LECTIONARY READINGS
First reading: Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15
Responsorial Psalm: 102(103):1-4, 6-8, 11
Second reading: 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9
Link to readings
I suspect many preachers may groan at first sight of the Gospel for this Sunday (Luke 13:1-9). Luke’s Gospel contains much of the most attractive material in the tradition. But Jesus’ response to the report of Pilate’s massacre of Galileans and the fall of tower at Siloam might seem to offer slim pickings.
What I think has to be kept in mind is that in this part of the gospel Jesus has set out on the great journey to Jerusalem, to which, following the Transfiguration, he had “set his face” (9:51). Now more than ever the gospel depicts him very much in the role of a prophet. And the essential task of a prophet in the biblical tradition is to summon people to conversion.
COMMON THREAD
Conversion, in fact, would seem to be the common thread running through all three readings set out for this Third Sunday of Lent. Whatever about the Gospel, the First reading, Exod 3:1-8, 13-15, does take us to one of the seminal moments in the whole of Israel’s biblical tradition. It describes the call of Moses, the one who is to lead the Israelites out of their slavery in Egypt and receive from God and promulgate the law that is to define and regulate their existence as God’s own people. Moses’ personal encounter with God in the wilderness of Sinai will be replicated in the experience of his people in the same wilderness, albeit not with the same closeness and intimacy.
To authenticate the leadership role to which he is being called, Moses tries to extract a name from God. But God’s identity remains in mystery: “I am, who I am”. Moses’ prophetic role will be to go to his people and summon them to follow the call of this God – an all-holy God, whom they cannot see, an image of whom they – unlike other nations – will not be allowed to make. They will come to know this God only as they commit to follow Moses in the highly risky project of an escape from their situation of slavery in Egypt. They will have to place their faith in Moses and in the unseen God whose very name remains shrouded in mystery but who made and kept promises to their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
In many ways, however, today’s Responsorial Psalm, taken from the attractive Psalm 102(103), makes a perfect complement to the revelation of God in the First Reading.
TWO INCIDENTS
Now, to come back to the Gospel. Two incidents stand behind it. The first is an atrocity brought about by human cruelty. Orders from Pilate have instigated a massacre of a number of Galileans who were sacrificing in the Temple. The second incident, again involving large-scale loss of life, is due to natural causes. It is, in legal terms, an “act of God”: the fall of a tower in Siloam, occasioning the death of 18 persons. Jesus is told of the first and himself recalls the second. He does so for two reasons. First, he wards off something to which the religious instinct is ever prone when faced with episodes of this kind: to conclude that the victims were being punished for a sinfulness from which others – specifically themselves – were exempt.
Jesus heads off all thinking of this kind. He mentions the second incident and goes on to tell the parable about the figtree to make the point that, far from attempting to judge the sinfulness of others, everyone should interpret such events as a warning to take stock of their own lives lest far greater disaster – eternal ruin – befall them. Without speculating in any way about punishment (see John 9:1-3), he simply makes the prophetic point: these examples of sudden, unforeseen death serve as a warning that the time, the space, left for conversion, may be short.
As always, the urgency, the prophetic passion of Jesus, comes from his intense sense of what God wants to do for people: as at the time of Moses and Israel, to rescue them from the destructive captivity that holds them bound and set them free for life and for love. There is time for that now. But the opportunity will not last indefinitely.
CONTINUAL SUMMONS
In similar vein, in the Second reading (1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12) Paul warns the Corinthians not to presume that their possession and celebration of the sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist) will automatically guarantee salvation. Their “fathers” in the desert had experiences in some respects corresponding to the Christian sacraments and, nonetheless, they fell away. Conversion is not simply a “once-off” thing. It is a continual summons to align the reality of one’s life with an ever-deepening knowledge of the God who spoke mysteriously to Moses (“I am, who I am”) and yet “became flesh” (John 1:14) among us in the person of Jesus Christ.