Now that means we had better look at what we mean by repentance.
Repent, in Greek metanoia, means change your mind.
Certainly that includes the usual understanding that we have of the word
from our more Latin orientation of the western world:
quit sinning,
stop doing what is wrong.
But in Greek change your mind means reorient you thinking,
change your perception,
change how you see and understand things.
It is more than feeling remorse for what hasn’t worked in your life.
A real change of mind requires a radical shift in perception
in which what we used to think about something can no longer hold.
The process to repentance is another way of talking about
the spiritual process of awakening, realization.
But we don’t just change our minds at will.
It takes something dramatic, mind-boggling to bring us into a space
where we would even consider thinking about things differently.
Hence Jesus uses extreme examples.
Hence the fact that repentance is something God does in us,
a spiritual process initiated by God and facilitated by the Holy Spirit.
To illustrate this Jesus next tells the story
of the fig tree that is not producing figs.
Did you wonder what the connection was with the fig tree?
It’s in its genes to produce figs, but that’s not happening,
so the fig tree is not acting according to a fig tree.
Does it think it’s something else?
a grapevine, perhaps, since it’s in a vineyard.
Does it have aspirations to being a date palm?
Well, it needs a little help in repenting, one might say.
Give it some fertilizer, something to stimulate its roots,
something to help it grow enough, to mature enough
so that it starts being who it’s supposed to be: a fig tree.
The repentance is not self generated, you will notice.
The tree is given something by the gardener to stimulate the process
which leads to producing fruit.
And Jesus leaves the story open ended.
We don’t know what ultimately happened to the fig tree.
And we are given opportunities to stimulate the process of repentance in us.
It doesn’t always take great suffering to bring us to repentance, thankfully.
There’s Lent, a liturgical observance
that fosters the spiritual process of repentance.
And you may notice that each Sunday we come to the Eucharist
and as we do so
we come to a sacrament specifically created as a reminder
of Christ’s love for us
a reminder that this is his Body and Blood, the sacrifice of his death.
Each Sunday we are given the opportunity to come to a greater recognition
of our identity in him
being made one in him and members one of another
as we eat the bread and share the cup.
A change in perception about self identity is being cultivated
- metanoia, repentance.
Romans 12:2
“Do not be conformed to this world
but be transformed”
“by the renewal of your minds” –
“so that you may prove what is the will of God,
what is good and acceptable and perfect” –
that is, so that good fruit will be produced in your life,
fruit derived from a systemic change of mind.
We do this sharing in communion
out of utmost love for him and the sacrifice he made for us
and out of obedience to him
because he said to do it.
And this transforming of the mind
that enables our part to be effective,
is by the grace of God, the working of the Holy Spirit.
(As the Collect for today reminds us,
“we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves.”)
We honor our Lord and express our love for him
by cooperating with this grace, which acts like fertilizer,
that is available for working in our lives
And so the idea came to me
that the Eucharist can work in us
like fertilizer around the base of the tree
bringing nutrients for life
so that the tree can bring forth the fruit of life,
so that we can bring forth in our lives fruits of life
which is the product/the outcome of repentance.
Repentance – change of mind, awakening to a new realization of life,
a repentance which brings fruit,
usefulness to the glory of God in our lives.
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