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Third Sunday of Lent (C), March 18, 2001
Readings: Ex. 3:1-8a; 13-15; Ps. 103; 1 Cor. 10:1-6; 10-12; Lk. 13:1-9
Our merciful and patient God
Today’s readings are an invitation to reflect on how we envision God. They might
at first seem to portray God in contradictory ways. But the response to the Psalm is
a clue to the picture of God the readings present: “Merciful and gracious is the
Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.” God is merciful, especially when
we face suffering, and patient, especially when we fall short of what we hope to be.
The first reading is one of the most significant portrayals of God in the
whole Bible. It is the revelation of God to Moses at the burning bush. Remember
the context. The people of Israel are enslaved in Egypt. Moses goes out into the
desert, fleeing from the oppressive rule of Pharaoh. On Mount Horeb he sees a
bush on fire. When he realizes the bush is not being burned up, he approaches and
hears a command to remove his shoes, since he is in a holy place. What occurs then
is a theophany—a manifestation of the actual presence of God. As Moses
approaches the bush, God speaks to him: “I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob." Moses hides his face, for he is
afraid to look at God. When he gets back his courage, he asks: what is your name.
God responds: "I am who am. . . . . Tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”
God’s name is “I AM.” This name—which in English we render as
“Yahweh” or “Jehovah”—was so sacred to the Jewish people that they were not
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allowed to say it or even write it. Instead, when they refer to God they simply call
God “the LORD” What does the mysterious name “I AM” actually mean?
It means something like I am and cannot not be. Some philosophers have
tried to explain this by saying that it means God is “pure being.” This is very
metaphysical stuff. But there follows a further revelation in which God tells
Moses more about who he is. “I have witnessed the affliction of the enslaved
Israelites. I hear their cry and know their suffering. I have come down to rescue
them and to lead them out of a land of slavery to a land flowing with milk and
honey.” This has led some scholars to note that the Hebrew name of God usually
translated “I am” could also be translated “I am with you,” or as “I will be with
you always, especially when you suffer.” Israel’s God is no disengaged monarch,
but a loving parent who has compassion on his suffering children. When Moses
asks God “what is your name,” God in effect responds: “I am compassion, I am
mercy.” I will be with you to heal your wounds and set you free. Perhaps we could
even say God’s very name is “compassion.” Pope Francis’s recent book proclaims
this in its title: The Name of God Is Mercy.
When we turn to the Gospel, Jesus seems at first to portray God differently.
Murder by brutal rulers and accidental death seem to be divine punishment for sin,
and Jesus says, “You will all come to the same end unless you begin to reform.”
But Jesus’s central message about God in the gospel passage is in his parable about
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the fruitless fig tree. The owner of a fruitless fig tree wants it destroyed, but the
vinedresser asks for more time to cultivate it so it will eventually bear fruit. It’s
fairly common to assume that the landowner is God who wants the tree destroyed
and the patient gardener is Jesus. But nowhere in Luke do we find a picture of an
angry God who needs to be restrained from punishing wayward people. For
example, in Luke’s gospel Jesus pictures God as a father who scans the horizon
each day patiently waiting for his prodigal son to come home, and as a woman who
sweeping her whole house all night looking for a lost coin and when she finds it
celebrates with a party that cost more than the coin is worth. Given these pictures
of God’s patience with those who have gone astray, I think we should see God as
the vinedresser who wants the fig tree given more time. Jesus is telling us that God
is always patient with us, loosening the soil around us and spreading fertilizer in
the hope that we may bear fruit. God shows us patient mercy, even when we fail.
So the Psalm response does sum up what today’s readings want us to know
about God: “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in
kindness.” Each of us surely needs that mercy and grace. So does our broken and
sinful world. Let’s give thanks together for God’s patient mercy around the
Lord’s Table.
David Hollenbach, S.J.
St. Ignatius Church
February 28, 2016