As we reach the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent, we have challenges to write about the Sunday Gospels. On the one hand, since Lent is a time to prepare catechumens for baptism, the Church has traditionally associated various Gospels that are relevant to baptismal control with those Sundays. A holiday can therefore always use the gospel of Jesus and the Samaritan woman (the “living water”) on the third Sunday, Jesus and the blind man (the light of the world) on the fourth Sunday, and the raising of Lazarus (“the way, the truth, and the life”) on the fifth Sunday.
On the other hand, because the liturgical reform of the Novus Ordo Missae a three-year Lectionary created, with each of the synoptic gospels proud of the place in one of those three years, there are possible different gospels to use on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent this year. These essays focus on these Gospels for use in Year C (Luke). If your parish church uses the Gospels traditionally associated with baptismal controls (which are also readings for Year A, Matthew) – for example, if the Gospel is in your parish church this week about the Samaritan woman – look here.
In the Lukan Lenten cycle, the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent deal with various aspects of sin. We are called to convert and produce good fruit (third Sunday), to follow the example of the prodigal son (fourth Sunday) and to consider the situation of the woman caught in adultery (fifth Sunday). On the third Sunday of Lent, Jesus calls us to comfort in the Gospel of Luke. The conversion is, of course, the “cause of the season.” There is a preface to Lent which this season calls “a time of grace and grace.” And the fact that we started this season a little over two weeks ago with the pounding of ashes on our foreheads reminds us that this is a time to turn from sin and turn to Christ.
Today’s gospel wants to underline the urgency of that transformation.
Jesus begins with two events in the category of “bad things that happen to people”. He recalls some Galileans “who had mixed Pilate’s blood with their sacrifices.” He also mentions 18 people who died under a falling tower in Siloam.
We do not know much about either of these events. We know that Pilate was often in conflict with the Jews. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus mentions several cases in which Pilate engaged Sacrileg in the eyes of the Jews, including the symbols of the Roman imperial cult (which worshiped the emperor) to bring to the holy city of Jerusalem and the money from the temple treasury. local infrastructure project, and build an aqueduct. When the Jews protested, Pilate had his troops schloen the demonstrators, killing several. Whether Jesus had this or that event in his head in the gospel is unknown.
Even secular accounts tell us nothing about a collapse tower in Siloam. Siloam appears in the Bible as the place of the pool of Siloam, where the blind man will go to wash his eyes when your par reads the readings for next Sunday’s gospel. If this is the Siloam of the tower, it is today part of East Jerusalem and is called Silwan by its Palestinian inhabitants.
Jesus challenges the widespread Jewish mentality of divine justice and retribution. When our world asks about “Why do bad things happen to good people?” the Jews of Jesus’ day would have said “bad things happen to bad people.” Even in Jesus’ day, the notion of an afterlife was still unclear in Judaism. But if God is just, he must be rewarded well and punished badly. If we all end up in the same near-death state – Scholl, the dwelling place of the dead (which is not heaven or hell, but just a kind of postmortem existence) – then justice must be done in this world. So, founded Israel, well has been rewarded in this world through health, long life, prosperity and children. Evil was also punished by disease, early death, poverty, and infertility.
The Old Testament took this view, but began to struggle with it. The complete example of this grip is Job, convinced of his righteousness but a man of suffering. It is only very late in the Old Testament, yes, in the first century BC. This theological development remained contested in Jesus’ day. We know from the Gospels, for example, that the Sadduccees rejected the idea of a resurrection scene of the dead.
Jesus clearly does not accept this “one-on-one correspondence” between evil and punishment, because he asks his listeners if they think that the Jews who were killed by Pilate or killed by a fallen tower were worse than those, who escaped such fates. It is paradoxical that the ancient Jewish mentality was almost the opposite of ours. Their premise that “bad things happen to bad people” – which Jesus challenges – is almost the opposite of our question “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
The truth is: Jesus says nothing about how good or how bad the Jews who were killed by Pilate or were crushed by the tower. He moves the question away from asking questions hirem Guilt to ask about eis. Sidd mir ready to change our ways?
Jesus then tells us the parable of a fig tree. The owner invested money, time and effort in his orchard, but this particular fig tree did not produce anything. It does not bear fruit. It just takes the soil. So he decides not to waste his precious land with this unproductive growth, and instructs the field hands to cut it.
The field hand pushes back, asking for another chance to tend the tree, giving it special attention and seeing if it can still produce good fruit. It gets a lease of life, but only for a fixed period of time and only when it is finally fruitful. “If not, you can cut it off.”
In his life of Christ, the Polish-Jewish Catholic writer Roman Brandstaetter situated the event behind this parable in the hidden life of Jesus. Jesus is a hired laborer who earns his living by farming. (Ever noticed that Jesus’ parables are mainly about agriculture, not about carpentry?) is and, though his father keeps looking for him, seems to have disappeared. Stories come back now and then that he dissolutely lives somewhere abroad. Jesus is the appointed hand that the possessor’s father receives to remove from the seemingly useless tree, to advise patience and hope. In this way, Brandstaetter connects this parable with the parable of the prodigal son (which is the gospel of next Sunday).
God is patient, but his patience has its limits. What these limits are, however, are known to God: his righteousness, our goodness, the realities, and the limits of hope. Our God is a good second chance, but not seizing those chances at some point becomes a prerequisite, ie living on borrowed time and mercy, because we believe that God is more willing to move forward than we are to change. “You shall not tempt the Lord your God,” Jesus warned the devil in the Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent. Nor should we sincerely pray “Convert me Lord … tomorrow!” God is generous with many things, but time is one of the things he has rationed. Saint Paul’s message is appropriate for Lent: “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation ”(2 Corinthians 6: 2).
Many dioceses organize special, extended confession plans during Lent, for example on “The Light Is On For You” on Wednesday evenings, and Pope Francis promoted the annual “24 Hours in the Lord” initiative for confession the Friday and Saturday before. fourth Sunday of Lent, ie next Sunday.)
Today’s Gospel is illustrated by a Dutch illustrator and Engraver Jan Luykens (1649-1712). Luykens produced many engravings, and his work has had a lasting impact between Mennonite and Amish groups. Robert Bowyer, an English printer of the early 19th century, undertook a massive publishing effort of a multivolder, illustrated Bible, in which, among other things, Luyken’s works appeared.
This work illustrates the basic details of the parable. In an orchard against a hill country in Israel are the two protagonists: the fruit owner and his workers. Their clothing styles clearly show who is who and how rich they are.
The tree, which is the object of their debate, stands between them. The tree dominates the image. It is by far the tallest of the trees in the picture. The perspective makes the other trees, farther, smaller, which also serves to contrast the more modest but fertile trees to the focus of our perspective. Our fig tree takes up quite a lot of space. It is spectacular, with lush leaves. But it does not bear fruit, that is what the owner came looking for.
His left hand and facial expression clearly indicate frustration and his decision to leave the room. The worker, who is already at work with his spades, disturbs with his left hand to the tree, pleads his cause and points to the efforts already made to make the tree bear fruit. If Christ elsewhere is “the vine and you are the branches” (John 15: 5), here he is the field hand that will cut and clean and …
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