Just a word before we go...Third Sunday of Lent...March 20, 2022

God really knows how to get peoples’ attention.  Consider the bush that burns but is not consumed in our first reading.  How about the sending of plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the sending of manna in the desert… God knows that people have to pay attention to the dramatic, the unusual, the extraordinary, in order to understand the message that God intends to convey.  After all, God had to speak more loudly than the multitude of other gods, fertility cults and superstitions that were prevalent.

Jesus certainly knew how to attract the attention of his audience, with miracles that drew the curious, or by overturning popular beliefs, like the one about how people who suffer or have tragedies befall them are being punished for their sin or that of a relative. Or the unexpected story of the unproductive fig tree.  Jesus knew that before people would listen to his message, they had to be attentive...and capturing peoples’ attention was the necessary first step.

Jesus had to speak more powerfully and with authority because of the customs and beliefs that were so entrenched in peoples’ lives.  Challenging those customs and beliefs were often considered to be an attack on both the people and God. While many sinners longed to hear his words, the self righteous were outraged and planned their revenge.

For us, the forces that compete for attention with God’s word may have changed, but they are nonetheless powerful.  The gods of power, success and wealth sing their siren song, as do the lures of selfishness and instant gratification. It seems the words of eternal life can get lost amid the proliferation of earthly temptations.

Here’s where we can learn from the fig tree. God, the good gardener, resists destroying the unproductive fig tree, preferring to care for it, fertilize and water it, exercising that second chance, or seventy-seventh chance, that our merciful and loving God extends to us all. For it is one thing to listen to the Word of God, and quite another to make it integral to our lives. In order to act on the message and live by it, we need tending by the good gardener. 

Perhaps this Lent, we might consider how God is trying to get our attention, by whatever unusual or even ordinary means, so that we can really hear what it is God is asking of us.