Reflection:
CULTIVATE: “care, an honoring, from the Latin, colere “to tend, guard, to till, nurture”
There are a number of Gospel passages that proclaim our God as one who continues to offer “second chances” and today’s narrative is a wonderful example. In the same way that the gardener convinces the owner of the fig tree to postpone destroying the non-producing bush, God is patient with our failures.
Nevertheless, we also read from today’s Gospel, “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” While the origin of the word “repent” has to do with regret or penance, it also could mean to re-think. Time and again Jesus asks the crowd to re-think.
How should we hold these messages of “second chances” and “repent” together? For example, in Matthew 5, Jesus thunders, “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ but I say…” Again and again in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes his listeners beyond the well-established standards of the Law into a deeper dimension of spiritual development. It’s not that the Law of Hebrew scripture is wrong; it’s that Jesus is calling us to a more advanced or more evolved spiritual awareness.
RE-THINK.
As Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr writes in his recent book, The Tears of Things,
“The slow metamorphosis of our notions of God—from lion to lamb, from anger to tears, from lonely solitude to grateful community—is quietly taking place. Humanity is indeed growing up.”
Second chances.
But today we might also have the guts or the grace to also re-think. In his book, Unlearning Christian Nationalism, author Todd Eubanks writes about “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” This isn’t just about the words we speak. It’s about how we represent God in the world. This commandment isn’t just about protecting God’s reputation. It is a warning about how God’s name can be weaponized.
Today that could mean turning the faith into a political weapon, the Bible into a policy manual, and Jesus into a mascot for a particular vision of America. It creates an us-vs-them mentality that divides rather than unites. It replaces the radical, inclusive love of Christ with a narrow, mean-spirited, exclusionary vision of who belongs and who doesn’t.
Are we going to keep playing church, or are we going to start being the Body of Christ? Are we going to keep singing “God Bless America,” or are we going to start being a blessing to all nations? Are we going to keep trying to change laws, or will we focus on changing hearts – starting with our own?
Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.
