Third Sunday of Lent - Year C - 7th March 2010

Yet another call to Repentance

The idea still persists that an accident or misfortune is a punishment from God for some sin, either committed personally or by a family member, even in a past generation. Whenever bad things happen, the human instinct is to try to grapple with it. We want to know why do bad things happen to good people? We all want to make sense of the senseless. Our immediate tendency is to enter a blame game, and make somebody responsible or even go so far as to attribute the misfortune to the wrath of God. The answer is that no one knows.

After two local tragedies in Galilee, the words of Jesus in the Gospel are carefully balanced. Yes, he says, there are terrible things that happen in the world, and badly constructed towers will collapse, but do not be preoccupied by apportioning guilt or blame, more importantly he asks us to use the moment and its seriousness, to review our own lives and recognise our own guilt and failures, and our contribution to evil in our world.

We can learn from the fig tree. The tree was drawing life and strength from the soil but was producing nothing. It was useless. There are two kinds of people in the world - those who take out more than they put in, and those who put in more than they take out. We're expected to leave the world a little better than we found it. If we fail, the parable tells us that, like the disappointing fig tree, we can always count on God giving us a second chance. But if we refuse chance after chance, the day might come when all will be lost: not because God shut us out, but because we shut ourselves out.

Lent is a time to take stock. True repentance is not about being obsessed with sin and evil - it is about recognising where God is at work in our lives and responding to him.